My oldest is off to college! I successfully delivered him to his dorm yesterday.
This went relatively smoothly as things go. He packed up his stuff on Monday/Tuesday, and we loaded the minivan around noon on Tuesday. I then proceeded to drive us up to Boston, where he’s attending Northeastern University.
The drive was…something. The minivan was good — I normally drive my 2011 Acura, but there is no good way to charge a device in that car (seriously, even the cigarette lighter — remember those?– doesn’t work with the adapters I’ve tried). That is a problem for map finding on a long journey. Also, the minivan gets incredible gas mileage. I started with a full tank and arrived in Boston with about half a tank. I fueled up on the way home but it’s quite possible that without traffic reducing my efficiency I almost wouldn’t have needed to stop for gas.
However, the journey was just long. And with a lot of other cars on the road. I decided to just follow my map app’s advice, and we had been heading over the George Washington Bridge, but then it re-routed us up to the Tappen Zee, and then on this convoluted route on the Saw Mill River Parkway (upside: I paid homage to Reader’s Digest, where I worked for a bit), and then on I-684 up through Connecticut. There was a lot of traffic on I-84 then, so I’m not sure this was actually the shortest way, but once you’re up in rustic Connecticut you’re kind of committed. We kept losing time. Theoretically my son could have driven too but this was just really rough driving so I wound up doing it. We got to the Sheraton in Back Bay at around 7:15 p.m.
We ate at Yard House, which was nice, and then at Flour in the morning (of course!). We got the van back from valet parking at precisely 11:15 a.m. to drive over for our 11:30-1:30 p.m. arrival window.
This was truly an amazing process vs. what I remember from moving into college. We pulled into a queue in front of his dorm and several beefy guys unloaded all his stuff within 30 seconds into a moving cart. He then went to check into his dorm while I parked in a nearby garage. It took me longer to find parking in the garage than it took them to get all his stuff into the dorm! I then walked back over and we started setting things up.
(His roommate’s parents were there doing the same. I was doing this solo because my husband is currently traveling with kid #2 on a long-planned trip — we did not know when our move-in window would be when that trip was booked. I am mentioning this to flag this as a scheduling challenge for people who have lots of kids or commitments or who need to book days off work far in advance — you often don’t know what college your kid is attending until April of senior year. Colleges start at lots of different times — anywhere from mid-August to mid-September. Once my kid chose a school, I knew roughly when the move-in would be, but we didn’t get the exact date and window until about a month before.)
During the move-in process we discovered that between my husband and my son, neither had thought to buy a mattress pad. (They went to Target and IKEA shopping for dorm supplies together.) The dorm mattresses are like rubber — I know for good reasons — but this was not going to be great for sleeping. So my son and I wound up tromping 20 minutes over to Target and buying a mattress pad. We set up his bed, and then we said our goodbyes. It would have been nice to stay a little longer but…I was facing down a 7-hour solo drive home. So we weren’t too dramatic about it!
The route back felt more direct at first — I got routed on 15 (Merritt Parkway) through Connecticut, which makes more sense, and which I have been on before. But then there was some traffic issue my map kept trying to deal with — I wound up being taken off the Merritt Parkway and driving through residential streets in Greenwich. I was supposed to get on the Henry Hutchison Parkway then, but the ramp was blocked (police car/traffic cones/etc.) from my direction so I was sitting there in some Greenwich neighborhood semi-panicked as there was no other highway nearby. Not a good moment. But I decided to turn around and thankfully the entrance ramp from the other side of the road was not blocked. I went over the GWB but found that the south bound cars/trucks/buses side of the NJ turnpike was closed, meaning all of us were in the cars-only lanes so it was just thick traffic until I was almost to the PA turnpike exit. Having left at 2 p.m. I arrived home at 9:43.
Fortunately, I listened to some podcasts along the way. Among them: The Taylor Swift interview with Jason Kelce. I really, really enjoyed this. I think my favorite part was the details of music recording contracts and how one negotiates for intellectual property. This podcast filled two hours, so I was grateful for that!
Because I was so focused on the hard drive, I haven’t had too much time to think about the magnitude of having shipped a kid off to school. It’s a big thing, but I guess I also feel like we will still see him. My husband is in Boston all the time. We already have a hotel for parents weekend at the end of October. Christmas break runs from Dec 15 to January 20 so he will be with us for a solid month, and then probably for much of July and August next year too. I trust that he will manage himself and figure out life in his new surroundings. By the time I left he had gotten himself invited to a watch party for a favorite show, and he was meeting up with someone he’d met at Orientation. He’s thinking (possibly too much) about his future career options and has spent significant time the past few weeks brushing up on chemistry since he’s taking that this fall. I think he will be fine!
