Pennsylvania
Choosing to start in Philadelphia was probably a mistake. For one, it's well away from anywhere I planned to be during the trip, and separated from it by a large swath of hilly, hellishly suburban Delaware River basin. Plus, Philly's airport is probably the most unfortunate thing about the city. It makes everything much more complicated than it has to be. Take the fact that, even though most of the rental car agencies are located in the same, general spot, each of those agencies run their own shuttles, driving around in circles in what I would call the exhaust barn, an area just outside the baggage claim where both shuttles to parking, hotels and rental agencies, as well as private passenger vehicles, circle to find their claimed passenger. But a $90 one-way on Southwest Airlines was enough to convince me. And I found a good one-way car rental.Once I rushed the line and got the rental car, I asked about traffic. The unfortunate thing of the July 4th arrival in the United States' birthplace was that this was not exactly any other day for Philly. There were major, massive events planned, with thousands of people expected to be on the streets in Center City, Philadelphia's Downtown area. I was told, "Bad. Yeah, just really bad..." Google Traffic told me otherwise. In spite of its past tendency to lie about conditions, I went with its suggestion and took the route through the city. It couldn't have been clearer and I got out quickly, able to snag a cheesesteak in one of those sprawling, gigantic parking lots of a suburb in Bucks County. I can only explain it in that everyone else avoided the area, leaving it open to us few who were stubborn enough to try it.
The first stop was the Delaware Water Gap. Named as such for the Delaware River forming a sort of canyon where the Appalachian Mountains cross it. I had never been, but had heard nothing but good things, and had been trying to see it for a number of years. I don't really know the gap's boundaries, but the stretch managed by the national park service went from Interstate 80 near Stroudsburg, PA north to Milford, PA, near the New York state line. US 209 is the main road through this area, paralleling the river exactly, sometimes just a few yards from it.
The Delaware River is a large, fast-moving, muddy body of water. The sort of river that terrifies me and brings up my general (and mostly unfounded) fear of water where I cannot see the bottom. I've had the fear my entire life - long before the incident in college where I narrowly avoided stepping on a stingray in shallow water in the Gulf of Mexico at North Padre Island by shuffling my feet, as you're supposed to - and, in the case I've had to swim in a murky body of water, I've either sucked it up or stayed shallow enough where I can mostly see what's directly below me. Generally though, I'm intrigued by rivers and like to dip my hands in them at their banks, but I will not submerge myself in one. To me, it looked precisely the same here as it does in Philadelphia, about 100 miles to the south. The difference there is that it's wider and a little smellier.
Port Jervis, New York, my final destination for the evening, is where the Neverskirk River joins in to it.
I met US 6 for the first time on the trip at Milford, Pennsylvania. Milford is a cute, colonial-appearing town with quite a bit of tourist activity, likely directly a result of its position as the first town north of the Water Gap. I started immediately by going the wrong direction. I wound up leaving town, then realizing I was on 6 West, and flipped to come back through. It gave me another chance to see Milford, if anything.
Between Milford and Port Jervis sits a hilly stretch of terrain where the original US 6 basically vanishes for a time, and the route number multiplexes with I-84. A local later referred to this drive as "coming down the mountain." In the search to stay on a surface street, I took several u-turns and, during this, likely did some damage the car's undercarriage by hitting a bump too fast. There were no subsequent leaks but it certainly didn't sound good. Either way, I found my surface street, complete with adjacent batting cage facilities (both closed, maybe for the holiday) and traffic lights from commercial sprawl. Eventually, you end up in Matamoras, Pennsylvania, just across the river (and state line) from Port Jervis.
The unfortunately thing about having a town called Matamoras on both a border and a river is that it makes me think of one of the worst border towns in Mexico, its namesake. Luckily, Matamoras, Pennsylvania is nothing like its Mexican "hermana."
Port Jervis is also nothing like Brownsville, Texas. If anything, it reminds of Binghamton, just up the river. That probably isn't too surprising. Culturally and geographically, they're very similar cities. The difference with Port Jervis is that it's on the Metro North commuter rail line, providing easy access to New York City, just to the south. I was told an hour. That usually means approximately 90 minutes. But, if I were working in the city, I would consider it an option. There are some gorgeous, old estate homes, and the town has that sort of small town feel that people tend to look for. The only potential issue: heroin. When I crossed into New York, I stopped and walked onto the bridge to get some pictures of the sun setting over the mountains and against the river. As I walked back, what I thought were three teenagers were walking toward me. As I got closer and could see their faces though, I realized that they were probably at least 20-years-old and were just emaciated. They looked like cartoons of junkies: dirty, loose hanging clothes, nervous faces, cigarettes in hand... It was a little sad. I looked it up online and, in 2011, Port Jervis, with a population of roughly 9,000 had 13 deaths from heroin overdose. Compare that with the much more urban Passaic County, New Jersey nearby, which saw 24 deaths from heroin overdose in 2009 amongst its 500,000-plus population. Heroin is becoming a larger problem all over the country though, as meth becomes more difficult and expensive to make, and opiate painkillers become harder to obtain.
I closed out the night at the bar directly below my hotel room, at Port Jervis' former railroad hotel, the Erie. Yelp regards it as one of the best restaurants in town, and that doesn't seem to be too much of a stretch, as there are very few restaurants total in Port Jervis. It's not a wealthy town, despite its connection to New York City. The bar strangely had a very good beer selection, with a number of local microbreweries, including one from just a few miles east on US 6, in Chester. An IPA from Rushing Duck. It was good. I would drink more of their beer, but they've only been around 6 months, and only do tours each Saturday.
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