AUTHOR’S NOTE: Every year around this time we drive from New Hampshire to Florida for a month-long stay during the worst of the New England winter. February in Daytona Beach has been too cold for the last few years so we pushed it out a month into March. I normally perform a trip forecast with the tarot cards, but for this one I’m using standard playing cards.

We take just over three days to get there; this reading covers the first day, bringing us into central Pennsylvania on our way to the Shenandoah Valley. (We’ve steered clear of the New Jersey Turnpike and the Baltimore-Washington Beltway for the past ten years because we’re not feeling suicidal.)

The psychological descriptions for the 6 of Diamonds don’t make any sense here so I’m going with energy-related definitions derived from the Art of Cartomancy material for the first couple of hours into the initial leg of the journey: energy surge, vitality. horsepower, kinetic energy, nervous energy, adrenaline.

This stretch of white-knuckle driving puts us in the overcrowded I-95 corridor headed toward Boston and then turning West in the direction of Hartford, CT. We usually need all the adrenaline we can get for this demanding, high-speed rush. Coffee to the rescue!

The King of Spades indicates that I will be taking over the wheel for the next section between Hartford and Scranton. PA. The relevant keywords are “calculating, shrewd, emotionally controlled and detached,” the ideal temperament for combating road rage in the midst of automotive mayhem (but at least it won’t be “rush hour”).

The 4 of Clubs suggests a lunch stop. The pertinent definitions in addition to “a trip by car” would be “the four walls of a room” and “a four-legged social table.”

The Ace of Clubs has us setting out again with “focus, direction and singleness of purpose” for the last push over the western reaches of the Pocono Mountains. The next spell of travel looks to be uneventful since the weather promises to be clear and dry (never a guarantee in that region).

The 10 of Hearts has us arriving in Hershey, PA in fine shape. I wouldn’t go as far as predicting “heat and warm weather” in Pennsylvania at the end of February but we will be moving in the right direction, and in fact a warm-up is on the way even though all those black cards don’t hint at it.