Crisp Clean Air of Maine

This is my third day of trekking across the eastern United States. If you’ve not read the previous two posts, they are below. I’m off from Little Rock, Arkansas to Portland Maine for my niece’s wedding, and then back again. Most are flying to the event. But I drove with my nephew Dakota, and will be driving back with wife, daughter and her boyfriend, Fin. Its sort of a there and back again trip… if I might borrow a phrase from a certain barrel rider from Bagshot Row.

We slept a bit later in Utica than intended, but no matter, we packed up and headed out. It took some doing getting out of Utica New York – that’s a town that has an interesting lay out. I popped the radio on and we hit interstate 90 with some speed. Dakota settled into the passenger seat and enjoyed the quiet. This was his first time for a third day of driving and I think it was a smidge heavy. Still six hours to Portland.

The drive was rather eventless actually. There was real purpose in today’s trek as we had to make the rehearsal dinner and get the dress to Kathy. We stopped once for fuel and food and then booked on. Upstate New York offers some really nice countryside. Forested hills with steep ravines and rivers sprinkled throughout. The towns seemed nestled in the deeps and old houses to boot. Reminds me of the Ozarks quite a bit, though less hot I suspect. Eastern Massachusetts is about the same. Lots of trees and friendly people…well the one fellow I talked to on the pit stop.

We hit 495 like mad men, not sure why I was moving so briskly, but getting behind a box truck (lots of box trucks on the road it seems) meant I missed my exit for 495. That turn around was quite an adventure as the off/on ramps were not laid out in a western fashion. (that’s my polite way of saying that was a tangled mess of twists and turns that left me wondering how much pub time the designer had had the night before).

Back on 495, we cut up through the rest of Massachusetts, into New Hampshire and to Maine in short order.

Crossing into Maine was a bit odd for me. Tim Burns, whom many of you know, lived here for decades. I visited him every year for several weeks and lived with him in Ocean Park for a while. That was a time in my life that was in great upheaval. Tim said, come to Maine and live here. We plotted out a plan to get jobs on the fishing boats and make some good money. I got here but we mostly wandered from bar to bar for several months, enjoying the nightlife. We did frequently go to a bar that had fisherman in it, so there was that. But a couple years back, Tim left Maine to take care of family and is still doing so down in Hardy, AR. As soon as I breathed the Maine air (it is unusually crisp and sharp, very pleasant), all those memories came flooding back. It seemed somehow unnatural to be here without him.

Kathy (the wife) was already at the hotel, so we dismounted and headed in, dress in tow. She didn’t take a second look at it because other news hit the pan. My daughter and Fin were stuck in Newark NJ as their flight was canceled. There was a mad two hours of trying to rebook, get hotel rooms, plans and plots, aps and what nots. All to no avail. I offered to hop in the truck and go get them, but no one though that was a good idea (except Dakota). I told her to take advantage of the opportunity and go to Manhattan and we’d pick ‘em up on Sunday. They settled in a bit disappointed, but resigned.

Traveling by air offers little attraction for me anymore. Even as I write this Rachel texts with “we are in line to get baggage; it will take about two hours.” A bus in the air is half as good as truck on the ground. If I can build a few more hours into my journey. I drive. Take my work with me if need be. It’s easy enough to find travel lodges, motels, hotels and roadside inns along the way.  And if you are lucky you’ll meet a bunch of folks at the Knucklehead Saloon who’ll guide you to a cheeseburger worth talking about. Air travel has lost its shine, I’ve returned to the car rides of the 50s. Well, unless its overseas…might be tougher to drive.

At last, things settled down with the air travel debacle and Kathy got a chance to look at the dress. Turns out, those marks were not my doing at all. She thinks they were on there from the garment bag. Regardless after much magic she managed to get the marks removed and the dress cleaned. The lesson here remains, don’t trust me with your clothing or jewelry

The wedding festivities were wonderful last night, Portland folks nice as always. Afterwards we drove around town a bit, stopped in to look at the Atlantic, covered in mist and twilight. That was a pretty good night cap.