September 29, 2005

• It must be vacation!

  
  

  I flew this morning to LaGuardia airport in New York City.  Joel picked me up in the car he had just rented (this sounds like a plot from Ocean 11 or some such conspiracy movie).  We headed north and out of the city.

  
  

  After driving for awhile we realized two things 1) the traffic was no longer like the Dan Ryan Expressway in Chicago at 7am and 2) we were hungry.  Given both need and opportunity, we took an exit into Connecticut and ended up at the location you see in the first photo -  (D'Angelo's Subs).

  
  

  Recovering our Fahr-drang (very loosely translated "driving drive"), we raced onward, crossing state after state lickety-split (which isn't so hard, when the states are roughly the size of an overgrown Illinois County).  (Okay, so we went from NY to Connecticut to Massachusetts.)  Our onward surge only spent itself as we neared our destination for the evening, Lowell Mass.  (Famous for a variety of reasons, including being mentioned in a James Taylor song about a single mom with three kids who worked in a mill.)

  
  

  The next step in this year's "Eat your way across New England" was a restaurant called "Mama's Italian Grill" in Chelmsford, Mass.  (See next two pictures...)

  
  

      

  
  

  The "Mama" who waited on us was kind enough to take a picture of us shortly before we ate too much.  Unfornately, she thought she had to back up just about into the next room so that she could be sure she had us both in the same picture.  A side effect of this approach was that the center of the picture was not on the table or one of us, in fact, not even in the same building.  The Staples sign is almost in focus, which is more than can be said for the good food on the table or the two smiling faces bracketing it.  Hmm... I guess you can get a sense of the ambience at any rate.

  
  

  I should add that Mama's was an interesting place.  When we got there (about 7pm), things seemed to be quieting down.  There was what appeared to be a group of regulars gathered around the bar (which was very clean and not very dark).  However, as the evening wore on, the size of the crowd gradually increased, giving the lie to our assumption that the evening was on the down swing.  But we were on the down swing, and so we swung ourselves out of our booth and trudged slowly to the car ... which really deserves a blog of its own.  Just a teaser:  it's a Chevy HHR with about 1000 miles on it, so really new.  More on that some other time.

  
  

  Tomorrow we're off to Bar Harbor, Maine (affectionately known as BaHaBa, and not to be confused with BaHmBg).  Should be great - weather is stellar and BaHaBa is on the same peninsula (or was it island?) with Acadia National Park.  Can't wait to see it.  Tomorrow night we stay at a Best Western in BaHaBa.

  
  

  The "currently listening" is what we used for road trip music today.  Tomorrow we have Joel's laptop, an FM transmitter and my inverter (nothing like a bit o' tech to spice up a road trip) to provide music for us as we rocket through a couple more states.

  • 9:57 pm
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