16 hours in a car with a clown, a smell, and no gas

Well today was Day 1 of the Out of Orbit experience. I feel like I've been hit by a truck, when in reality I was just almost hit by a truck.......

I drove out with John, one of the cast members who lives in Chicago. I told him I would pick him up at 3:30 this morning.....and I woke up at 3:25. Great start. He called about 10 minutes later asking where I was, while I was running through the house throwing crap out the front door to go in my car. Luckily I gassed up and packed most of the stuff the night before. We were on the highway by 4:15. Aw yeah.

The drive started GREAT. I drove till we ran out of gas, which was somewhere between Toledo and Cleveland, then John took over. We saw a bunch of people pulled over waving around a blow-up doll. The sun was shining, we had good tunes going, and we were flying east.

Then around Du Bois, PA, we start to get low on gas, and it's lunch time. We stopped at a Subway in the middle of a mecca of shopping and eats. There has to be gas too right. No. We didn't see any. My car was reading "10 miles to empty." John remembered that there was another exit very close to where we were, so we got back on 80. Turns out the next exit is 12 miles away. Luckily my car is idiot proof, and we had more than 10 miles.....

We get off, and there is NOTHING. Then I remember that we were using Streets and Trips with GPS on my laptop to keep track of where we were, and it has wonderful features such as finding food and gas stations for you. This proves that there is NO gas where we are, but if we had gone down the road in Du Bois another mile, we would have found some. So back on 80 in the wrong direction. I have to admit I was quite nervous. We killed the AC and the radio, and I took advantage of the downhill stretches in all attempts to conserve gas. We made it. I put 19.68 gallons in my 20 gallon tank. Aw yeah.

We took a Red Bull break about 80 miles later, and I topped off on gas. So now we're set right? 225 miles to destination, full tank of gas, clear interstate in front of us........

It took 35 minutes to cross the Delaware River. Not to get there, we spent 35 minutes on the bridge, averaging 4 mph for about 20 miles. We were hoping to see a really cool reason for the backup, like black bears fighting, a recently discovered dinosaur skeleton, or Jesus' return to earth. I mean, for this much ridiculous traffic it had to be HUGE.

We FINALLY make it into NJ, and both smell the worst smell we have ever smelled. It was like something died, something big died......imagine 5000 pounds of rotting sea food sitting in the sun.

Traffic cleared up after the smell.

Due to our delays, Dan went into Manhattan without us to take care of a few things. Then he got delayed. We got to his town (4 hours behind schedule), ate dinner, went grocery shopping, and he was still about an hour from being ready to leave. Oh, and his parents weren't home. Luckily we picked up some wireless internet in front of the house, so I caught up on a weeks worth of emails. His parents got back about an hour later, and I have never been so happy to get out of my car. So now we're in the house YAY. Still no Dan though.

Tomorrow we go unload the insane amount of gear that's in my car at the theater.