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Day 12: The Journey Home
The dogs started to get restless at about 6:30am, so we got up, got dressed, and took them out for their morning walk. After having our own breakfast, we started getting our things together to leave. The hardest part was getting the cargo bag, which we had taken off of the van without unpacking it at all, back on top of the van.
Once we made sure we hadn't left anything behind, we checked out and headed on our way, using another set of directions printed off of the Internet to get us out of Boston. Unfortunately, we were not able to get over into the right lane for the exit as directed by the instructions, so we had to consult our street map of Boston to find another way onto I-90 headed out of the city.
We took I-90 west and then got onto I-84 headed south into Connecticut. In Connecticut, we got onto I-91 headed south towards I-95 and the border with New York.
During our travels, we had stopped at a number of rest areas where there were signs pointing out dog walk areas, but we had never encountered anything quite like the "Dog Corral" at a rest stop we made off of I-90. It was a small area defined by a two-rail fence, with "his" and "her" yellow fire hydrants. The hounds were simply happy to take a bathroom break and made no special effort to use the appropriate hydrant for their gender.
We took I-95 into New York, then hopped onto I-287 and then I-87 towards Albany, crossing over the the Tappan Zee Bridge across the Hudson River. We then turned onto the New York Throughway, which became the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey. The next route change put us on the New Jersey turnpike, at which point we ran into a lot of traffic congestion, slowing us down significantly. We stopped at a rest stop for lunch: we sat down in the shade of a tree with the hounds to eat. Even here, we had a couple of kids come up and ask to pet the dogs.
The congestion eased up after we got off of the turnpike, only to return whenever we got within a mile or two of a toll booth. We breathed a sigh of relief when we got past the toll booth on I-95 in Delaware and crossed the Maryland border.