Greetings from the Sterling Volunteer Fire Department, station 11.
If I had to go home today, it would be worth every penny. We have had such an incredible experience in the past four days; I can hardly imagine what the next 20 will bring.
As you all know, we flew to Newark, NJ on Thursday to stay with my mom’s cousin Judy in Hamburg, NJ. We made it safely but the trip was not without incident. All was well until we arrived in Chicago at O’Hare International. We were scheduled to rendezvous with an old friend of mine, Cate. Having sent her our flight information, I assumed she would meet us at the gate when we landed. We waited about 30 minutes and decided that she was either late or not coming and hopefully she would meet us at our connecting flight’s gate. Cate never showed, which was too bad since we had plenty of time to visit. Our flight scheduled for an 8:40 PM CDT departure didn’t depart until after 10:00. We finally arrived in Newark to find out that Judy’s son Tom, who was to pick us up at the airport, had car trouble on the way. Luckily his girlfriend was nearby and came to the rescue, transporting us all back to Tom’s house in lovely Hamburg, New Jersey—thanks again, Jamie.
Thankfully that has been the extent of our misfortunes so far. We arrived in Hamburg around 3am EDT. Our original plan was to head into New York via bus around 5am in order to catch Britney Spears’ performance at Rockefeller Center (as you may not know, Chris is a big fan). Upon arriving in Jersey, however, Chris made the executive decision that while Britney is worth many things, 2 hours of sleep is not one of them. So we slept in until about 11, then picked up our rental car in New Windsor, NY. It was so incredibly easy it frightens me. It’s amazing what one can get with a driver’s license and a credit card.
I won’t bore you with our sight-seeing details, you can read that on the site in the Trip Updates section, which is now active. We really enjoyed our time with Judy and her family though, and we really appreciate the hospitality. It was certainly a great way to start the Y2KRTE.
Our drive from New Jersey was pretty smooth. We took the scenic route and got to drive through Princeton, which was very nice. And that brings us to Sterling, VA where Chris’ cousin, Justin, works as a volunteer fireman. Since Justin was on duty last night he invited us to stay at the firehouse. We, of course, accepted. “We go, you go” he informed us, as we signed our ride-along liability waivers. Cool. Unfortunately for us, the night was pretty calm. I think the San Luis Obispo Fire Department gets more action. Justin assured us it’s not always like that.
We did go out on two calls—well, three calls. The first was a dessert run, in the fire truck of course. The next was around 11pm, an inside gas leak, and the third was around 6am. The 6am call was a little more interesting. After a brief disagreement as to whether or not the call was “ours”, we finally rolled out of bed and boarded “wagon 11”. Apparently some party-goers got a little out of control during the night and rammed a car through the back wall of the garage it was parked in. It was kind of like being on the set of Tool Time as the four fire fighters figured out how to push the wall back into position. They finally decided to take the direct approach and pounded the damn thing back into place. All better. Let’s go back to bed.
A quick side note: Those of you who reside in larger metropolitan areas may be aware of the ability of emergency vehicles to control traffic signals. You might be under the impression that when a police car or ambulance or a fire engine approaches an intersection, it sends a strobe light signal to a sensor mounted on the traffic light, which gives the oncoming emergency vehicle a green light. Now I have the inside scoop. As we approached a red traffic signal, I hear on the headset, “please don’t turn, please don’t turn, please don’t turn”. So THAT’s how they do it.
Now we’re literally “on the road” headed to Baltimore. We’re hoping to get some tickets to the Orioles game and check out Camden Yards. After that, maybe we can practice our traffic signal calls.
Until next time, drive safely.
-Sean