Ahhhh, my trip to Vermont.
So much to tell, which I would've done already had I not
been attached to a 33-page research paper that had to be filed by 9:00 Monday
morning. I wasn't sure I'd remember the
particulars of the trip after so many days.
Lucky for us all I wrote it down while I was driving along at 75+
mph. Of course, when I shared this fact
in my writing class at grad school, the horrified look on all their faces told
me that it probably wasn't a grand idea -- the sharing part, anyway. I'm perfectly comfortable with the fact that
I was taking notes while tooling along the interstate.
After all, I am a professional.
Let's go back, back, back to last week's few hours of time,
when I actually ask for (and receive) the day off to go to a lacrosse play-off
game…
The first thing I do after leaving my street is run the
train. That's right, you heard me. The gates are falling and it looks like a
freight train is approaching. Rather
than sit and wait like a sane person would, I run the gates as they pop shut
just behind my tail lights. It's all
good; a car coming eastbound does the same thing as I cross westbound. We wave to each other, two nuts loose on the
road, both silently thinking, "Thank God that idiot's going the other
way."
A lot of good it does me.
I am immediately driving behind a sexy white Tiburon driven by the
world's slowest driver. If we were going
any slower, I'd be in reverse. Why own a
sexy sports car if you're going to drive it like the elderly mini-bus? I finally make my way to 93 north and weave
my way across three lanes of light traffic.
It's not a bad drive so far, and I wonder briefly as I pass my son's
college exit if I might also pass their team bus on the way to Vermont. I am ridiculously early because I plan on
meeting my cousin and his wife for lunch, and by meeting, I actually mean meeting
for the first time. Until a few
months ago, neither of us knew the other existed. My great-grandfather had two families. Don't panic - it wasn't at the same time, and
it was all perfectly legal.
As I pass just north of Manchester, I notice the signs for
the toll booths. I say to no one in
particular, since the only person with me is Billy Connolly via my GPS,
"When the hell did they put toll booths up on 93?" Then I burst out laughing because I seem to
have a mental block about this, and I can hear my kids' voices whining,
"Maaaaaaaaa, you save this everrrrrrry time we drive through
here." Note to self: There are toll
booths on 93 north just past Manchester.
It is at this point that I notice my windshield has once
again (as when I went to Albany for the St. Rose lacrosse game) become target
practice for bugs. Some of the bugs are
so huge that I can hear their carcasses cartwheeling across the roof after
being forcefully ejected from the front glass.
I am armed with a packet of Windex wipes; I'll wipe them all away when I
stop at the Vermont border.
I finally reach 89, which branches off from 93 and heads
northwest. I know I've reached 89
because my ears pop. I don't think the
altitude is that great. Maybe it's the
sound of my brain imploding when I see that it is 148 more miles to my next
exit. Pissah. For anyone unfamiliar with route 89, there
are two houses, a dog, three cows, and fifty trees, and that same scene moves
on and on, over and over again, until the car reaches the state line. (When Vermont arrives, it will be trees only
that move along the scenic vista, but I'm ahead of myself.)
Once in a while a panoramic glimpse of the mountains will
open up, but never long enough for me to get the camera on the phone
ready. As my ears continue to pop, I am
suddenly disappointed by the fact that I can no longer see the mountain
view. That is, until it dawns on me that
the reason I cannot see the mountain
is because I'm on the mountain.
When I pass the Wadleigh State Park exit, I yawn. Boredom is starting to set in, and it doesn't
help that the only radio stations currently within earshot are all
country-western, an anomaly I've never been able to explain. I mean, I lived in southern New Hampshire for
a long time, and I don't recall a single one of my neighbors listening to banjo
music, except maybe the MacHargs, but they weren't really neighbors and they
lived out near the Cider Mill, so I blame the run-off from the apple presses.
When I get to New London, which is somewhere around exit
#12, I notice the sign for the NH Park & Ride. Seriously?
Where the hell are these commuters riding to… Montreal? Almost immediately I pass a Pinto (the pony,
not the car), and I wonder if this is the Park & Ride: Park here, ride the Pinto around the corral a
few times, then drive home. I decide
that this really isn't fair; after all, I know New Hampshire has some very
populated areas . . . like Roxbury, Errol, Dummer, and Clarksville; if you add
them all together, you almost have enough people to fill an entire movie
theater, and that's saying something.
