i think i should officially be considered a well-traveled-in-new-england girl. i know the roads, and they know me.
i rented another car thursday, loaded up more of my and db's stuff and drove down to boston to unload. the funkgirl came with me and i dropped her at her grandma's somewhere around waltham and welesley. this required taking 93 down from VT (a favorite pastime), switching to 95 just north of boston, and taking exit 16.
to get home to jp, i just got right back on 95 (north), exited to rte 9, and followed that to brookline village where i naturally just "knew my way" home... seriously.
friday i worked, since thats what i do on fridays. did my laundry and then headed to brattleboro, vt. brattleboro is in super-southern vermont. unlike st jay which is in super-northern vermont ;)
to get there i hopped on 95 north (taking 9 west to get there), switched to MA Rte 2 for 70 miles, then switched to 91 north which conveniently goes straight to brattleboro.
we stayed at super 8 motel - a classy joint with classy "make your own waffles in a confusing as hell waffle-maker". i supplemented my breakfast waffle with a single serving size box of coco puffs. db remarked "jesus, how can they fit so little cereal in such a big box? the great thing about this is there is so little cereal there is no way that it will get soggy before i finish." what a character :)
saturday afternoon we drove to keene, nh and did laundry and walked around town. there were some kids and adults having a save our school majig and i promised to buy something at the bake sale. unfortunately, although we wandered every which way, we could not locate a bake sale. db says this is why he doesnt make promises, b/c you always end up a liar or jerk. well, he didnt use those exact words, but thats the gist of what he said.
we agreed that brattleboro is the kind of place you live and keene is the kind of place you visit. the same way jp is the kind of place you live and newbury street is the kind of place you visit. perhaps we will live in brattleboro some day too.
before returning db to camp, we watched March of the Penguins. adorable, although very humancentric (oddly enough a movie about penguins was in fact drenched with human personification of all the penguins did). this was definitely a pro-babymaking, pro-father, pro-twoparenthousehold, pro-sacrifice everything you are/have/want/can to make your baby exist, pro-huddling kind of flick. there were lots of cuddling peeps and ooohing and aaaahing (db and i are guilty of such things as well). id like to point out that penquins are only monogomous for one year at a time. this means they do have multiple "relationships" thoughout their lives, but only with one penquin per year.
db was sad to return to camp. poor fellow is rather exhuasted. 24/6 with disturbed kids is hard work. on a good day he gets 5 or 6 hours of sleep, only being woken once or twice. and on a good day he gets 2 meals and maybe 2 15 minute breaks. on a good day, he doesnt have to restrain anyone.
i dropped him off just before 6pm, reminding him that he's done in 10 days! yay! and then headed off on my own. i decided to head back to keene and brattleboro. i was so charmed by them that it seemed like a good idea.
upon driving back through keene i decided there wasnt anything open or any place to stay the night, so i kept on going. in brattleboro i drove around for a good 10 minutes trying to figure out where the hell the cool coffee shop was that we had seen the night before. finally i decided to park and just walk and find it.
when i found the coffee shop, i stepped in and stepped up to the... bar? huh. i looked around at the possible drinks thinking about menu's and realized... this coffee house isnt a coffee house at all. its a... bar? crap! so, instead of getting that decaf iced mocha with soy, i ended up with a glass of water and a good ole' fuzzy naval.... wait... navel. hehe.
i sat at a booth in the "arts cafe", as its called (see why it was so confusing?) and wrote a bit in my journal. around 9pm i found myself very very sleepy and decided to find a place to stay for the night.
db had mentioned seeing a place near the super 8 for $29 a night, so i went looking for it. couldnt find it and decided to stop at a few motels to ask for pricing. $59, $69, $79 a night. eek! around 10pm i found the $29 place which had closed at 9:30pm, and decided to find a nice quiet neighborhood to park so i could cuddle up in my back seat and sleep. i found a good spot near town and slept till 1am.
when i woke i had to pee pretty darn bad. so i headed to the other end of town in search of something open all night with a place to pee. fortunately mobil was open, yay! i didnt feel like driving back to the residential area so i parked in the super 8 parking lot, near the edge and under a tree and by 2am was out again.
i woke between 7am and 8am, stopped at mcdonalds to pee, and headed north on VT Rte 5. i had seen a place called basketville and was desperate to check it out. i was in luck, it opened 10 minutes before i arrived and man, there were a lot of baskets.
i decided to stay on rte 5 all the way to st jay, and stopped for brunch at Shilo's cafe maybe 10 or 15 miles south of my final destination. as you might expect, i dined on french toast. it wasnt amazing but it wasnt bad. and the server, a local high school girl im betting, was very outgoing and friendly.
once i arrived at pb's in st jay around 2pm, i showered and promptly went to bed. that leaves us at the present time. i am still exhausted and cant wait to get home to jp. in the last 10 days ive definitely caught up on all the driving ive missed by not having a car for 5 years.
previously:
weather or not - 2006-03-07
My Flight - 2006-03-02
poetree in motion - 2006-02-28
ultimate personality test - 2006-02-25
limerick e-trip - 2006-02-22