And now we are down to four kids for day-to-day schedules and management. Today I am off to a kindergarten meet and greet, which is quite a juxtaposition. Probably not too many parents there were dropping off a kid at college this week!
Photo: Sorry for the hotel room photo, none of my move-in day photos have been approved for posting.
Awww, congrats on this big milestone, and hoping your son has the BEST freshman year!! What an exciting time. My social media is being flooded with various families we know doing dorm move-in, and I keep just thinking, wait, what? Isn’t that kid like, 14? Ha. Nope…. Somehow many of these little guys we knew from soccer, swim team, school, etc are now flying the coop already! We aren’t too far behind- E just started junior year already…
@Grateful Kae- you are getting there!! And for you the two will be in close succession. My son’s roommate is a twin so his parents had just moved his twin into her college the other day and that is it for kids at home for them! I’m sure they are really experiencing a whoa moment.
Wow! such an amazing milestone. Like Kae my SM is filled with kids off to college. My son is starting his senior year on Tuesday so we are right behind to you.
Also so much sympathy re: your drive to and from Boston. Those highways are all familiar and I have driven to Boston and through Boston about 6 times this year. I have been sent on every possible route. It is never easy. Who knew rush hour on the I-84 in Danbury CT was such a thing! Apparently now I do.
@Gillian – it was a thing. I feel like the appearance and the disappearance of the “slow vehicle lanes” aren’t really helping much – every few miles we’d slow down to re-merge down to two lanes in CT and…ugh.
I’ve had a decade of driving between Philly and CT and I can’t believe all the map software still wants you to take the GW. Set your map for the Cuomo bridge (what used to be the Tappan Zee), then 287E to 684 to 84. Avoid the Saw Mill to get to 684, it frequently floods. This is sometimes offered as an alternate route but should be the default in my book!
@Anna – yeah the maps seem to like the GWB (though on the way home at first it wanted me to go south through Manhattan on the west side and take the Lincoln over – which I now understand was because it was trying to minimize time on the NJ turnpike with the closures, but eventually it rerouted to GWB because the Manhattan traffic and the tunnel traffic had built up). The problem with a map app when you are actively driving and don’t have a map-savvy other passenger (or are solo) is you can’t really analyze why it’s telling you to go the way it’s going. Like if I’d known that the Saw Mill/interior of CT route was only ten minutes slower than, say, driving on 15, I probably wouldn’t have gone that way. But I would have had to pull over to analyze it and so I just had to trust it. I do generally prefer the Cuomo/Tappen Zee route to go to points north. A much more civilized bridge!
What an exciting milestone! We’re still a few years away from this yet. My oldest is starting high school this year. That said, I know the years will fly by and I’ll blink and the whole application process will be starting.
I watched the podcast episode with Taylor and Travis and was literally in the middle of listening when the news dropped that they were engaged. I’m in awe of her energy levels. I cannot imagine how much stamina it took to do the Eras tour. And how exciting you got to see it live more than once!!! It’s a once-in-a-lifetime tour, I suspect!
@Elisabeth – it was really cool to see the concert. I was tired watching it, so it’s hard to imagine how much stamina it took to do over and over again! Yep, you’ll be here soon. It is a process but it all probably works out one way or the other 🙂
Wow, what an efficient move-in process! My mom did college drop-off for me as well. I was kid #4 and summers were a busy season for their business so my dad opted to work rather than come with us. Which is more than fine. I know my mom helped me make my bed but I don’t think she stuck around for long and there were no tears – for either of us! I was so ready to start college and she knew I was ready, too.
My kids are so much younger than my college friends. One moved her son into college this week. Meanwhile I’ve got a kid starting PK. I told her she’ll probably be rocking grandbabies by the time my youngest goes to college. But hey, having young kids will keep us young, right? I do think that was the case for my parents. They had a 16 year span between oldest to youngest. My parents were 58 when my youngest sister went to college and that’s how old we’ll be when our youngest goes to college.
@Lisa – I’m interested to see if I am the oldest parent at the meet-and-greet at the kindergarten today. Perhaps not! (Well if my husband were there he’d be older than me…but oldest mom). Back in 1997, I flew to NJ by myself (my brother was a grad student and picked me up at the airport). I remember that the big news during my first few days of college was Princess Diana’s death. My son was excited about the big news for his beginning of school with the Kelce/Swift engagement. A much more positive story!
Congratulations–also, he sounds so well prepared for this new experience!
@SHH – thanks! I think he’ll do great – I’m very proud of him.
Congrats! When we left Boston 11 years ago, the thing I missed most on a day to day basis was Flour. I probably grabbed a sandwich or pastry there every couple of weeks. I was surprised that it was the Boston thing I missed, but I guess it makes sense as it was the kind of treat you could have pretty often and I haven’t found anything else like it!