You Can’t Get There (Without a Car) From Here

Sometimes you just have to get out of Dodge, and if your “Dodge” is Chestertown, then to get away, YOU NEED A CAR. There used to be rails here, but were there ever any passenger trains to go on them? Certainly not in the last twenty years. I have heard talk from locals of a bus that used to come through Chestertown years and years ago . . .
When I attended the 1964 World’s Fair as a child, I distinctly remember the “It’s a Small World” ride, but it was the promise of personal jetpacks that altered my DNA. I, like thousands of others, would like to know when mine will be available. Until then, if I need to get somewhere outside of Chestertown, I must drive.

Chestertown is less than two hours from BWI or Philadelphia International Airport, and we travel out of either when we are flush with money or frequent flyer miles. This year, for the first time, we decided that the kidlings would take the train back to Canada (where they go to college or work, respectively) after the holidays. After ruminating and contemplating all the options it was decided that they would depart from Newark, New Jersey. Ya, I know, I could have kicked them to the curb at the Amtrak Station in Wilmington, Delaware, but the train departures there were an unpleasant 4:50 in the morning, or an unseemly 11:36 at night, and on top of that they would have had a tedious five-hour layover in New York.

When traveling out of Chestertown, I try to make the most of it (example: appointment in Annapolis? Awesome – don’t forget to load the car with the Trader Joe’s insulated bags!), so on our way to Newark we planned to visit my niece and her family, who live north of Philadelphia. After booking the kids’ train tickets I called my niece and (politely) invited ourselves to spend the night the following week. We arrived in the early evening, had dinner, played a scintillating game of Apples to Apples, and then went to sleep, having set two alarms for four the next morning.

The plan seemed foolproof. Newark, New Jersey is less than ninety minutes from my niece’s house. However, when making the reservations, I should have been suspect when I learned that there are TWO train stains in Newark, New Jersey — one called Penn Station (foreshadowing alert!) and one located somewhere near the Newark airport. My suspicions should have been confirmed when there was no physical address for the airport station on the Amtrak website, and then finally set in stone when I called Amtrak and was told that there was only ONE train station in Newark. After some back and forth with the Amtrak agent, she agreed that there were indeed two, but she couldn’t give me any real information about where the train station “at the airport” was, other than to say that it was “at the airport.

My children’s train was to depart at 6:16 in the morning, and temporal wiggle room is a necessity for me, so we left my niece’s house shortly after four in the morning. We plugged “Newark, New Jersey,” and “train station” into the GPS, and chose the only option that was given. Then we headed north through Bucks County (which is aptly named, as it has plenty of bucks peering into the roadway at least at that time of day). I was at the wheel. My children, excellent and licensed drivers both, dozed, because they are not “morning people.” Their mother, however, IS a morning person, and one who likes to sing in the morning. They had to suffer through a mélange of freestyle rapping along with impromptu, yet topical, lyrics inspired by whatever oldies were on the radio. Side bar: the Princeton radio station, though it has an excellent selection of “oldies” in the morning, has less wattage than the awesome radio station at Kent County High School. Providentially after the Princeton signal faded out, I was quickly able to find Jethro Tull’s “Aqualung” on another station, so all was well.

After a little more than an hour of driving, Germaine (the name we have bestowed upon our GPS) curtly announced in her British accent that we were “arriving at destination.” The blood drained from my face when I saw that we were at Penn Station, several miles from the mysterious “train station at the airport.” I double parked and instructed my progeny to go inside and see if they could take the train from there (cuz darned if I was going to spend $12 to park for less than an hour)!

The kids schlepped their luggage into the station and were able to print out their tickets from a machine, but there was not a soul to ask whether they could get on the train at that station. Out they came with their luggage. We still had plenty of time, so I thought I’d see if I could find someone to ask. What I should have done was taken five minutes to go and empty my bladder. Instead, I went over to an idling bus to quiz the driver, but he was from Buffalo and didn’t know the area. The only other person around was a kind of sketchy be-pierced young man with skulls decorating his jacket, but once I approached him I realized he was just a harmless, freshly-showered youth waiting to go to work. He told me the best way to get to the airport, and I walked back to the car.