There's still snow up here; not real snow, but leftover man-made
ski-snow. The trails atop Mount Sunapee (and
other nearby ski mountains) is clearly visible from a far distance, and that's
not really too surprising. What is
surprising is the snow that's still on the side of Whaleback, a small ski area
that sits in the valley next to the highway, so close to the traffic that if
there were a car accident on the southbound side, the vehicles may well end up
on the lift.
It is around this area that I notice the radio going in and
out because even the country singers have abandoned the vicinity for
civilization. Now the only stations
coming in are classical choral stations, and not the same one over and over but
multiple original stations. I like
choral music, grew up singing the stuff, but the selections sound more like
monasteries full of Valium addicts. Couple
that with the sign that claims I have just entered Vermont and am still 90
miles away from my destination, and desolation starts to set in.
I am in the Green Mountain State by 10:00 a.m., crossing the
Connecticut River, which reminds me that my father wanted his ashes dumped into
that river, but further south in Greenfield, MA where he grew up. I really cannot imagine that he liked it
there all that much since he moved away and we never ever went back except for
burials in the family plot. The box with
my father's ashes goes back and forth between my two brothers' houses, and he
gets moved every time one of the wives discovers The Package. The euphemism
is, "Dad's on vacation in New York (or Pennsylvania, depending on who made
the most recent spotting)." Note to self: We really should do something about Dad.
About this time a bird shits on my windshield. I figure it's also about time to do a combo
bug-doodoo windshield cleaning, so after making the first of multiple White
River crossings, I search for a rest area.
I note the sign for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and decide this would
be an interesting viewing. I've stopped
here several times before on other trips, but I've always had children with
me. This will be the first time I've
stopped alone and will actually be able to walk the memorial by myself. I pull into the Sharon rest area and realize
that the eighteen minutes I've managed to gain during my travels is about to be
lost. I would've gained a few more
minutes had construction not slowed my down.
For some reason, miles and miles of route 89 are shut down to one lane
for construction with nary a vehicle nor worker in sight as far as the eye can
see. I snap a few pictures of the
memorial, use the restroom though I don't really have to but decide a PBE --
Preventive Bladder Emptying -- would be wise as it is 74 miles to the next
toilet facilities.
After scraping the bugs and poop off the front glass, I am
ready to go again. I try the radio one
more time as I reach Bethel, hoping I am far enough north to get Canadian
radio, or at least something French.
Instead I get Nelly: If you wanna
go and take a ride with me … hey, must be the money! Nelly quickly fades out and eventually is
replaced by French-Canadian radio.
Finally, the true Vermont experience. It's also around this point of the drive
that I realize Billy, my GPS, hasn't spoken to me in a very long time and
probably won't be talking anytime soon. Note to self -- Contact TomTom with idea
that GPS should check in every 50 miles just to say hello.
By 10:48 I have reached Montpelier, which really doesn't
help me at all since I'm on my way to South Burlington to meet my cousin for
lunch. I'm about 40 miles away from my
first destination at the Windjammer Restaurant, but I'm making great time. At least I had been until I see the old
man. Actually, I'm not entirely sure he
is any old man -- he looks just like skinny Santa Claus, and he's pedaling a
bicycle. This must be where Santa
vacations while the elves all fly down to Kentucky, dress up like jockeys, and
ride horses in the Derby. Yet this is
not the strangest sight I'm going to see along the road.
No sooner does my brain hit overload between the whales and
the dolphins that I realize I am at destination number one about twenty minutes
early. I could go into downtown
Burlington, except I got off the exit going the wrong direction -- well, the
right direction for my lunch date, but the wrong direction to snap a few
pictures of Burlington. So I head past
the airport, take a gander at some planes, and head back to wonderful lunch
with my newest cousin and his wife.
Honestly, it feels like I've known them for years -- I guess there's no
denying blood, and really, we're such an odd family, who else would claim
us? Note
to self: Thank Peter for being seen in
public with me.
After lunch I have about forty minutes to get over to St.
Michaels, which is one simple exit north of the restaurant. This seems easy. Except… except that St. Michael's college
apparently hates athletes who actually play sports outside. They have a lovely outdoor sports complex
with absolutely no place to park. It
takes me half of my allotted spare time to find a parking space where I won't
be towed, a spot which, it turns out, is closer to my house back in
Massachusetts than it actually is to the playing field. I need a Sherpa to weave my way through the
campus to the lacrosse field.
