road trip, day one

 So yesterday we packed up Drew's Pacifica, grabbed a quick breakfast at McDonald's and hit the road.  Destination: Maryland.

Lots of traffic as we headed from Long Island into Queens and Brooklyn, lots of traffic over the Verrazzano Bridge.  And then we were counting the cars on  the New Jersey Turnpike ...

Smooth sailing though most of New Jersey...and just before the Delaware Memorial Bridge...traffic came to a complete standstill.  We crept along over the bridge and into Delaware...stopped at the Delaware House rest stop....and eventually arrived in Maryland.

We're staying at a motel in a Baltimore suburb.  Standard chain.  Clean and comfortable but not terribly exciting.  More on that later.

Too tired to do much of anything, we wound up at the Golden Corral for dinner.  (Our rule is that if we eat at a chain restaurant on vacation, we try to pick chains that we don't have on Long Island.)

Not the most auspicious start to a vacation.  But then I saw this:

Yes, an old-fashioned McDonald's, with actual golden arches over the restaurant.  

I'm hoping today will prove to be far more interesting.