We were having trouble all week deciding what time to head out on our annual journey to Maine. Our first thought was to try leaving the house around midnight like we did, successfully, in 2017. After a pretty routine morning and afternoon (if you can ignore the three solid days of nonstop rain that resulted in 4.3 inches in the gauge and persistent showers over us all morning and afternoon … we couldn’t ignore them), we lay down for some rest around 6:45pm and planned to get up around 10. We kept close to that schedule, getting up around 10:15, having a small snack of frozen pasta and veggies, and leaving the house at 11pm.

Traffic wasn’t too bad, although it was heavier this year than during our late-night drive in 2017. For the first several hours of the drive, the traffic consisted of nearly all tractor trailers. At least they were mostly driving responsibly. We took a quick detour through Vernon, Connecticut, around 2:30am looking for coffee, but nothing was open. We continued on to the Charleton Plaza East, where even the McDonalds was closed at 3:30am. (We were able to get a self-serve coffee from this weird attached convenience store that we both thought looked and felt like something from another universe or at least another galaxy. Everything about it was SO bizarre, including the character that worked there.) A few cars joined us and the trucks now and then, and they were coming onto the highway in greater numbers (and at crazier speeds) by the time we reached the Mass Pike and I-495.

Back on the highway after our stop at the convenience store, it was busy but smooth sailing until the start of I-95 (Maine Turnpike) where I-495 ended. Right at the toll area (where we had unintentionally chosen the cash side, but it still had EZPass) we found ourselves suddenly entrenched in a fog bank so thick it was impossible to see anything for a few (rather terrifying) seconds. It was like driving into a white wall. Fortunately it let up just enough that we could spot and then follow the trucks coming through the EZPass side of the toll area.

While there was some remaining fog for the rest of the night’s travel, it was wispy and did not really affect visibility. Almost exactly consistent with our timing in 2017 (just one hour earlier) we reached the Kittery rest area at 5:30am. I’d had no sleep all day (could not sleep while we were resting in the afternoon and evening) and thought I would get a few hours easily while at the rest area. Our eye masks worked great, blocking the light that would always hit us squarely in the eyes no matter where we parked or how we angled the car. And I was very comfortable temperature-wise and at least somewhat comfortable otherwise, but simply could not sleep. Rich (having had a decent rest) woke me up around 7:15 and we headed back out on the highway around 7:40.