We got back on I-91 to head for Hartford. Just before Hartford, we ran into a two hour traffic jam caused by an accident. It was dead stop for much of the time. Toward the end of the two hours, we started crawling a little tiny bit. Then, miraculously, after forever, all the traffic just started going. It wasn't like coming out of most traffic jams, where you work your way up to it and finally get to go, each car in your lane at a time. It was very sudden. Suddenly, everybody started moving. What joy! Fortunately we had the two-way radios, or we'd have gotten separated in the rush of cars leaving the jam.

In Hartford, we picked up I-84 and headed west through New York and into Pennsylvania. We ate lunch at a Taco Bell that also served Pizza Hut personal pizzas. But we suffered from the strangest of delays. While trying to get from the interstate to the Taco Bell, we stopped at a red light, and some workers were laying out a power line across the road. One motioned for Darien and Mina to stay put (I'm not sure why, but they were in the lead) but then reconsidered and let them go (the light had turned green) but kept us stopped. They laid the line out across the intersection, then raised it and permitted the traffic to continue.

From I-84, we turned on U.S. Rt. 209, which goes through the Poconos. That road was GREAT. It was small but fast, sparsely travelled, has practically no intersecting roads, is surrouded first by gorgeous forests and fields and then by cool vacationland-type diversions. It would be a great place for a future vacation, actually. After 209, we got on I-80 west to I-81 to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, which seemed an overly long leg of the journey, and there Darien and Mina took the lead to get us onto Rt. 15, because Mina knows that road well. (She took us onto I-83 for a bit in Harrisburg, then got us on 15.) There are some lights on 15, and we missed one of them while Darien and Mina cruised through. Fortunately we were equipped with the two-way radios and got back together, but I missed another light trying to keep up -- it turned red half a second or so before I crossed the line. I don't know where the cop was sitting, but thirty seconds later there were lights flashing behind me. At first I thought it might want to pass me to catch some other speeder, but then I realized it was for the light. So I pulled over, and the cop ran my plates. I got my license and registration ready. He turned out to be a really nice guy. He spoke about why he pulled me over as if he himself didn't think it was that serious an offense ("The reason I pulled you over is, the light back there -- it was a liiiiiiiittle late -- you didn't quiiite make it..."). We explained that we were following somebody, and then his first concern was that the people we were following knew we got pulled over. They did. Leen said, over the radio, "We're getting pulled over!" in a kind of resigned yet disbelieving tone. Later, Darien and Mina thought she sounded excited. "We're getting pulled over! YES!" At any rate, I was let off with a verbal warning.

Not long afterward, I began to worry about getting to Dulles Airport in time to pick Dave up. Dave's flight was scheduled to arrive at 11:15pm, and worrying about getting there on time, when we left at 7:15am, was the last concern in our minds. It would turn out that we just barely had a comfortable amount of time for me to make it to the airport in time, but for a while I was quite concerned, because I didn't realize that Dulles was only 20 minutes away from the hotel.

Rt. 15 through Maryland was fun, especially because the roads were well kept asphalt instead of the poorly kept asphalt-concrete hybrids found in Pennsylvania, New York, and some of Connecticut. It was almost surprising, pleasantly so, to be suddenly driving on a smooth road that wasn't loud to drive on. Around Maryland, the scenery changes from mostly trees to some more open fields and farmland, with trees around them. Unfortunately by that time it was dark, so we couldn't really see the scenery and enjoy it. When we crossed into Virginia, we were exhausted and anxious for our journey to end, and we kept underestimating the amount of time left. It didn't make it very easy when the twenty minutes we thought we had left turned to forty five, then a half hour, then a half hour, then twenty, then twenty, then twenty again. The road was far longer when we expected it to be, and Darien said he was starting to entertain searching for a junction with another road that doesn't exist as some sort of pessimistic metaphor for life. But finally we did see a turn for I-66, and it was a relief like you wouldn't believe. The last stretch of the journey went smoothly, and it was nice to be travelling on an interstate again, where fast travel is possible, instead of a one-lane road that winds through the trees. The Holiday Inn in Fairfax was visible almost immediately after we took the exit for it, and that sight was an amazing relief as well.

We arrived at 10:15pm. As we walked into the hotel, I was suddenly awed by what was happening. Somehow, many of the people from RinkChat that I consider friends were congregating at a remote hotel because I said it would be a cool idea and they agreed. Somehow, because of my web site, started at first as a hobby, Issachar would meet Darien, and Darien would meet Dave, and Dave would meet famous, and so on. I'm not sure I can express my feelings fully, but it was great. We walked in and talked to the clerk at the front desk. I got two messages, one from "famous" saying that she was eating dinner with Issachar and Jacqueline, and another from Issachar and Jacqueline saying where they were. These messages were left around 8:30pm. We weren't even close. I verified that we were all set to check in, and then I got directions to Dulles Airport and left before unpacking the car. At Dulles, I must have missed a turn in the dark, because I found myself on the road to the economy parking area, for which there is a shuttle that takes you to the terminal. The shuttle ride took 15 minutes, because it went to all kinds of other stops in the economy parking lot first (mine was "One Blue," row 6A), and I made it to the terminal at 11:16pm. Dave wasn't around, so I called him on the cell phone. "Hey!" / "Hey." / "Where are you?" / "Uh...I don't know. In Washington somewhere." / "Well, uh, are you at the airport?" / "I'm on a shuttle going to, I guess the terminal." / "Oh, ok." So I wasn't late for him after all.

Once back at the hotel, everybody helped bring in our stuff, and I marveled again at the coolness of what was happening. I wondered what it was like for Dave, who hadn't met any of them before. Neither he nor I nor anyone else had any trouble getting past the new medium of communication to the same camaraderie we had exhibited on RinkChat. We stayed up for a while in the room Leen and I were sharing with Dave and talked and joked around. Which is just as well, because this Holiday Inn was apparently happy to host loud music in a bar that was located right underneath our room. In it, all you could hear was THUMPA THUMPA THUMPA THUMPA THUMPA THUMPA THUMPA, and it didn't stop until 1:50am. We were up talking until 1:30am, so we weren't kept up long, but even so, I found it unbelievable that a nice hotel would host such practices. I called the front desk and complained twice, and each time the lady said she'd ask the DJ to turn it down, but it didn't help. I got four hours' sleep last night, in part from that and in part because I was nervous enough about the next day to be awake at 6am. I tried to get back to sleep, but I was only half-asleep and restless until 7:30am or so.