A Sunday Drive

Saturday's shenanigans up in Lincoln suggested sleeping in, but Alicia had to get up for work so I ended up with a reasonably early start. Seal was still cranked pretty far up when I started the engine so I took the opportunity to blast the practically perfect pop song en route to the gym; we were off to a good start. 100 free throws and some upper-body lifts later, the sun had come out and I had my sights set on the beach.

I cut across Somersworth noting the great road names (Cecile St, Rita St, the ridiculous Congress St / Alicia St 4-way) and wondering how Indigo Hill got its name and why Old Indigo Hill Rd is so far south of the current model. Cruised past the recently-visited Somersworth Riverwalk (a few pretty spots, but short) and the wastewater treatment plant and into Maine. I had a hair to try traversing Love Brook Rd from its NW end, with the four-sign intersection at its endpoint and the ridiculous Berwick Rd / Town Rd setup as additional attractions, but worried about mud. Not remembering which side of New Dam Road all of this was on, I left things to fate by turning right and was in downtown South Berwick before I knew it.

Well, it had two years since my last visit to Dennett Rd, I was curious to see what (if any) memorial was up for Camden Hughes, and it seemed like enough time had passed since the tragedy. Scooting up Rt 4, I was thrilled to see a new sign for a business with Lovers Brook in its name, although I didn't catch the full sign text. In my view, if you've got a chance to connect to a name like that, you gotta take it, although Alicia believes the name to actually be rather mundane.

(As an aside, the name of the brook and the dirt road that crosses it seem to be out of sync; I suspect that the -rs ending is correct. Google Maps is off-base and lame with "Old Blackberry Hill Rd".) The brook isn't very impressive as it crosses under the railroad tracks and Route 4, but it gets a bit more formidable before flowing into the Great Works.

Anyway, Dennett Rd came soon. It has an awkward reverse-curve (or something) relationship with Route 4. Dad has told me that it's probably part of a former alignment of Route 4 that was replaced with a smoother-curving version. My Delorme Atlas shows the other half of the old alignment as a road as well, and a North Berwick tax map actually gives it a name - Allen Rd.

Note that the unlabeled portion of the loop is the beginning of Dennett Rd. You can see a hint of the power line / gas line Right of Way - yes, the same one as three posts ago - and I left my car there in front of these signs.

I took it as evidence that this area was also seeing an unusual amount of activity in conjunction with the Power Reliability Program.

First, I walked up the pipeline / power line right of way in search of indications that a train (the PS&P) once ran through there. There was passage over a nearby brook (later confirmed to be Hussey Brook) but it was too huge and grass-grown to be called a bridge - maybe the brook ran through a culvert?

There were a fairly long row of stones like this one in a row on one side. I don't know what they were for. To define the edge of a bridge, maybe - there was a marginal drop-off behind them but I didn't sense that they were on an edge. Fearing ticks (I forgot to bring anything but my gym shorts and swimsuit), I didn't venture far into the tall grass of the ROW.

Back at the car, I exchanged expressionless glances with a guy on a scooter and looked for signs of the other half of the old alignment. There wasn't much resembling a road, but a short, narrow path led to this.

That's today's Route 4 in the background of the second picture.

In my unprofessional opinion, the pile of wreckage didn't seem like it could have once been a bridge on the main drag, the Portland Road. But, I don't have any ideas on what else it could have been. Interesting, the Google Maps Satellite view shows something that looks like a still-standing bridge.

Sorry about the inconsistency of image sizes; at least they now link to larger-sized images, at least.

Later, back at the homestead, I was searching for ways to confirm that the "Allen Rd" / Dennett Rd combination was in fact an old Rt 4 alignment. Fortunately, the 1941 map of Wells that was a "you'll be leaving here soon" Christmas present several years ago also showed this corner of North / South Berwick.

Route 4 is labeled. Near the "B.M." intersection in the lower left, it intersects with Dennett Rd and almost the PS&P! It's labeled B&M since Eastern had long since gone belly-up and the B&M had taken over the line. We see that the old alignment did track today's "Allen Rd" and end of Dennett Rd, that the gas line right of way continued to follow the old PS&P alignment this far, and that Dennett Rd really does chop off a lot of distance if you're headed to the Wells / Ogunquit area. Too bad it's a dirt track and barely passable for much of its length today.

