🔊 Listen to this

Let’s get a little administrative detail out of the way, shall we? I’m speaking of course of the obvious fact: there’s been nothing new added here in two freaking weeks. And this bloggish background silence has taken place behind a foreground that included (as of today) stops not only in New York State, but in Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. So there’s a lot of catching up to do… and this means, I think, that I’m going to accelerate the schedule a bit: I’ll just post brief narratives of each of those missing places, until the catching-up is accomplished.

(Remember: if you’re after a more up-to-date sense of where we are, the best place to look is probably my Instagram account. That, too, isn’t 100% current, because I’m posting only one photo a day. But it will at least reassure you that We Are (as the saying goes) Still Here.

Let’s get started!

Putting Henri Behind Us

Despite our worst fears about Hurricane Henri, the storm really didn’t bother us until shortly after we left the Indian Head Resort…

Once we’d decided to flee further inland, we pulled up the maps of what lay to the west. To head to Vermont felt like too small a baby step, given Henri’s forecast cone, so we jumped right over there and looked at northern New York State (i.e., “anywhere north of Albany”). Part of my motivation, I think, was that it would put us on the way to our western New York State destinations, Niagara Falls and Jamestown, which might simplify the next-state planning. (I was very disappointed that Vermont appeared to be out of the question, but, well, as we’d already learned: the road trip taketh away as well as giveth.)

But then we noticed something we simply couldn’t ignore: the route would take us verrrrry close to Enfield, NH, where one of The Missus’s favorite nieces had just bought her first home (with her husband and daughter). So as I drove, The Missus burned up the (wireless) phone lines with The Enfield Niecelet, making plans for our stop along the way.

We got a tour of the house, of course, and visited The Niecelet’s Husband at his workplace, and then we The Niecelet, and the Grand-Niecelet headed out for lunch. It was a nice meal in nearby Lebanon, but by the time we paid the check there were already raindrops falling on our heads.

Off we headed, westward… into the worst of Henri we experienced.

Was it a good thing or a bad thing that we’d opted not to take any major highways? Well, it depends on the kind of route you’d find more suited to your personality, given a whiteout-level rainfall:

• On a highway, even the straightest, you not only are moving faster, but also are just incapable of seeing the other vehicles around you until it’s (almost) too late.
• On back roads, at least in New Hampshire/Vermont, probably won’t be sharing the trip with many other vehicles at all. On the other hand, such vehicles as you do encounter are likely operated by locals who well know the sinuous twists and turns, the spots most likely to be shallowly flooded, the surprise stop signs and bear-crossing signs and so on, and so those vehicles will be riding your tail the whole way. And, of course, you still can’t see anything further than about a car’s-length in any direction.

So it was pretty white-knuckle driving, all the way…

…all the way until we crossed into Vermont. Suddenly the clouds parted, the rain stopped, and we could just enjoy the rest of the drive to Saratoga Springs.

Last Week of the Saratoga Springs Racing Season

Somehow — I certainly don’t know how — we’d managed to secure two nights’ last-minute lodging at a very nice Holiday Inn in Saratoga Springs. Even more remarkably, this was during the last week of the biggest tourist event in the town, during the craziest tourist season in anyone’s recent memory: the final week of horse-racing season. The town, in other words, was mobbed. Even more surprisingly, we were able to extend our stay for a couple more nights.

(We wanted to extend the stay for a number of reasons: Saratoga is such a nice town, with such a nice downtown, and neither of us had ever been there before; we felt like we really needed a break — we were tired of thinking we had to run away from something, or to run somewhere, like Bar Harbor, which became this hard, fixed external thing which controlled our schedule; and we really needed to do laundry (heh) — this Holiday Inn offered free laundry facilities for guests.)

Highlights of the Saratoga Springs visit:

• Laundry. (No, really: this was important by now!)
• I’d bought a replacement (used) camera, making up for the one which had gone belly-up way back in Greenville NC. I’d had it shipped it to my brother’s, thinking we could pick it up the next time we were in NJ… but since we were now staying in Saratoga Springs for a whole week, I could arrange for him to overnight it to me at the hotel. (Hurrah!)
• I had a couple hearing-aid-related near-disasters — which seemed disastrous enough that I was in genuine despair about them for about 24 hours. (Neither truly was a disaster, thank God. But it was a near thing.)
• We bought gear for what we imagined to be some upcoming trail adventures: “trekking poles”; compasses; binoculars.
• Fabulous meals, with drinks to match (here, here, and here — in addition to the nice food and cocktails offered by the hotel itself), served by almost frighteningly competent and cheerful waitstaff.

In fact, we enjoyed our stay there so much that we tried to extend it again… but no such luck: not just the Holiday Inn, but everywhere else in Saratoga Spring was booked solid for the very last couple of days of the season. So: last-minute emergency strategizing occurred. Stay tuned!

[The setting: Wilmington, NC. The couple has already done grocery shopping for the day’s relocation to an Airbnb, from this hotel: they’ve picked up milk and creamer, and kept it in the refrigerator overnight; ditto bottles of water and soda, a small bottle of vinegar to be used for mysterious laundry purposes (Hers), and so on. He has already filled His insulated water bottle, the previous night, and as they prepare to move their luggage down to the lobby He takes a first generous swig from it.]

He: Gaaaaaah! What the living hell did I just drink a mouthful of?!?

[He opens the water bottle, takes a whiff, gags and sputters. He checks the refrigerated plastic bottle from which He filled His own metal one.]

He: Jeezus Chr—! Why the hell was the bottle of vinegar in the refrigerator?!?

[He rushes to the bathroom sink, metal water bottle in hand. He dumps its remaining contents into the sink, continues coughing and retching, washing His mouth out with tap water.]

She (from other room): What are you doing?!?

He (spitting and coughing): I’m dumping the rest of this sh!t into the sink!

She: You’re dumping out all that vinegar? I need that vinegar for washing my clothes!

[He stares at His reflection in the bathroom mirror. His eyes are tearing and bloodshot. His tongue feels corrugated. His throat burns like that time when He was a kid and clumsily tried siphoning gasoline from a canister for use in a go-cart, and the fuel ran down His esophagus.]

He: I just drank vinegar, and laundry is what you’re worried about?!?

She (calling out his name): You don’t understand! I needed that vinegar for my clothes! And that little bottle was the perfect size for a trip — I’ve never seen vinegar in such a small bottle! Now we have to go back to that store for more!

[He fumbles about for a breath strip, for a second and a third breath strip. He swallows, downs a fourth breath strip. His forehead is beaded with sweat. His eyebrows will probably return to their normal altitude by evening. His throat will burn for a couple days, and He will be awash for that long in inescapable olfactory memories of dyeing Easter eggs.]

He (weakly): Okay, okay… Let me go down to the lobby for a luggage cart. Then I’ll get the car, and then we can go the store for more vinegar and then we can do whatever until it’s time to check in at the Airbnb.

She: I just really can’t believe you drank my vinegar! Jeezus!