On the I-90 West

TUES OCTOBER 9
Arriving (complete with drivers license!) on Tuesday afternoon last, I had my trusty car hired in 30 minutes and was on my way, in Boston rush-hour traffic, on the I-90 west - the old Massachusetts Pike - towards my lovely hosts Rich and Michelle about 250 miles away in Vermont. All was well, I managed to call various phones from the road en route and for the first couple of hours I made great time...until somewhere after Lennox on Route 7 North I got hit with torrential rain and heaps of sheet lightning, slowing my progress to a crawl for a good while. In fact, all was missing from the apocalyptic weather conditions was a random 'rainstorm' of frogs landing on my windscreen! All this while my car radio scanned local stations featuring cheesy music, talk radio with an obvious Republican party values bias and, my personal favourite as the rain lashed down and the wipers were on full speed - angry guitar music.

Upon trying to call the house to let them know I was close by, I realised that I couldn't get a mobile phone signal for love nor money. Luckily, Rich's superb directions to the house saved me from having to drive around in the rain to find a public phone - in fact, when I promptly arrived at 9 o'clock, both professed to being amazed that I'd actually made it to them in one piece! I feigned outrage at their lack of belief in my navigational abilities and thanked God for The Chocolate Barn, one of Rich's landmarks to look out for en route, one that was actually easily visible through the heavy rainfall!

Thus began my Vermont vacation :)