New Jersey?... what exit?

In the spring of our senior year, Mike, Annie and I decided to go up to New Jersey for awhile to watch our teammates compete in NCAAs. We climbed into the Jeep after class on a Wednesday and embarked on the 7ish our trip.

I decided to take an alternate through through Philly instead of straight up the NJ Turnpike to avoid the traffic and general Jersey-ness that is the turnpike. I wasn't entirely familiar with the route, but had directions to take "Exit 7B" off of 95 to begin the detour.

Through Delaware I was a little antsy, not knowing where I was going, awaiting 7B. We got into Pennsylvania, approached Philly, went through Philly, and still, no exit 7. (Actually, when I said earlier that I knew the exit was 7B, that was a lie. 7 was one of my original guesses, but after we passed 7 and realized it wasn't the right exit, I kept guessing - 11? 15? 19? 22? We passed all of these in turn without getting to the right road.)

At this point I was beginning to mildly panic - it was late, we were all tired (Example A: Mike had been asleep in the backseat for at least a couple of hours.) I decided to go with my traditional geographic guru, David. We woke Mike up and I asked him to call David to look at a map. He refused. I asked him again, and he refused again! (Something about midnight being too late to call a college student.) A squabble ensued. Soon enough after this incident, someone realized the exit numbers would reset after we crossed the state line, so we crossed our fingers, and sure enough, exit 7 in New Jersey was the correct exit, and all ended well. We had a great week in Jersey, and headed back to Duke in the Prius, at which point Annie began her favorite new hobby of pointing out any and all Priuses on the road (Prius!)


Well, Mike chose to take this route home for Thanksgiving this year. When I inquired as to how it worked out for him, this is the email I received:

"It did work out. One funny thing was the directions say to get off at exit 7B. However, they mean 7B in New Jersey. Because first you drive through Delaware, and there's not exit 7B. Then you drive through PA...and there's no 7B. Then you start to freak out. And then you exit. Obviously."