Things I have learned while on my road trip up the east coast:
All interstates are not mandated to be at least 3 lanes in one direction. 90% of I-95 is just 2.
South of the Border still exists and looks absolutely insane driving up on it in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night
Driving through northern New Jersey/Pennsylvania feels like driving through Salinas, California, and in winter where everything is dead and ugly, looks like Salinas, too
Connecticut has the most amazing little rest stops with gas stations and all states should adopt them
Driving through light snow flurries is nothing like driving through light rain. It looks like ash, or white bugs, and doesn’t stick to the windshield
NYC may be the city that never sleeps, but the business district shuts down at 8pm and fuck you if you’re wandering and need a bathroom
Publix reaches as far north as Virginia, and sadly no further
Driving up I-95 makes Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina look absolutely desolate with only a couple Buc-ee’s to their names
The White House is *not* overcompensating for something, and neither is that tiny Christmas tree. Rockefeller’s is bigger, and still decorated post New-Years
Taft is the other president buried at Arlington, and the view from the top of the hill there over DC is gorgeous
The Arlington House is made of brick and stucco, painted to look like expensive marble, and you can tell
Holiday Inn express takes dogs, but not cats, and Hyatt charges a $75 fuck-you cat fee
Richmond’s downtown is a lot bigger than I thought it would be, took more than 10 seconds to drive past and for whatever reason, half the skyline is outlined in gold lights like glowing crayon
Jacksonville is ugly af
The Statue of Liberty is huge. Didn’t see it up close but we did see it driving toward the Holland Tunnel and it looked massive from the road
Gas stations charge an exorbitant holding fee to make sure your credit card is legit
Walking in slushy snow feels like walking in fluffy beach sand
I’m still so used to the NYC skyline being defined by the Empire State Building and twin towers that I thought it was all still Newark until I saw the gold-lit top of the ESB peaking through the taller buildings. It’s shorter than I remember
National monuments that have water features like fountains apparently turn them off either because of possibly freezing pipes or just when they’re closed to the public. DC’s WWII and the 9-11 memorial were both dry as bones
The builders of the Washington Monument ran out of the lighter stone while building and failed to make a proper gradient transition to the yellower stone, and it’s very, very obvious
Not a TIL, but we saw one (1) bald eagle hunting for dinner over the highway in the middle of nowhere, Pennsylvania
The bar for “attractions” on those blue highway signs outside of Florida is so low that it includes colleges and random businesses in the absence of theme parks
Highway Patrol in Connecticut appear to tailgate you until you speed up enough to be caught speeding and can be ticketed, RIP random Hyundai
Tesla drivers inexplicably drive annoyingly slow
Outside of Florida, much metal is wasted on mile marker signs to the half-mile, and tenth of a mile
Florida has the grandest state-line welcome sign on the east coast (and the only one in the south that doesn’t have the governor’s name on it)