Also, the dashed line that runs between Rt 4 and Dennett Rd is shown on the North Berwick map as Gould's Bridge Rd (Rt 4 end) and Company Woods Rd (Dennett Rd end). Google Maps does not show a bridge over the Great Works River on Gould's Bridge Rd, but the name is an obvious suggestion that there once was one. Something for another day. After crossing Dennett Rd, the dashed line on the full map goes all the way to Thurrell Rd but today it just runs to a few houses before disappearing completely.

Anyway, I left the car and hoofed it up the road a ways. I reached my planned turn-around point of the Company Woods Rd 4-way and thought there was nothing to see before noticing the memorial site off to one side.

A baffling, sad incident, to be sure, that provoked some interesting reactions.

The walk back went by faster, despite having to studiously avoid eye contact with more drivers than I would have liked, and I headed for Ogunquit. North Berwick, like South Berwick, wound up with main roads a short distance away from where its railroads intersected but unlike South Berwick, its "downtown" was built around the railroads. Today, now that there is no railroad station, the town suffers from the lack of a clearly identifiable downtown. The Main St area by the train tracks has more of a "downtown" feel, but is on neither of the town's two state highways and is not on the road to anything except Ogunquit.

Just over the modern B&M tracks, I saw a sign for Eastern Ave - highly suspicious! I swerved down it but didn't get too far before it was gated. Looks like there's a wastewater treatment plant beyond the gate. The map confirmed my suspicions - Eastern Ave runs on the former route of the Eastern Railroad!

That's it for points of interest, but it was a nice rest of the day. I learned via mom she was bringing my grandmother (90 years old) up from Mass. for her annual two months in that side of the family's old family summer house in Ogunquit. The house has been falling apart for years, but it withstood another winter and through August will house my grandmother and three European summer workers, including one we've known for several years.

I spread newspaper under the bird cage and fiddled with the ancient radio until it was once again blasting WBach - the birds love it and my grandmother doesn't like to wear her hearing aid. Later, Mom and I walked the Marginal Way and it was like one of those movie scenes where they quickly pan from some deserted scene to a crowded city street. Tourist season...well, it's not all that bad, really, at least for one day. A trip to Newington for groceries and softball gear and the Spaulding over The Bridge completed the loop back to Dover.

Picture post

I recently added a picture to my Blogspot (Blogger, now, I guess) profile not only because I love tuxedo cats but because I found the text on the photo's webpage to be randomly compelling:

"Let’s look at the beauty of a tuxedo cat. For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of knowing a tuxedo, they are black cats with white paws and bellies, and they often have white on their faces. The stark contrast between the shiny black fur and the glistening white patches creates a strikingly handsome animal. I don’t want to imply that black is negative and white is positive — they are both beautiful, but opposite. No gray exists anywhere on their bodies. Tuxedos are black and white — no in-between. The colors blend together to make an individual full of character. Tuxedos teach us about loving and learning from both aspects of life. Every situation has the potential for a positive and negative outcome — it is we who determine what that outcome will be.

Tuxedos show us not to resist duality, but to embrace it. There is nothing in life that is free of a positive and a negative dual nature. The good news is that despite being in the midst of negativity, there is a positive solution. In every cloud, there is a silver lining waiting to be discovered. And within that same cloud is the potential for a rain storm.

The gray zone of life is an illusion; it is a place of our own making. When situations become uncomfortable, our human nature requires that we find an underlying reason for our circumstances. We often blame someone else for creating our drama. We don’t want to look at both aspects — the black and the white, the good and the bad, the positive and the negative."

http://qdfriends.wordpress.com/2010/10/19/a-%E2%80%9Ctuxedo%E2%80%9D-cat/

The Portsmouth, Great Falls, and Conway

Writing about walking the old Portland, Saco, and Portsmouth (PS&P) right-of-way got me jazzed up about South Berwick's railroad history. An evening at the library revealed many sites to check out and I had a chance to head to some of them earlier today.

First, let's review:

Three railroads ran through South Berwick at one time. The PS&P, the Boston & Maine (B&M), and the Portsmouth, Great Falls, and Conway (PGF&C since I guess we must).

The PS&P came first in 1842. It is primarily associated with the Eastern Railroad, which competed with the B&M for about 40 years; however, the section between South Berwick and Portland was jointly leased by the Eastern and B&M for about 30 of those years. Both of those companies wanted to offer a route to Portland and it was easiest to use the existing track. I suspect that whoever built the PS&P did so with such a lease arrangement in mind. Its track is now the gas line / power line right of way, although the gas line seems to be more consistently aligned as evidenced below:

As an aside, you can learn so much from tax maps! Viva l'internet and thanks to the town of South Berwick for putting them there!

