photo courtesy of Mountain River Red Cross

I figure, since my blog is called "The Daily Commute," I should write about my latest driving experience.

This past week I spent some time on the East Coast, seeing family and exploring a part of the country I've never really been to before.

It was some of the more interesting travel I've ever done.

I drive I-70 every day to and from the office, dodging semi-trailers and the occasional freezing rains. But there was nothing to prepare me for this past week.

Columbus, Ohio, was dumped on with 20 inches of snow last Saturday. A level 1 snow emergency was declared in some parts, meaning emergency travel was the only permissible reason to be on the roads.

And I was in the middle of it.

Nearing the Indiana-Ohio border, the lines on I-70 disappeared under the blowing snow. The closer we got to Columbus, the worse the road got. Usually, previous drivers make a path to follow, but there was no trace of other drivers on the road.

They were smarter than us.

It took 15 hours to get from Indiana to New Jersey, a trip that usually takes 11 hours, and we saw an event I've never seen before: a McDonalds closed because of weather.

Every five minutes, we'd pass another car or truck that slid off the freeway, and at one point drove pass a semi jack-knifed in the median.

It was stressful, scary and made me desire four-wheel drive more than Brett Favre un-retiring.

We made it through the weather to encounter another type of driving disaster: the New Jersey Turnpike.

Driving on the Turnpike, I felt like a doe on the first day of open season. My eyes were open wide, head on a swivel, darting here and there. It wasn't pretty.

And it seemed the other drivers knew it was my first time on the 'pike, and wanted to induct me.

Did you know lanes just disappear without warning on the East Coast? Now I know. And semi's are encouraged to drive in the farthest left lane, defying all Midwest driving common sense.

When entering onto the turnpike, there is a line of toll booths with three or four lanes for "fast pass" users, and one lane for the rest of the bunch, us losers still paying cash.

Once you merge down into the one "cash" lane, and take your ticket, you must make a decision.

Either you can cut across four lanes of traffic that does not slow down or stop for the toll booth (those regal fast pass users) and get on the one lane heading the direction you need to go, or you can go straight, in the opposite direction of your destination, and hope to find an exit to turn around on.

Somehow, on your quest to right your direction, you turn onto the parkway instead of the turnpike, and eventually you end up in the beautiful metropolis of Trenton, New Jersey.

No amounts of maps, hand-written directions or GPS instructions can help a Turnpike rookie navigate their way through that mess without causing a serious pile-up.

East Coast drivers are in a hurry, always, and their aggressive driving is enough to scare the pants off of the most experienced midwestern traveler.

Luckily, I felt no shame for causing traffic backups and dirty looks while on the coast, because our rental car did not have a local license plate.

The whole time, I was giving Ohio drivers a bad name. And that's worth the price of turnpike tolls.