Traveling On The Thruway

A lot of people have to travel this evening to get home from their extended Thanksgiving weekend. So I thought I would take this opportunity to remind everyone that their are travel cams at all the exits along the NYS Thruway. Whether you are coming from or going to the Catskills at this point, these can be helpful to assist in assessing the traffic situation before you leave. So bookmark this link and check it out before you travel. Although we are 30 minutes from the Kingston toll booths and things can change fast this could possibly give you some idea of what to expect. Check it out.

http://www.thruway.ny.gov/travelers/map/index.html?layer=cameras

NYState Thruway Webcams

I discovered completely by accident that the NYS Thruway has live webcams so that you can monitor traffic. Here is the link to the site http://www.nysthruway.gov/webcams/. You can click on the different cams to see what traffic conditions are at specific points all throughout the day. Of course this is not to say that they will be in the exact same condition by the time you reach that point but I thought this might be helpful to those folks that travel up and down from the city.

WiFi on the Thruway

O.K., so I am a geek. But just in case you haven't noticed, the rest stops on the NY Thruway now have free WiFi. What is WiFi you might ask? It actually means "wireless fidelity" and it is the current term for wireless internet. So how does it work? Basically, you can stop, get a snack or use the rest rooms and then open up your laptop and jump on the internet (for free). I actually used it to solve a small business emergency I was having recently. On my way down to the city a big client called my cell phone and needed me to send a photo to someone ASAP. The file was in my computer so I just pulled into the rest stop, jumped on the internet, and emailed the image. It was amazing. Everyone was happy. Without the WiFi service the client would have been waiting another couple of hours. I am sure they would have been breathing down my neck the whole time. This way I was able to get them what they needed and enjoy the rest of my ride in peace. I thought I would share this story to make you aware of the possibilities! I fly my geek flag proudly!!