2/21/19 Fredericksburg, Virginia

We usually leave between 1 and 3 AM when heading south on I-95 to avoid traffic, but because of the sleet storm, we waited longer than we would have liked.  We got up at 3, showered, packed the car, and then watched the news at 4 to check for icy road conditions and/or traffic snarls.  Since the temp was 34 and it was drizzling and didn't seem to be icing on the roads, we took off at 4:20.  It was a dark and dreary drive.  The traffic build up was between Fairfield and Greenwich.  It is a good thing that Dave filled the windshield washer reservoir yesterday as we really needed it.  We went across the Tappan Zee Bridge  (this is the new bridge and it is quite pretty) and got onto the Garden State Parkway.  The traffic was fairly heavy until we got pass Newark.  The trees in New York and upper New Jersey were covered in ice and I was hoping for the sun to come out - it would have been a beautiful sight!  For some reason, New Jersey is a major problem for us.  This time the problem happened as we segued from the Garden State to the Jersey Turnpike.  We got shunted off onto the surface streets of Elizabeth, NJ.  We had a wonderful, although lengthy tour of the city before finally getting to the NJ Turnpike.  We stopped at a rest stop for a late breakfast at 8:30.  The sun finally came out midway down the pike.  We have had some snow along the sides of the roads all the way to Virginia.  I imagine that most of it will be gone by morning as our high temp today was 51.

Note: Thank you Connecticut for having a law about cleaning your car off when it snows.  Most of the cars from NY and NJ were shedding snow like dandruff. 

We got the to hotel early this afternoon and Dave went down for a nap.  We decided to skip lunch and will go out for an early dinner - somewhere close by where we can walk!  Tomorrow we will leave at a more reasonable time and stop in Georgia.  We use to do just one overnight on the way to Florida, but this is so much more civilized.  There probably won't be any pics until we get to our final destination - Cape Coral.