Thursday, June 4th

Go Slow

Once more the direct route onwards was blocked by an urban centre, Boston this time. So, instead of continuing north along beautifully named Sandy Bottom Road, I turned west. I crossed a lake, correctly straight through its middle. A construction site was protected by two police cars, their lights flashing. Then back into forests. Ever so often I there was a river or a pond, and once, rather unexpectedly, a golf course. A sign suggested that I was following the Blackstone River Valley.

Even though this was a wide, empty, and straight road, the local authorities found it necessary to impose a speed limit of a mere forty. Even Norway, nanniest of nanny states, allows more than that. Once the road became a little more narrow, the limit even dropped down to thirty-five. The problem with such a low limit? One tends to doze off. In Clayville, I almost drove into the village pond as the road made a sudden left turn around it. It was a lovely pond, though, trees around it and water lilies drifting on its surface.

Another construction side and again it was protected by a lights flashing police car with the officer directing traffic. This seemed to be the preferred method in this part of the country, rather than having workers and their tall lollipop stop signs. Surely, the officers must be thrilled about this duty, standing there all day, waving cars about.

Chepachet next, a busy intersection of many a road. Stores were either selling antiques or liquor or were insurance brokers. There even was a traffic light and, subsequently, a little traffic jam. I easily found my designated road by just looking out for the big truck turning into it. Luckily it wasn’t planning on going far and soon I was back in lonely forests sneaking along.

I could see how this surely must be a rather mind boggling drive in fall foliage. It was rather nice even now, very much coffee table book New England: An impenetrable world of trees and undergrowth, fifty shades of green; the grey band of the road in between, two yellow lines marking out at its heart, a calming sequence of wooden poles, connected by the black string of the power lines closely following in on the left; a bird, too lazy to fly, hurrying across the street as I approach; fat white clouds drifting through the small window of sky forced open by the road.

Eventually, I arrived in another town. There was no sign announcing its name or suggesting that in fact it turned out to be rather big. The road twisted around, turning left or right several times. The town just wouldn’t end. I counted three churches and two village ponds. It finally did end but only because there was a lake to cross, a rather big one, too.

A few miles out of town a large red brick complex stood on top of a barren hill. A boiler house, red brick, too, with a stubby smoke stack stood on the other side of the road. Mystified as to whether it had been designed to look this creepy, my guess was mental hospital and, indeed, I was right.

The road dumped me onto an unsigned intersection. I chose left because the middle line only continued there. Soon, the road changed. The pavement was broken, the shoulder missing. I surely had arrived in Massachusetts, even if, out here in the wilderness, there was no welcome sign. There was no road signing any more either. I tiptoed along and eventually reached a numbered road in Douglas, exactly were I had planned to end up.

Westward now, I came to Lake Chaubunagungamaug, the full name announced proudly atop a log house store by the lake. The restaurant next door was called ‘My Brother’s Place.’ Funny people, here.

The lake was in fact part of Webster, somewhat surprisingly a rather big town of large houses and stone churches, something I hadn’t seen in quite some time. The town hall was a monstrous red brick building with white columns and a wooden clock tower. Some of the merchant buildings along main street were a whooping four storeys tall.

Webster was followed directly by more modest Dudley before forests returned. Suddenly a sign said ‘Welcome to Thompson, Connecticut.’ Wait, what? That wasn’t my direction at all. But about fifty metres further, I reached an intersection, turned right, and yet another fifty metres and I was back in Massachusetts.

The road climbed onto a mountain plateau that was free of trees and provided spectacular views out over the endless woods. The locals used the lack of tree for a bit of farming, there even stood a grain silo and I had to overtake a tractor. When the trees came back, they seemed smaller and less determined. The endless string of houses returned to the side of the road.

A determinedly ugly building announced Spencer: large and boxy and covered with tile of some kind in an awkward shade of red. Of course it was the school. The church, a little onwards, wasn’t much better, though. It, too was huge but very confused instead of boxy. Both smothered the small, quite agreeable town centre.

And so I continued north: one town after another, each with a red brick centre for the road to tumble through. Police officers were guarding all the construction sites, of which there were many. Minivans and even regular sedans were operating as school buses after having gotten a ridiculously large sign slapped onto their roof.

Eventually I reached the main highway I was planning on continuing for the rest of the day. Rolling along small side roads had been fun, but I was sure my luck was about to run out. Additionally, I hoped that the bigger road would carry a bigger speed limit, but that turned out to be false hope. Instead, the bigger road was rather busy, perhaps warranting the careful attitude.

A few towns on, it turned around a lazy bend and down a hill and crossed a rather large lake. I had an inkling and indeed a happy blue sign welcomed and bienvenued me to New Hampshire. It also proclaimed the state motto, ‘live free or die,’ which seemed unnecessarily dramatic to me.

The new state was eager to confirm the preconceptions about it: the road crossed another lake, went through a swamp, and returned to endless, undisturbed forests, safe for more lakes and swamps, and the odd somewhat unmotivated shopping mall.

Roadside attraction (or what the highway authorities or their owners deemed to be such) were announced by blue road signs. Some of them were state operated liquor stores. Both seemed very Canadian too me. Indeed, distances to the next exit on the fast highway I now was entering were also given in kilometres, even if I doubted the road-warring Canadian needed such help.

Sadly, the fast road still only had two lanes. It was too busy to shake the truck I was stuck behind. When it finally did turn off and thing started to look up, a road construction site dumped me back into the middle of a long convoi.

I arrived at Concord, an urban centre blocking the journey towards the coast. Luckily, it provided a motorway bypass and soon enough I was around and on track for the last hour of driving. But this road was unhappily busy, too. It was unlikely there was any relief before the coast. For a while I made peace with this fact, but then decided to screw this and turned off onto a narrow side road. It may only allow thirty-five, but at least there wasn’t an endless queue.

I started out on a numbered highway, but, following a hint given by my map, eventually turned onto a road that didn’t even have a middle line any more. I had picked it based on a direction given but wasn’t quite sure this was correct. Worried that this may turn into one of those adventures ending in turning around after ten miles, I pressed on. There still was constant homes alongside the road and the power line on the poles looked rather solid.

A sign welcomed me to Nottingham and the house numbers started to count down. When they reached zero, I stop-signed onto exactly the road I wanted to. Surely, this was my lucky day.

Newmarket and Newfield, the two next towns, were rather big and so I was back on afternoon busy roads. But Portsmouth was only a few miles away and soon enough I parked the car on the hotel parking lot.

I had chosen a nice hotel downtown in a refurbished mansion. For once, I could walk to a restaurant. It was a little too early for dinner just yet, so I strolled around the centre, a lovely mixture of business and tourism and very much alive. I enjoyed the evening sun by the docks and walked along the city streets full of pedestrian crosswalks and, subsequently, pedestrians.

Then dinner and, to the sound of the fire trucks departing their home next door ever so often, early to bed.