At Dawn We Ride. But First We Freeze.
Mar. 29th, 2026 07:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerSpring Family Visit Travelog #3
near Harrisburg, PA · Sun 29 Mar 2026. 9:30am.
I slept not a lick on the red-eye flight we took overnight to Baltimore. I had hoped to get maybe an hour or two of sleep, but it was not to be. I was never tired enough to overcome the discomfort of sitting in an airline seat in coach.
As I looked over the timing for the rest of our trip I figured we'd land at 5:40am, have luggage and the rental car by maybe 6:20am, then drive first to a Wawa (a regional convenience store chain) near BWI airport for breakfast and road-trip snacks before the ride to Harrisburg. That'd have us hitting the road in earnest at 7am— which I could see by checking my weather app was approximately sunrise. "At dawn, we ride," I chuckled to myself. Then I noticed the temperature forecast showing in the app... it'd be 30° at sunrise. That's 30° Fahrenheit, not Celsius. "At dawn we ride... But first we freeze," I corrected myself. 🤣🥶
Well, the schedule unfolded like I expected. Our flight was better than on-time; it was actually a bit early. We got a good pick of cars at the rental depot. We're driving a Nissan Rogue this time. It's got heated seats. We bought food at the Wawa as the morning twilight sky brightened around us and hit the road in earnest at 7am. It was a smooth, 90 minute drive up to Harrisburg.
And speaking of those freezing temperatures, along the way we saw temps as low as 28° F as measured by the car's air intake thermometer. When we arrived at 8:30 it was still only 33°. Compare this to just two weeks ago in California where it was 30~32° Celsius. Welp, we left summer behind in early March, had two weeks of spring, and now it's winter.
near Harrisburg, PA · Sun 29 Mar 2026. 9:30am.
I slept not a lick on the red-eye flight we took overnight to Baltimore. I had hoped to get maybe an hour or two of sleep, but it was not to be. I was never tired enough to overcome the discomfort of sitting in an airline seat in coach.
As I looked over the timing for the rest of our trip I figured we'd land at 5:40am, have luggage and the rental car by maybe 6:20am, then drive first to a Wawa (a regional convenience store chain) near BWI airport for breakfast and road-trip snacks before the ride to Harrisburg. That'd have us hitting the road in earnest at 7am— which I could see by checking my weather app was approximately sunrise. "At dawn, we ride," I chuckled to myself. Then I noticed the temperature forecast showing in the app... it'd be 30° at sunrise. That's 30° Fahrenheit, not Celsius. "At dawn we ride... But first we freeze," I corrected myself. 🤣🥶
Well, the schedule unfolded like I expected. Our flight was better than on-time; it was actually a bit early. We got a good pick of cars at the rental depot. We're driving a Nissan Rogue this time. It's got heated seats. We bought food at the Wawa as the morning twilight sky brightened around us and hit the road in earnest at 7am. It was a smooth, 90 minute drive up to Harrisburg.
And speaking of those freezing temperatures, along the way we saw temps as low as 28° F as measured by the car's air intake thermometer. When we arrived at 8:30 it was still only 33°. Compare this to just two weeks ago in California where it was 30~32° Celsius. Welp, we left summer behind in early March, had two weeks of spring, and now it's winter.