SW of Emery's Bridge Road (the route of the recent walk), the gas line land (12-80) and CMP land (12-95) are side-by-side. But, then the CMP cut turns more sharply east while the gas line continues over the Knights Pond causeway, which we know to be the old railroad route. You can see that they come closer once again, then go their separate ways near Dennett Road, with Google Maps' satellite view. Try it!

Anyway, so we've got the PS&P running from Portland to Agamenticus Junction, south to Kittery, into NH over a predecessor to the Sarah Mildred Long ("Middle") bridge, and onto Boston. The track on the bridge is still used occasionally to transport waste from the Naval Shipyard.

Today's trip began with a drive over the Sarah Long bridge. No pictures, but I conveniently have some 2-year old video from a boat trip up the river with Mom, Jim, and Jim's brother Chip.

Railroad #2 is the Boston & Maine. It had run track from Dover to South Berwick, but not beyond there. Upon entering into the PS&P lease agreement, it built a spur to Agamenticus Junction to join with the PS&P main line. After the lease agreement ended, they built their own line and that's the line now used by the Downeaster.

The third railroad is the most confounding and mysterious, and thus of course the most compelling. The track in South Berwick was originally built to connect to Great Falls (remember, that's Somersworth) but didn't serve much of a purpose before it was folded into the larger PGF&P project. It left the PG&P at "Jewett" - near today's 91/236 intersection - wound its way to downtown South Berwick, crossed the river near the B&M and road crossings, and merged with some B&M - constructed track a bit south of Great Falls, where the merged line met the line from Conway.

Fun fact: That B&M line was a spur line to Great Falls that left its Dover - South Berwick train in Salmon Falls (remember, that's Rollinsford), so there were actually two trains between Salmon Falls and Great Falls for a while. Strange, but for about 10 years there were also two trains between South Berwick and North Berwick. The jury's still out on which of those is most guffaw-worthy.

Funner fact: When Rt. 236 swings left near the Rt 91 intersection, it is actually moving onto the former route of the PGF&P! So, as you drive north from Marshwood High, you move from one old rail corridor to another. Where you leave that corridor and where it goes after that is less clear.

Funnest fact: The PG&P and PSF&P combined at Jewett with the help of a turntable; the turntable "pit" remains are very much visible and are actually just off of Rt. 236, at Fife Rd. I can't believe I never noticed it in 8 bazillion trips up and down 236.

I really hope that isn't a giant mushroom in the last photo.

The sign in the second one is too cryptic to be of much use to me yet. Need to spend some more quality time with the books to get all the name changes, bankruptcies, and buyouts straight. I think "dizzying" is the operative word here.

The lawn around the pit was very nicely mowed. Thank you, landowner!

From here, I took Fife Rd to Oldfields Rd and Dover-Eliot Rd (101) to avoid downtown South Berwick. A nice side effect is having to had Oldfields Rd to the "places it'd be okay to live" list. Lots of interesting old houses.

After crossing into NH, I took Sligo Rd (named by the region's Irish settlers) through some absolutely gorgeous woods / farmland. Maximum verdance. "Very reminiscent of the Seattle area" says this somewhat-elitist-for-having-lived-there (however briefly).

Eventually, I ended up in Salmon Falls village and set off in search of PGF&C bridge remains. I was armed with memories of last night's big breakthrough.

Jackpot!, even though I have no idea what "Northern Line" refers to. This map is from 1925. Thank you, Dover library online resources! Your local library...even more awesome than online tax maps. Well, that's debatable.

Having not printed the map out, I couldn't remember where to start and first went too far south, around the back of an old mill turned into small businesses. There was a nice view back up-river but nothing that looked like a bridge.

One book had said that a station house on the line had survived until 1995 (50+ years after the line was abandoned) and was being turned into a park. So, I looked for a park.

I found one N of Main St just over the bridge from Maine. The image ahead looked promising. I doubted very much that the railroad had left an underpass in its trestle for what is today a heavily pot-holed dirt road. It must have been the PGF&P. Indeed, the 1925 map confirms this.

(The underpass on the left is for Church St, which was Dover St in 1925 but was a relatively major road both then and now.)

Now I knew roughly how the line ran in Rollinsford but still had nothing on how it came from Maine. So, I headed for the Main St bridge, paused to respond unnecessarily frumpily to a friendly phone call, and finally spotted some evidence.

With the Main St bridge on the left:

Now, this could just be part of an old road bridge, but I really don't think it is. Its placement is just too perfectly in line with the "steel trestle" from the map. Nothing that looked like an abutment on either side jumped out; returning with a printed copy of the map might help.

