New England

I had looked forward to traveling first class to Boston. As it turned out, my expectations were met completely. The seats were broad and comfortable, the food excellent, the service attentive. I had deliberately saved these first-class upgrades for a longer trip than a jaunt to California. It was a wise choice.

Art doesn’t have such a positive recollection of the flight. He has tinnitus (ringing in the ears) from his military service in Vietnam. On the flight to Boston, he was seated by the window, next to the engine. The pitch of the motor aggravated the tinnitus. When we arrived in Boston after a five-hour nonstop flight, I was still fairly fresh, but Art was grouchy.

I’d stopped by AAA in Lynnwood the week before we left to pick up maps of New England, and I was fortunate to have a customer service person help me who’d lived in Boston and knew his way around New England. He listened to our destination plans and marked up maps of Vermont, New York and Maine with “must see” places. Most helpfully, he marked a route on the map from Logan Airport to the northbound interstate that avoided downtown Boston and the tunnels into it.

I’ve only driven in Boston twice in my life. Once was when I was a teenager, traveling from North Carolina to Maine with my mother and my sister. We got very lost on the highways around Boston. I remember the Prudential Building coming into sight with each new turn we took. The second drive was seven years ago, when we arrived late at night and drove from the airport to Sharon and Bob’s house in southern Massachusetts. Sharon gave us careful, detailed instructions and told us to pay attention to them rather than to any map. We did. I seriously doubt that a map would have been of any assistance whatever in that venture. So, as I had stood at the AAA counter, I had been grateful for the lines the agent drew me with his thick green felt-tipped marker on the Boston-area road map.

We found our Avis rental easily in the lot. I looked for the model on the dashboard; apparently we were to be spending our highway miles in a Buick Airbag.

I told Art I wanted him to drive until we got out of the city and were safely on the interstate headed for Vermont. I had spent time on the plane looking again at the AAA map, making careful mental notes on how to get out of the city. I am a decent navigator, and I had the information. Art is not so strong in either the navigation or the in the patience departments. I figured we couldn’t go wrong with him driving and me giving directions.

The first eight miles or so were harrowing. I kept my eyes on the map and the road, watching carefully for the route indicators while Art battled the Boston drivers. Art’s narrowed eyes and set mouth on roads at home is a worrisome thing, but his hyper-vigilant driving habits were well suited to the unfamiliar, hectic Boston traffic. Within 20 minutes we reached the onramp to the I-95 interstate, our cruising freeway for 200 miles or so.

I usually do the freeway driving on our trips, but this time Art stayed at the wheel for a couple of hours. We had decided to change drivers after we stopped for dinner. We started looking for off-ramp signs that would indicate food, lodging or gas was available. We soon realized that there were way fewer off ramps in New Hampshire (which was where we were by now) than in Washington State. Not much traffic, not many freeway lights, few lights of houses or communities. The rural freeway didn’t feel godforsaken, though, as it does in places like Arizona. There were people in towns nearby. It was like the freeway was incidental to the life going on around it. In Washington, our freeways are usually loaded up with cars, a necessary piece of everyday culture. I can’t imagine life in Washington without freeways; I can see it easily in New Hampshire and Vermont.

We tried an off ramp, drove a mile looking for the restaurant, came upon a tiny village square with a darkened café to one side, reversed direction and returned to the freeway. Eight miles or so later we did the same thing. This time, the village restaurant was brightly lit, its small parking lot filled with 20 or so vehicles. Through the window we saw long tables full of people. A family gathering, probably. It was tempting to park and go inside, but by now it was about 8 pm, and our preference was for a take-out place so we could eat on the road. We knew our hours traveling would catch up with us, and we wanted to get to Smugglers Notch before we were too tired to drive sensibly. Art and I decided to wait until we reached a larger town where we could see familiar fast-food signs – a Burger King or a Subway, maybe.

And then we drove 45 more minutes before we finally found such a place. We were within five miles of the Vermont border by this time. Art pulled into the parking lot of a combination gas station-minimart-Subway.

As the ruddy-faced, sparsely-mustached blond teenager behind the counter put our subs together, we chatted with him. To my surprise, he had no regional New England accent. He spoke almost exactly like our own teenagers on the west coast. It occurred to me that it was because he probably watched the same movies and television, where most of the characters speak unaccented, nonregional English. I was disappointed to think this generation of New Englanders would sound just like everyone else.

And, I discovered, the counterperson had the same feelings of boredom as our teenagers. “There’s nothing to do here at night,” he said, “except watch TV or do homework. And come to work.” He continued, “When I finish high school I’m going to move to someplace like Boston where things are happening.” The dream of rural kids everywhere – to get out of town to somewhere more exciting.

I took the driving shift. Art finished his sub and fell asleep, mouth open slightly and snoring quietly as usual. The road was dark. Rain fell off and on. I remember the driver training teacher, back in the 60s, instructing us that the first thing we should do when we get behind the wheel is make sure all the knobs and gadgets on the dashboard and steering column were working. I hadn’t done that when we left the Subway place; as usual, I turned off the lights once, at 60 miles an hour, before I found the wipers. The road rose and fell. I’m sure we were passing through green foothills. I wished it were still daylight so I could see the countryside.

I turned off the freeway at the Stowe sign. The last 25 miles or so was on a two-lane state highway. We went through several darkened villages. In Stowe, we turned left on the undivided highway that took us over Smugglers Notch, a narrow road cut in the mountain that is closed to traffic in winter. For a few hundred feet, this road consisted of one wide lane. I tapped the horn as we went around the last two curves.

Smugglers Notch Resort is quite a spread. We’ve stayed at timeshares that looked like condo developments. This place looked like a community. Houses, condos, a couple of restaurants, a waterslide, convenience store. Even at 10:30 at night, in the shoulder season, there were cars in the central parking lot. At the check-in desk we confirmed that Sharon and Bob had arrived as we got directions to our timeshare unit.

We could hear the TV as we knocked on the door. Sharon and I hugged each other as Bob and Art shook hands. The daughter, Kathleen, had gone to bed. The condo included two good-sized bedrooms, two baths, and a spacious kitchen and living area. TVs in the living room, each bedroom, and the master bathroom - on a shelf above the tub. I visualized two couples, or a family with children, staying in this unit. Everyone could retire to their own space and select a preferred viewing schedule. For Art and me, who watch TV only rarely, the number of televisions was something to chuckle about. We did like the large jetted tub in the master bath.

Sharon had bought everything on our grocery list except the mint. Snacks lined the kitchen counter: a tempting trail mix with nuts and chocolate chips – better tasting but more sinful than the dried-fruit-and-nut mix we buy at home – plus Sun Chips, apples and several boxes of variety crackers. I was glad the grocery shopping had been taken care of, and felt a faint regret at my unsportsmanlike thoughts. I was glad I hadn’t sent an unfriendly email.

Over the sound of the TV we discussed plans for the next day, Monday. Sharon and Bob had already been to the Ben & Jerry’s factory, the Teddy Bear store and a few antique places in Stowe, so we were spared from those visits ourselves. I’d researched volkssmarches before we left home; there was one in Stowe. We decided to walk it as a group, stopping for lunch midway. We’d stop at the grocery store in Stowe to search for mint and to pick up some ice cream (not on the list I’d given Sharon, but a necessity for Art), then return to the condo in time for Art to make his famous Mongolian Grill for dinner. Bob turned off the TV and we all said goodnight.