Day 4 - Vernon, CT to Carlisle, PA 535 km

Obviously, I should have written this sooner since the details are fading away and Taryn may have to add some details and corrections. Tuesday started early, Maggie woke me before 6 am and I realized that we would have to get going to try to miss the worst of morning traffic into Hartford, CT. I said if we could get started early we could finish the day mid-afternoon, hopefully at a hotel with a pool.

I bought a Thule soft rooftop carrier before leaving NS but we hadn't used it. Now that we had all of our shopping from Kittery, I loaded it on the car - it was fairly simple considering I had never tried it before, I found out later Paul had so at least one of us knew it fit!

The drive through Hartford was pretty easy since we were continuing west on the 84.
Taryn's trip planning from CAA sent us down the 95 and 85 through all the big cities - on the advice of other people we elected to take the 84 west to Scranton, PA and then get on the 81 south. From the 81, we had several options to get to Greenville. We knew the final section would be dependant on our timing, Isabelle and Maggie's tolerance levels and our patience.

One of the first stops of the days was at a rest area in New York state - not top on my list of rest areas but it was shady and gave us a chance to stretch our legs and walk Maggie. By 10 am, with the heat wave, it was already to hot to leave Maggie in the car for any length of time. We stopped again at the Pennsylvania border at a beautiful tourist information centre. Maybe after the next trip I will blog about the best rest stops between Greenville and NS. Obviously, with a dog and a three year old, rest stops are important!

About 20 years ago, I travelled from NS to State College, PA, the only thing I remember from the driving was Scranton, PA and an auto scrapyard. No sign of it this time, the 84 was generally a good drive. We stopped for lunch in Wilkes-Barre, again a quick lunch since we couldn't leave Maggie in the car. Notes for the next trip - I would pick up more food for lunches, snacks, etc. so we could avoid fast food, most of the hotels had fridges so keeping things cold wouldn't be an issue.

At lunch, we looked at our options for overnight. Dad lent us his GPS (now known as Bob) which made things a little easier. We looked at the map, picked a potential destination, plugged it into Bob and decided if it was too far. Then, we looked at Taryn's CAA books to see if there was a dog friendly hotel with a pool. We decided on a Holiday Inn in Carlisle, PA.

With the help of some care packages from Grandmere and Sammy, a DVD player from Peter and the amazing patience of Taryn, Isabelle was entertained for the rest of the drive. Arriving at the hotel, we knew dogs were welcome as 6 K-9 units from one the railroad companies were there. Isabelle and I had a swim in the pool before supper and then we were able to eat at the hotel restaurant, in shifts, giving Taryn some down time. Isabelle fell asleep quickly but woke around 11pm for 2 hours - we were in for a rough day ahead!