With the rain having cancelled the evening's softball plans, there was time to search out where the PGF&P met with the B&M Great Falls spur. I had previously located it using Google Maps.

The B&M spur is closely tracked by today's Somersworth Rd (Main St on the Somersworth side). The PGF&P came in on a curving line from the East. They appear to have come together about where today's road and railroad cross. Not sure if that's a coincidence, or what.

Old Indigo Hill Rd was signed as such and paved, but in pretty poor shape and not really a two-lane road. There wasn't a great place to park and I was ready for dinner, but an obvious trail intersected the road right where the assumed rail corridor appears on the map.

Yes, there were signs, but no, I don't remember what they said. -1 for me.

I headed home pondering how one seems to cross train tracks so frequently when driving between Dover, Rollinsford, and Somersworth. No wonder, with the B&M main line and the Salmon Falls - Great Falls spur both in the area. The spur is still used as part of the Northcoast Railroad, but that one will have to be its own adventure.

Not bad for a Wednesday! Boy, do I love summer.

Power line dreams: Return to South Berwick

The past few weeks have seen me several times in my one-time hometown of South Berwick.

- My dad sold his condo after a year and a week on the market. I claimed some furniture and helped him move the rest. Memories of crowds at Aggie's Ice Cream Parlor and how best to get out of Old Mill bubbled up to the surface.

- Alicia and I toured the historic Sarah Orne Jewett and Hamilton houses on Historic New England's open house day. We shot twin evil eyes at the guy who refused to refrain from photography, pictured the often-backed-up Routes 4 and 236 concurrency as a cart path, and grinned at the serenity on the Hamilton's grounds and gardens. I don't know if it's particularly nice or if I just underrated river frontage, but the land on both sides of the area around where the Cocheco and Salmon Falls rivers come together to form the Piscataqua is Really Really Nice. There was a particular spot where gardens opened up on both sides of a stone path, with an imposingly broad side of the house in the background. Arrestingly near-perfect symmetry.

We enjoyed decent food and huge portions at the Asia Cafe (gotta love those Chinese-place lunch specials) and picked up a couple of overstock books at the new-ish Mercantile shop. One of those early-summer days which detaches itself from the calendar with everyone in a good mood.

- The next day, after we explored an old road on the Dover-Rollinsford line (a trip that deserves its own post), Alicia went to work and I had a chance to close out the SB experience. Bear with me as there's some personal back story and (hopefully more interesting) local railroad history to go with this one.

One of the first things I did after downloading Google Earth during the winter of '09 was to zoom all the way in on this image:

The south end of this shot is where Rt. 236 swings left after being unnaturally straight for a while after the Dover-Eliot Rd / 101 intersection. Dad had told me that that section of road followed an old railroad grade, but I hadn't really put two and two together until seeing the overhead shot. In the summer, there is a farm stand ahead on the grade where the road swings left towards downtown SB. Where it intersects Route 91 are three mailboxes, but no houses are visible down the good two-lane gravel road.

Over my year as a resident, I knocked off other targets - Great Hill Rd, Love Brook Rd, Dennett Road (especially from the Boyds Corner Rd end), and Crooker Lane. This one eluded me, though, as I couldn't decide whether to walk or drive and was afraid of meeting hostile homeowners some distance up the road. I was also convinced that the road needed to have a name - otherwise, how did the mail get delivered? I [very] briefly contemplated opening the mailboxes to see if there was anything inside with an address. The usually reliable South Berwick planning board minutes and dearly departed South Berwick Citizen didn't provide a road name, but the prospect of (literally) miles of good road/trail remained exciting and I really wanted to know whether there was a bridge (or any remnants thereof) over the Great Works like the causeway over Knights Pond.

Wait, what causeway? You betcha! The causeway, intriguing gravel road, and Route 236 alignment are all nearly perfectly aligned and were part of the route of the Portland, Saco, and Portsmouth railroad. Near the causeway, it intersected an old alignment of the Boston & Maine (now used by Amtrak for the Downeaster and freight trains) at South Berwick Junction / Agamenticus Station. Yes, there really were two railroads (and a station) near today's Junction Rd. Sadly, it took me until this year to realize that's where Junction Rd got its name.

The P, S &P ran from Portsmouth into Eliot and South Berwick, then turned northeast and passed through North Berwick, the Kennebunks, Saco, and eventually Portland. The Boston & Maine (today's Amtrak) also heads through North Berwick but then takes a more coastal route to today's large station in Wells and beyond.

