Car Travels

I often travel by car to New York City from Long Island. Of course, to enter into different parts of the city, one must pay a toll. I am lucky enough to have an EZ Pass so I can breeze through the toll traffic. However, I have been noticing a jam in the EZ Pass line. This makes me unable to breeze through the tolls, which defeats the purpose of paying for an EZ Pass. Each time there is such a jam, I have noticed that a worker comes to the car window and takes the driver's EZ Pass. I never thought anything of it, until I was in a car that caused the jam.
Recently I traveled into Manhattan with my older sister and her fiance in their car. We stopped at an EZ Pass lane to pay the toll at the 59th Street Bridge, and the barrier did not raise. We were dumbfounded. Then, the worker came to our car and asked for our EZ Pass. I couldn't believe it was us this time! Apparently, the cause of these jams is due to payment issues with the credit card one uses to pay their EZ Pass bill. Therefore, they repossessed my sister's EZ Pass and she had to pay the toll with cash and figure out the credit card payments on her own. In our case, there was a freeze on my sister's credit card account due to the fact that she lost her credit card and was waiting for a new one. Hey, I guess it happens to the best of us!


Vocabulary
toll-a fee paid to pass over a highway or a bridge
EZ Pass-electronic toll collection system paid by credit card rather than cash
jam-a blockage
breeze through-move or pass through through quickly
fiance-the term for someone who is engaged to be married
dumbfounded-confusion or astonishment
a freeze-a hold on a credit card account
it happens to the best of us-problems or incidents that can happen to everyone

Cloze Exercise
1. I went to NYC this weekend and had to pay a _______ on the way.
2. There was no one on the road, so I was able to __________ to work.
3. My _______ and I are looking to buy a home.
4. When I could not pay with my credit card I was __________!
5. Someone stole my credit card, so the company put __________ on my account.
6. I could not enter the room due to the ___________ in the doorway.
7. I use an ___________ rather than cash to pay tolls.
8. A bird pooped on my new hat today. __________________!


Grammatical Structure-Verbs in the past tense
-These are verbs that are used to describe a completed action in the past. For example, when I use the words 'traveled' or 'stopped'. There are some words that can imply the use of a verb in the past tense such as; yesterday or last week.

Choose the correct answer, a or b.
1. Yesterday, I ________ a fence.
a. climbed b.climb
2. Last week, I ________ my grandparents.
a. visit b. visited
3. Today, I will ________ my dog.
a. walked b. walk



Link
Here is a link to find out more about obtaining an EZ Pass to pay tolls. I highly recommend it! It is so much easier and faster than paying in cash.
http://www.ezpass.com/

I hope you enjoyed my first blog. Forgive me if the format is wrong, it is my first post! If anyone has any advice or comments that can better my posts, PLEASE let me know. Thank you!
-Kathleen :)