I’m packing it because I’ve decided to drive my daughter from New York to Ottawa for the World Skipping Championships.
We fly into New York the week before the competition begins. I checked out plane flights from New York to Ottawa and it seems to involve either vast expense or two stops and more than five hours from when you take off until you land (and that doesn’t take into account travel time to and from the airport).
The train takes about 12 hours.
It’s just over seven hours to drive.
I have never driven on the wrong side of the road and I’m about to attempt it in New York City at age 52, with a haze of menopausal symptoms fogaging my brain.
The youngest is also packing it because she reckons I’m a bad enough driver on the right side of the road. She want to make it to the World Skipping Championships in one piece.
But I’ve been seduced by it only being around $US250 to hire a car for a week.
And also by the fact it means we can drive to Ottawa via the Woodbury Common outlet mall, which is about an hour north of the city.
When I lived in New York I went to the Woodbury Common outlet mall twice. It was amazing back then and seems to have doubled in size since, with a gazillion stores, including my favourites: Lucky Brand and Marc Jacobs. There’s also a Shake Shack and a motel across the road where we could rest our weary heads before we hit the road again.
Then I reckon we can break the journey somewhere else for the night halfway between Woodbury Common and Ottawa.
On the way back I’ll just gun it for seven hours down the freeway to JFK Airport to catch our flight to Hawaii.
Well, that’s the vague plan anyway. We would need to head off very early because driving on the wrong side of the road in the dark in New York would finish me.
I’m nervous enough about driving on the wrong side of the road in one of the biggest cities in the world in the daylight. Very, very nervous.
DD reckons it will be a breeze – I just have to make sure the driver – ie me – is the closest to the centre lane.
I’m still very, very, very uncertain …
Thoughts? Feelings? Fears? Advice?
Song of the day: Madness “I like driving in my car”
housegoeshome 
It is easy. It only takes a short while to adjust. Just be careful turning corners.
And roundabouts!
Piece of cake! Make sure you have satellite navigation (Garmin etc), $10 a day thru car hire company and you stick on windscreen – easy! Don’t use phone in case you get a call right at a tricky intersection and you lose your map screen. Have your passports in the front with you for border crossing. Our first border crossing from NY state to Niagara Falls was fast with no wait at all. But our second border crossing from Canada into Vermont took 2hrs waiting in traffic queue (it was Columbus Day weekend and the busiest leaf peeping weekend in Fall for New England). Remember- if you take a wrong turn, no big deal. The sat nav will recalculate route and tell you where to go. (I did this multiple times in Chicago on & off the skyline freeway as i kept missing the turn, I got to know the toll collector) Oh yeah, have small domination cash to pay for tolls, they can be anything from $3 – $15. My chicago toll mistake was $6 a pop, whoops! You have to get Tim Hortons too, a Canadian must on road trip!
Driving is easy!
Eeek, the toll thing would be such a pain. But you’re right, just stay calm and let the sat nav recalculate the route.
One tip I found useful was to arrange to pick up your hire car from a depot in a suburb close to the freeway avoiding heavy traffic in the city centre or adjacent to the airport
That’s a very useful tip!