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4-20 roadtrip
Wednesday, April 20 2005
setting: rural Hurley Township, Ulster County, NY, USA
Today Gretchen and I would be leaving for a weekend Passover visit with her parents, family friends, and brother's nascent family down in Silver Spring. We'd be driving by car and taking both of our dogs and it would be the first time we'd be taking Eleanor on a long road trip. Last night I'd covered the ditch-related dirt piles in the yard with plastic sheeting to keep them from washing out into the grass in the high probability that it rained during our absence.
We set out just before 4pm, with me noting at some point that today is 4-20, the big international pot smoker's holiday. So as 4:20 pm approached and we were somewhere south of New Paltz on the Thruway, I started snapping pictures as I drove. Moments after the magic moment came we celebrated not by firing up a doobie but by loading a mix CD labeled "Awesome Mix Tape 4-20-05" into the stereo. It was actually a collection of MP3s, not a music CD, but the stereo is a fancy one and should have been able to play it. Unfortunately, though, it reported an "Error 2" (don't you love such messages?) and died.
There was an awful lot of cop activity on the Thruway today and I wondered if they actually step up enforcement on 4-20, perhaps because a memo came around saying that fans of the Grateful Dead, gangsta rap, and acid rock celebrate this day by firing up "spliffs" of "the kind."
We encountered slow traffic west of New York City on the euphemistically-named Garden State Parkway and Gretchen passed the time by taking note of all the "Support the Troops" and "God Bless the USA" ribbons she saw on the other vehicles, a sight she was finding "oppressive." But then just as soon as she started keeping track the number of ribbons dwindled away to nothing. One of the last ones we saw was on a black Hummer, but I think they might be built in to those vehicles.
4:20 on 4-20 somewhere south of New Paltz on the NY Thruway.
Fading patriotica at a toolbooth on the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey. Also, a yellow Support the Troops ribbon.
The ominous I-95 bridge across the Delaware, viewed from the New Jersey side.
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