Good morning everyone! This post was actually written the day before yesterday. I thought it had been published online but instead had been lost in "cyberspace" somewhere. So rest assured I am home NOT in Ohio today! Have a great Saturday, wherever it is that you might be.
Hello everyone from Ashland, Ohio a "whopping" 941 miles from my home in Valley Center, Kansas. I left this morning, REALLY early from Lowell Massachusetts, and drove 921 miles towards home. For those of you who remember from last evening, Exit #22 did not get the best of Peggy Miller today. Thanks for praying me through it! Today, "Elise-the navigator girl" took me on a route that allowed me to see some of the state of Connecticut. Too bad that most of it was in the dark. I've learned a lot about the joys of driving in traffic back east....and I use the word "joys" rather loosely. So, can we talk about that for a bit?
I will be very honest to tell you that I nearly caused 3 wrecks to happen today. Yes, that's right. I had a heck of a time deciding which way to go when you came to a "y" in the road. Now I know that sounds simple to most of you. But when you have 40 other cars coming at you from all directions, well it gets pretty confusing for me. Thankfully nothing bad happened and both my guardian angel and my St. Christopher's medal worked over time today. Because I left in the VERY wee hours of the morning, the traffic was light for about the first 90 minutes. I took advantage of that, getting as far down the road as possible. But it didn't take long for every New Englander around to wake up and join the rest of us on the road. That was not so fun!
One thing I've noticed on this journey is that there is no shortage of things to watch out for as you are driving along. Starting off in Kansas I had to watch out for deer. In Maine, it was moose that were giving people trouble. Steep hills, sharp turns, falling rock zones, torrential rainfall with lightning accompanying it, and my "all time favorite"~construction zones. Believe me there was no shortage of those. I didn't get lost today but there were several times that I had to stop and ask a "local" if I was on the right path. Here are a couple of conversations that at first were "shocking" to me and they ended up being perfectly normal for most of the folks living back there~
ME (at 5:30 am today) -"We're in Connecticut now, right? What is the next state that I'll run into just west of here?"
HIM (a clerk at the Kwik Shop place who was a resident of the area all of his life)-"West? UMM, I don't know what it is. I have to use my GPS all of the time or I'd be lost just like you." To the other customers (3 in all) "Anyone know what state is just west of here?" Absolutely not one of them did.
ME (yesterday morning, 2 hours into my drive on the "road from hell", to a girl at a gas station.
"How far is New Hampshire from here? I've been on Highway 2 now forever, am I getting close?"
HER (A 20 something who had lived in that part of the state of Massachusetts all of her life.
"Wow, I don't know. Maybe 30 minutes? Yeah, that's probably right. No wait, nah I don't know...I'm not good with time."
Every single person that I talked to up there had very little directional sense as to where others were in relation to them. I was amazed. But the saddest thing I learned was just how little I know about the geographical region of the U.S. that we call "the northeast". For crying out loud, there were times that I could not have told you for anything which state I was in. They absolutely just ran together. The late Rex McMurry, my former 7th and 8th grade social studies teacher taught us kids that lesson, I'm sure. But boy, when it came to filling out the names of the states on the blank map of the United States that he gave us, I really didn't do well with the 13 original colonies. I always liked to blame it on the fact that those states were so little on the map that I couldn't possibly write THAT small.
But now I can add 9 new states to the list that I have already visited in life: Maine, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New York, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. If I add that to the 13 other ones that I already have seen then, wait I'm doing the math, that brings me up to 22 of them, dang almost half of the 50 total.
Lots of people have asked me what it looked like there, what did I like the best? New York State was the most wonderful color of green, everything was alive there. The ocean at Cape Elizabeth yesterday was a brilliant blue with tinges of a sparkling green here and there. It was just like what Sarah of the book "Sarah, Plain and Tall" had described it as. Her "colors of the sea" were awesomely beautiful! Most every place seemed noisy with the sounds of cars and trucks running nonstop at all hours of the night and day on the streets and the interstate. My most favorite state to visit was Maine and my least favorite was Massachusetts . Two things I enjoyed seeing very much were the Portland Head Lighthouse (of course) and the village of Owego, NY. Did I try lobster? No...if I don't like it here, I'm pretty sure that I will hate it there too. LOL Do they talk funny there? No funnier than we do friends. What is something new you learned? How to spell the word Massachusetts. (hey, it's not as easy as you would think) How long was the journey? If I don't get lost on the way home tomorrow from Ohio, it will have been 1,900 miles. Was it worth it? Absolutely. Would I drive again? Absolutely not! LOL
Time for bed, the morning will be here quickly. I'm fine and alive and well. This has been a journey. Good night all!
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