Luckily, I spot some parents of senior players, and I figure
they must've been here before, so I trail along behind them pretending I
belong, ducking behind bushes to hide every time they turn around. I would never make a good spy - my attempts
at remaining incognito are a miserable failure.
The parents are nice enough to show me where the bathrooms are (also
miles from the field) and the back door of the building that leads to the
campus quad area (which coincidentally you can exit but not enter, so if you
need a toilet during the game, it will be a thirty minute round-trip walk).
Now, when I say "quad area," what I really mean is
"Home to a giamundo pile of cow shit" area. Like, I am not even joking. This pile of dung has a higher elevation than
some of the mountains I passed on the way here.
I see some students practicing their mountain climbing skills in full
gear on this huge mound of moo-poo. One
of them plants a flag at the top, claiming it for St. Mike's, and saying a
little doo-doo prayer for safe rappelling back to level ground. In fact, it is the biggest collection of cow
crap I have seen since watching a bus load of Japanese tourists pull over to
take each other's pictures with the pile that was taller than the barn at the
farm next to the Landing School in Arundel, Maine. That pile in Maine pales (in size, not color)
in comparison to this magnificent Vermont college specimen.
The game is not nearly as eventful as the ride, thank
goodness. It's a well-matched,
evenly-played lacrosse play-off, but, alas, we do not leave as the victors,
which is somehow okay. This means I
won't be driving to Long Island on Friday, but that I will be picking my boy up
from his college dorm to come home for the summer. We throw the kids a decent party in the lot,
coincidentally right next to my car.
Apparently parking in New Jersey for a game in Burlington, VT is exactly
where I'm supposed to be, and the bus joins me there. For once, I'm in the right place at the right
time. And then …
Then … it's time to reverse the trip. I won't bore you with the details because
it's really not as exciting a trip back as it has been there. I was smart enough not to drink any beer or
any liquid of any kind because apparently it's only 74 miles between toilets
coming northbound. Southbound on 89,
there are ZERO toilets and maybe one rest area, which is actually a patch of
dirt that fits possibly five vehicles.
My windshield is again covered with suicidal bugs and errant bird
shit. The evening birds seem to poop a
lot more often than the morning birds, and I'm thinking maybe there should be
less French fries left on the ground at the local Mickey D's, if there even is
one, because these birds seem like greased-up champion digesters.
I get boxed in on 89 at one point because the truck in front
of me is going 60 mph, and the van next to me doesn't understand the state law
"Right lane for passing ONLY."
I finally gain about ten feet of space and hit the gas on my Dodge,
which does exactly what Dodges are supposed to do: It accelerates with a shot and creates a huge
roar as it does so, right as I pass a Vermont state trooper (also in a Dodge). Either he sees what I do on the radar and
forgives my violation as part of some mercy rule, or he is sleeping at the
wheel because I am easily doing 85+ mph.
My phone dies at 7:41 p.m., and I fumble with the phone
charger, finally making contact as I hit 93 at 7:47. My aim is to make it to familiar territory
before sundown. After passing through the
New Hampshire toll that I am once again surprised to see (but have money ready
this time), the sun sets around Manchester, and I am good to go. I'm feeling even better when I pass over the
Massachusetts state line and the radio picks up Power Ocho Ciento, the Spanish
station. Ahhhh. Familiar sounds. Finally.
I arrive home in record time, in my driveway by 8:30 p.m. from
a 5:50 departure time. Of course, having
gassed up in Burlington before lunch and without the benefit of potties along
the entire way south, there is no need to stop for anything, not even the
Vermont statie. I didn't even stop to
transcribe my notes -- I just kept flipping the Mapquest directions over to a
new page and wrote all over the backs of everything. Looking at my scribblings now, it looks like
a bunch of gobbly-gook, and I should probably figure out the "record"
device on my phone. It's all good,
though. I have pages of notes, a tale to
tell, and I didn't crash my car nor get a ticket.
I may not text and drive, but, dagnabbit, I can write and
drive. But kids, don't try this at home
nor on the road -- leave this to seasoned writers.
After all, I am a
professional.
(PS - In truth, Vermont has more than trees, the pile of dung was only about thirty feet high, and I was probably doing over 90 mph when I approached the statie. No sense in ruining a good tale with a little honesty.)
(PS - In truth, Vermont has more than trees, the pile of dung was only about thirty feet high, and I was probably doing over 90 mph when I approached the statie. No sense in ruining a good tale with a little honesty.)
