Road Trip! Betcha can't catch me.... cause I'm smarter than you are you big, old, dumb SUV.

My sister has opened a very snazzy little gift shop in Greenville, Delaware and I decided for the Grand Opening which was today I would show up with the new smart and maybe help promote the shop. She is selling embroidery and monogramming services on new C.A.D. sewing machine, plus cool high end fashion accessories and house wares for ladies and pets. Anyway enough of a plug for "STITCH" which is the name of the shop!
My son and I set out at 5:45 this morning from Bridgehampton, NY and headed South for Delaware. We just received maybe an inch of rain yesterday and roads were wet and the smart was looking a bit like a cinnamon donut. White with a whole bunch of brown flecks from all the spring tree detris that falls as the leaves go from a bud to full bloom. This crap gets real sticky when wet and this little WHITE car is the worst dirt magnet I have ever owned. Black interior carpeting with red seat covers and dash shows every single speck of dirt. I've had just about a week and have washed it once (thoroughly) and still feel like a heel cause the following day it poured down rain and I had to drive in it. Only problem is I can't dislike anything about the interior of the car cause it is just too swank for words. Smart Red/More Oranger than red and black is too hip. Anyway left the house with 599 miles on the car and returned safely with 1048 mile in the course of 14 hours. Not a huge run like when I was a teenager but enough for this middle-aged body to feel a bit stiff and sore from bouncing around in the smart.
NY roads are friggin AWFUL!!!!!!! I took major HWYs with very few stops as my son and I wanted to see how cost effectively we could make the trip but with not having to putter along shooting for highest MPG possible. On the way down we took Sunrise HWY to Southern State to Belt parkway past JFK airport through Brooklyn to Verazzano Narrows Bridge. Then crossed Staten Island and jumped on the Jersey Turnpike. Turnpike to Delaware Memorial Bridge and into..... wait for it........ Delaware! after the bridge RT. 141 north to RT. 52 north into Greenville DE! The run down was the BEST I have ever done to my sister's place. We were on the road at 5:45 am and on the Jersey Turnpike by 7:30 am. The weirdest thing about this part of the trip was I was only going 68 to 72 MPH cause of break in specs. Don't wanna muck up my brandiddy new 3 cylinder motor car! I just plopped it in D for drive and that was that. We did not hit a single slow down on the Belt PKWY which is the most notoriously horrendous stretch of road known to man when it comes to traffic congestion. Usually I lose, say 30 to 45 minutes minimum on the BELT every time I have traveled it. So when I flew through Brooklyn at 60/65 MPH this morning I thought, "today is my lucky day". We had the tunes crankin, classic live vintage Led Zeppelin on the ipod direct into the #9 Stereo the Sun was trying to come out and life was generally pretty damn good. So once we were through the BELT it was across the Hudson River into the Garden State and 2 hours later we were knocking on the front door to my sister's new store. We stopped once at the first rest area we came to on the NJ tpke added 6.4 gallons of comparatively cheap high-test gasoline, ($3.77 per US Gal.) had a quick bite to eat, grabbed a 2nd cup of coffee and we were off..... in a cloud of Monkey manure! My Mother used to say that when we were little kids.... She used to live her life like she a part of a Circus Act sometimes. Sometimes it was kind of amusing, others times it was rather tragic. Again, I digress.
After we caught each other up on the latest family niceties My Son and I began helping out with hanging up a couple of merchandising racks and putting things in order and all in all it was a good day with my family and a productive new beginning for my sister who has been going through a very, very rough patch in her life.
Now it was time to start the long Journey home to Long Island. Leave Greenville at 5:35 pm. Heavy traffic on the NJ Tpke but not stop and go. Stop and have dinner at 6:30 at rest area on the tpke. Delays at Goethals Bridge, Minor delays at Verazzano Bridge, heavy traffic on Belt pkwy but not a parking lot. Southern state to Sunrise and home not too bad. in the driveway 10:15 pm. 3 hours and 45 minutes down 225 miles (roughly) 4 hours and 40 minutes back same mileage. This is the smart's first road trip of any real relevance. I feel for the car that it is; and I had very few misgivings about it's abilities as an open road, traveling machine, I felt it pulled off this trip with a fair amount of efficiency, a somewhat decent ride quality and a who lot of Holy Crap! what kinda car is that? attitude. How many miles do you get to gallon? How much does it cost? How long did you wait for it? Watching the flash go off as some IDIOTIC person tries to take our picture from the back seat of a BMW SUV with heavily tinted windows. "I wonder why the first pic didn't come out... Lets try it again.... nope, didn't work that time either... the flash is working cause I can see it but I'm just taking the picture of the rear window...guess my camera is no good". and the best one line zinger that I thought of on the way home was, Gee... I didn't know Mercedes made Roller Skates! Ha-ha-ha... I just crack me up sometimes! very funny!