Westward Ho! - Day 2

Yesterday we traveled only 200 miles in 7+ hours. I finally escaped the dense gravity of Stratham at 1:30p, but not before locking myself out of the house one last time. And since Christine wasn't home with a key handy (nor were Cindy or Jean) I had to borrow one of the ladders the roofing contractor had left behind the unit to climb up onto the deck - luckily the back slider was open.

You would have had a good laugh watching this acrophobe climb that ladder - which was about a foot or two shorter than the deck floor - and then try to psych myself out to step OFF the ladder to hoist my heft up and over that railing. Whew! Not sure who was more freaked out about it, me or the Tweets, who had never seen me materialize from that direction.

I couldn't leave NH without wringing as much as I could from it, so we went west on 101 to get the full splendor of the width of the state. And splendorous it was! What a gorgeous day for traveling through our (it's still mine, too!) spectacular state. I miss it already.

Gabriele's friend Leslie had warned me to check the NY State Thruway for closings due to Hurricane Irene, which I had and had found none, but it never occurred to me to check the rest of the route. My bad. Route 9 was closed in VT, forcing us to go down 91 to connect with the Mass Pike instead of continuing due west to Albany. Then 91 was closed and we spent I don't know how long - 2+ hours? - going 6 miles on a windy back road between exits.

I called Leslie and told her the GPS was now predicting our arrival in Lyons at after 11p, unworkable for both of us. I was very disappointed not to be able to meet her. And I know she'd gone to some trouble for us, as I talked to her when she was shopping for dinner and sangria ingredients.

By the time we got through that mess, it was 6p and getting dark. As my amazing moving crew knows, I was operating on very little sleep and having trouble putting two thoughts together; it seemed smart to find a place to stay.

We ended up at the Econo Lodge in Westfield, MA, which is pet-friendly, if you call paying $20 a night per pet-friendly. The desk clerk finally assented to charging me only $20 for both Tweets, although I contend that the Tweets make much less mess than a dog or cat - and, especially, a human.

Due to the horror stories I've read about bed bugs, I bought one of those sleep sacks. That led to another moment of graceless hilarity when I tried to get out of it in the middle of the night. Suffice it to say I won the Monty Python audition.

The room was clean but smelled horribly of that industrial Febreze substitute that hotels use to mask odors. The roofing contractors (are they following me?) started pounding directly above my head at 7:30 this morning, followed by the cleaning staff hollering to each other from opposite ends of the hall. I'm basking in the full two-star hotel experience.

Now savoring a Blue Moon mug of lemongrass green tea and a bowl of Oatios, listening to J.J. Cale on the Jambox, and writing to you on my MacBook Air with HTC Thunderbolt-supplied WiFi - all the comforts of home!

As I look from my cinder block deck onto the Wendy's garbage dumpster across the parking lot, I'm enjoying the sunshine of another beautiful day and looking forward to making some serious headway today. Stay tuned...