We were at the airport within ten minutes, with lots of time to catch their train. Too bad there wasn’t any signage or information about where the train station was. If money were no object, I would have driven up to Air Canada and told them to get out and take a plane. We continued to drive around and around the airport in enormous loops, the three of fruitlessly looking for any indications of a train. My bladder was stretching to new dimensions. At one point I said aloud: “Is this a bad dream?” to which my children assured me that, no, it was not. It was still dark out, their train was to leave imminently, and it became clear that they were not going to be on it. I didn’t have my passport, so driving to Toronto was not an option.

And so it was that we drove of an early Saturday morning in early January into the borough of Manhattan, to meet their connecting train. I had assumed that by this time (6:20 a.m.), I would be heading back to Kent County alone, after having had a leisurely cup of coffee (and using the restroom!) in the train station which we never found.

As we approached the Lincoln Tunnel, I could see that it was as backed up as my bladder. There was a red light at the entrance, ten cars ahead of us standing stock still, and a completely full tunnel. Panic mode began creeping up towards my neck as I tried to ignore both time and physiology. To my left was a Port Authority officer; I rolled my window down and asked him what the holdup was. He didn’t know, but said that the wait could be five minutes or five hours, depending. Five hours would mean my children would miss another train, and I would be cited for public urination . . . fortunately within minutes the light turned green, and we began to move quickly through the tunnel.

Family tradition handed down from my family of origin dictates that, when in a tunnel, at least one person (usually me, and only me) rolls down a window and sings the following: “Hi Lo Eeny Meeny Ai Kai Kai Oomm Cha Cha Eee Wa Wa….. Hekta Minica Inica Saw Ta Booom Ta La Yoo HOOO”!!! (my older siblings have a slightly different version, but they employ the same hackneyed tune). The tradition continued that cold day in the Lincoln tunnel. I’m not sure if my kids will ever participate with me on this, but at least they no longer roll their eyes and groan when I roll down the window and start singing, so we’re making progress.

It wasn’t so very long before we were approaching Madison Square Garden, which is on top of the “real” Penn Station. While waiting at the light to turn, I noticed a homeless woman in a wheelchair who was wearing what seemed for all the world to be a vintage full-length mink coat (great idea, actually; sorry PETA).

After turning right, I illegally parked for the second time that morning so that I could sprint to the Starbucks on the corner and use the restroom. I remembered how my father would never use a public restroom without buying something, and grabbed a bottle of Mighty Mango 100% juice smoothie, and paid for it. Then I lurched to the restroom. As I left the Starbucks, I looked down at my open jacket, and reconsidered the sagacity of having left my pajama top on that morning (a lovely cotton number from Roses with faux pearl buttons). Snapping my jacket shut, I ran to make sure that my kids and our intrepid Ford Taurus station wagon were still there.

They were, it was, they got their luggage, we hugged each other, and then my darlings walked across the street to Penn Station. It was 6:45 in the morning. I was in Manhattan, with the whole day ahead of me! I have a couple of friends who live there, but who wants to be bothered before 7 am on a Saturday? Also, my shoes were all wrong – not walking shoes (and don’t forget I was still wearing half of my PJs). Most importantly, I was a wee bit frazzled from the last minute detour. The notion of spending the day in Manhattan and then having to drive home later after having been up since four in the morning seemed daunting, so after calling my kids and confirming that they were safely on the train, I decided to go home.

Within minutes I was driving back through the Lincoln Tunnel, and once out of it glimpsed the most gorgeous sunrise over Manhattan. I stopped at the first rest stop to get gas. New Jersey is awesome, because by law all gas stations must provide full service; it was nice to be waited on. Also, for whatever reason, gas was twenty cents cheaper per gallon than anywhere on the Delmarva Peninsula. After leaving the rest stop with a full tank and shiny, clean windows, I headed south. It was a lovely day and a lovely, if unplanned, drive.

So next year, maybe the kids will fly back to Canada after the holidays . . . if any of us ever travels by train out of Newark, New Jersey again, I will make sure that it is from “Penn Station.” I’ve come to grips with the lack of public transportation in Kent County (and now that we’re having weekly bank or store robberies, maybe it’s best that it’s hard to escape from these parts), but could someone please open a Thai Restaurant here? Thanks. That’d be great.