Remember yesterday when I was waxing poetic about enjoying the journey, never mind the destination? Well, today I enjoyed very little of it. Today my journey was mostly miserable.
When I originally looked for a route for the 2nd day of the trip, I noticed that pretty much any road I used to drive across Connecticut and Rhode Island went near Hartford and Providence, so I chose those as my two stops on the way to Boston. The plan was to leave Bennington early, stop for lunch in Hartford, stroll through downtown Providence in the mid-afternoon, check into my hotel in Cambridge after a brief stop at the Harvard Bookstore, then ditch the car and catch public transit into Boston for dinner. But, of course, when we plan, the travel gods laugh.
I woke up this morning with completely clogged sinuses and a raging headache, after my body clock decided that alarms were for suckers, and I was sleeping until 10. It took the coffee and decongestants until 10:45 to kick in, but then I was off... only a couple of hours behind schedule.
I made a quick stop at Bennington College, because it was only 5 minutes out of the way, and it allowed me to make a 30 Rock reference on Instagram. From there, I asked Garmin Man to take me to Hartford, and he had one of his obviously you're insane and that place doesn't exist moments, so I asked Google Woman instead. First mistake.
While the Google Maps app is much better at finding locations and staying connected, the directions are absolutely terrible. I had barely left Vermont when I'd already been told to turn the wrong way twice in a row, making Google Woman begin insisting that I turn around immediately. I'm not sure a computerised voice can sound panicked, but she seemed fairly anxious while repeating "turn left" nonstop until I found a place to circle back. She then directed me on the longest detour around some Massachusetts suburb possible before putting me on the Masspike going toward New York. I pulled off and gave Garmin Man a chance, who informed me minutes later that he'd lost connection and couldn't get it back. My phone then flashed up an alert that its battery was about to die, because the charger had come loose hours before. Even plugged back in, it couldn't charge fast enough to replace the speed at which it was draining.
So I shut off my phone. I was far, FAR from my printed just in case directions, so I decided to follow the road signs. I knew I needed to go southeast, so at any fork, I picked the road that took me in that direction.
Not only was my new strategy less stressful, it was also much more accurate; within a short time I had crossed into Connecticut. It also gave me the opportunity to do some road sign banter with myself (eg It says Canaan to the left, so I'll go right. I mean, Canaan's a hell of a town, but I've just come from Canaan and it's not the kind of place I need to see twice today!), and navigation by Gilmore Girls (eg Hey, Litchfield is that way. What was it that happened in Litchfield? Did Luke move there? I remember Litchfield being near Stars Hollow, and Stars Hollow was 30 minutes from Hartford with no traffic. I'll go toward Litchfield). When I finally saw signs for Hartford, I felt a huge sense of accomplishment.
Of course, my lunch in Hartford plan was a failure, since I took the exit to the capitol building at almost 4pm. I drove a couple of blocks looking for parking, and found myself in a pretty rough area of town. I was tired and didn't have the patience to look for a better place to leave my car and something interesting to do, so I asked Garmin Man how to get to Providence, and he got me there just before 6. At this point I had a very full bladder and cramped up legs, so I pulled into the first place I saw that would allow me to deal with both these problems: a mall. I also managed to grab a coffee and get back on the road around half an hour later.... Just in time to get stuck in traffic.
When I was nowhere near Cambridge at 7:30, I gave up hope on anything Harvard related and updated my destination to the hotel. I hate the vast majority of fast food, and didn't feel like sitting around a restaurant, but I was starving. There were loads of strip malls on the way, so I figured I'd just pop into a supermarket for a sandwich and eat it when I got to the hotel. Nothing. Absolutely nowhere selling foodstuffs. I could've bought almost anything else imaginable on that road -- cars, lumber, pet supplies, smart casual wear -- but not groceries.
When I finally made it to the hotel, it was 8:30pm and I was fed up with everything and everyone. I managed to squeeze the little red Fiesta into the last tiny parking space in their garage and get up to my room without strangling anyone. Turns out there's no food nearby here either, so my dinner consists of handfuls of the peanuts and granola I packed for snacks. And I'm not going into Boston tonight, because I'm angry at the world, and I'm a Habs fan, so you do the math.
Tomorrow is looking like it will be one of the rare times that I'm going to be happy to get back to Seattle. And I may think twice the next time I have a brilliant idea to take a road trip.
No comments:
Post a Comment