You might find this “guide” helpful. You might not. Actually, you probably won’t, as it simply deals with food and traffic, which (along with work and football) essentially comprise my life here. At the end of the day, these things are some of the only ways I differentiate between the Philly area and Colorado. That and the soul-crushing humidity.

It is very green here

I’m used to Colorado, which leans towards a mountainous/prairie type climate. Living in South Jersey is like living in a rainforest inhabited by highways and people who talk funny. I don’t understand why everyone is worried about global warming when there are so many trees on the east coast. In fact, I don’t understand how so many people inhabit this region when they still seem to be highly outnumbered and dominated by the trees.

Dunkin’ Donuts

We used to have a Dunkin’ when I was little in Boulder, but nobody went there. It is un-American, in my opinion, for a town to exist in which it is difficult to live an unhealthy lifestyle. Although I eat a healthy diet (I am, in the words of Bobby Boucher, a “finely tuned athletic machine”), I find the lack of good “bad” food in my hometown to be quite, well, tasteless. Since there were no food junkies able to support the Boulder location of Dunkin’ by freebasing donuts at will, the store closed. It was replaced by the umpteenth fair trade coffee shop in Boulder, which enjoyed considerable tofu-fueled success.

Now, upon my seasonal migration to the east coast, I am unable to go anywhere without the sight of Dunkin’ Donuts. You know all those jokes in the movies about a Starbucks being across from a Starbucks? I doubt people here would get those jokes. I have yet to see a Starbucks since I passed into Ohio on my way here. Dunkin’ Donuts is still a bigger franchise nationwide than Starbucks, but I haven’t seen one west of the Mississippi in years. So, yeah. Dunkin’ is big here.

Wawa

There are plenty of “east coast things” I’ve never heard of before, but I doubt any of them are as wondrous as Wawa. Picture a giant convenience store with pretty much all of the best convenience store stuff. Now add a cheap deli with fresh ingredients, and lots of hungry drunk people. You’ve got Wawa.

If I didn’t have better self-restraint, Wawa and Dunkin’ would have me weighing 350 pounds and propositioning myself for a glazed donut and an Italian hoagie (and if you’re wondering, this hypothetical state of free-form gluttony would have me combining donuts and hoagies into a meal. Every meal, as a matter of fact).

Traffic/Road systems

I’m beginning to get the sneaking suspicion that, as part of a halfway house program, the state of New Jersey decided to hire crack addicts to design their roads (perhaps this explains why all Jersey roadways are dotted with Dunkin’s. A revelation!). Sometimes you have to be in the left lane to go left. Sometimes you have to be in the right lane to go left, and u-turns can require you to branch off, swoop around in a miniature exit ramp and cut across three lanes to turn left back onto the road you were just on. Often I’ll have to drive past where I’m trying to go, pull a right lane u-turn and drive back the other way. Driving here can be somewhat of a crapshoot, and requires the ability to change lanes at the drop of a hat with a fragile combination of reckless abandon and blind faith.

Simply put, South Jersey is a web of small, slower highways (i.e. Route 38) and big, faster highways (i.e. the Jersey Turnpike). The small highways operate with stoplights, which results in a steady flow of rear-endings and road rage. These stoplights, which allow the small highways to mesh with roads and streets, cause a constant rate of bumper-to-bumper traffic in certain areas from around 4 PM to 8 PM (and at a lesser rate in the mornings). Any time the small highways and big highways meet up, the exit and entry ramps are in the same lane. This results in a complex and awe-inspiring shuffle of cars across several lanes, trading spots within a few feet of each other.

Drivers here have the impressive ability to turn one lane into two, or sometimes three lanes according to different waypoints when traffic is at the max. This makes the aforementioned shuffle of cars even more dangerous and mystifying. It is no surprise that the “Pittsburgh left” is alive and well in South Jersey (for those who don’t know, the Pittsburgh left is a maneuver in which, upon seeing a light turn green, a driver will gun it and turn left ahead of oncoming traffic).

At the end of the day, though, it’s pretty nice here. It’s been a great experience to live somewhere I’ve never been before, and I’ve had some fun. My only regret so far?

I have yet to see a true Guido.

Questions? Comments? E-mail me at chris@thed3experience.com All original material copyright © 2008-2009 Chris Jarmon

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Posted: 06|14|09 at 12:01 am. Filed under: Musings.
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