Start:
End:
Mileage: 116 miles
Route taken: Highway 9 to
Highway 1 to Interstate 95, exit at
This was the furthest east I could go and today marked a
southward turn on my trip. In some ways it saddened me. I knew I was
moving
towards home rather than away from it, even if I was going south.
My plan is to return home to
As much difficulty as the road can be, and all the challenges
it presents, there is still nothing more satisfying than being a part
of it.
So I was heading down the coast, taking my time, since I knew
I was stopping in
There was a small deli just outside of
My weakness for submarine sandwiches is pathetic. I could
probably eat them every day. I don’t know what it is about them, but I
have
always loved a good sandwich.
This place provided me with a delicious Italian sandwich and
better conversation. It was my second positive interaction with New
Englanders
and I was really starting to worry.
I had come to this area expecting resistance. When I was here
12 years ago the people were some of the most unfriendly I had ever
encountered.
They were as cold as the weather.
It was disturbing. They didn’t have to be, but the dour looks
and frigid demeanors really made my visit to the area extremely
unenjoyable.
So when the people at the deli welcomed me and were
interested in the motorcycle, it was a bit unnerving.
I was totally expecting to eat my sandwich under a cloud of
contempt, cast at me by everyone in the room. When the exact opposite
happened,
I was quite surprised.
They even gave me advice on what route I should take to get
to
Ok, now I am wondering when the pod people exactly took over.
Actually I have a theory about why the sudden change in
attitude.
This is an area that lives for its sports teams. It is a
symbiotic relationship and there hasn’t been anything to cheer about
since the
Boston Celtics were dominant in the 80s.
The New England Patriots were never really good and that just
added to an already dreary winter, a winter set up by a heartbreak by
the
Boston Red Sox.
All summer the baseball team would look promising and then
some how would manage to tear out fans’ hearts just before the leaves
turned
and the air got colder.
So by the time Spring came around, New Englanders had five
months to think how bad their teams were all the while the Boston
Bruins were
stinking up the ice.
I would probably be in a bad mood too.
Then all of a sudden, the teams started winning, at least the
teams that mattered.
The Patriots won two Super Bowls and started looking like the
Dallas Cowboys, winning three of the last four Super Bowls.
Then
86 years of misery was erased when the Red Sox won the World Series.
Well
now it is like a Shriner’s Convention here. Everyone is smiling,
everyone
helpful. I don’t know whether I am in
When
I arrived in the city, a cold I had been fighting for the last few days
was
tightening its grip around me. I wanted to find a nice, clean, cheap
hotel
room. When I went to the Super 8 and the man told me he had no rooms,
he
actually helped me find another place.
I
thought I was hallucinating from the cold medicine.