Complicating the issue are two things:

1) The section of the B&M that ran to South Berwick Junction has been abandoned and is no longer visible (you can barely see it on some aerial shots). If you take the Downeaster from Dover today, you stay on the NW side of Route 4 until North Berwick and don't go near Agamenticus Rd. My guess is that this rerouting was done after the P, S & P was discontinued and there was no longer a reason for a detour.

2) A third railroad also once passed through South Berwick - the Portsmouth, Great Falls, and Conway. Dazzle your friends by asking them what Rollinsford and Somersworth were once named and then telling them it's Salmon Falls and Great Falls. Actually, Salmon Falls isn't too hard to come up with - the downtown village retains that name - and you'll find Great Falls in the name of many downtown Somersworth villages.

This confused me to no end for a long time because I got "two abandoned railroads met at Agamenticus" into my head and assumed that one of them must have been the Portsmouth, Great Falls, and Conway...but it's not. That one ran closer to the coast, but I'm not sure exactly where - or why it came into Maine at all. This could be helpful, but where is Brock's Crossing? And, why did the line cross into Maine for short stretches not once, but twice? Weren't bridges expensive?

Here are a couple of sites with more SB railroad info. Now, back to your regularly scheduled walk.

A new year brought a new approach: approach the Great Works from the Emery's Bridge end to the north. I didn't think there were any houses on that section of road - except for those very close to Emery's Bridge Rd. Crooker Rd (the road next to the cemetery across from The Lunch Box) runs almost to the ROW, but has a creepy house part of the way in. So, I cut through the purported future home of Our Lady of Angels church - for now, just a meadow.

I parked in one of the Willow St field lots and the walk up Agamenticus Rd was routine. I sweated lightly in my tick-avoidance long sleeves and windpants. Bore right at the sign; the meadow grass was about chest-high. As the trees converged, the remaining grassland aimed at the Crooker Ln house so I entered the woods. It got muddy for just long enough for me to wish I'd worn hiking boots, but quickly firmed up. I guess that's not a surprise; you wouldn't want to run a railroad or power lines through a bog.

The woods were fairly open and I'd guess that I wasn't the first to head this way. Nothing resembling a trail, but superior routes suspiciously presented themselves. It was probably only 10 minutes before I hit the ROW and turned right. The power lines were in a gully to the SE; the road sat high and was in fine shape, 10-12 feet wide. "Warning: Gas line" signs popped up every so often.

In my haste to get going, I forgot to leave something to mark where I'd popped out of the woods for reentry purposes. No matter, I could always just walk out to the road. Sunday afternoon with the Red Sox winning seemed like a pretty safe time to saunter out.

The road itself wasn't particularly interesting or scenic, but my adrenaline remained high as I wondered what would come at the river. Occasionally, four-wheeler side trails split off into the gully or the woods; the road itself was straight as an arrow. With nothing to obstruct it, the chain-link fence in front of the Great Works was visible from a fair distance. It was easy to go around the fence to the river's edge, and a rock structure built into the riverbank looked to be part of the remains of the old bridge, but nothing jutted out into the river except for the gas line; that's the faintly visible line on satellite photos.

Once again, rivers are really pretty! This year's high snowfall / runoff and May rains only helped the Great Works, I'm sure.

From there, I was able to get out easily to the nearest paved road and back to my car; in the interest of not publicizing every last adventure area, that'll be left as the proverbial exercise for the reader (you can also email me for more info, but it's basically the path of least resistance).

After reading more on the South Berwick website after getting home, I concluded that the houses across the river have York Woods Rd (Route 91) addresses such that the CMP road is effectively just a very long driveway. I wonder who plows it, though, and if you could build a house there given modern road frontage requirements......

On the other side of Emery's Bridge Rd, the power lines continue alongside a four-wheeler trail. Although the CMP right-of-way is less well defined so that adventurers need to stay more mindful of private land ownership, I bet there's some great exploring on that side, too!

This evening, I took a walk down Serenity Lane. You might remember that this is the "road" between Boyd Rd. and Cheney Woods Rd. that I asked each of you about after seeing it on a tourist map a couple of years ago.

The gate at the Boyd Rd. end, which had been closed last summer, has been open for at least a few months. I parked at the Finson Farm (the CSA that I'm a member of), a short ways up the road. The gate at what is now Country Time Kennels (and I believe used to be Marlee Animal Shelter) was ominously closed.

Serenity Lane is straight as an arrow for a while and quickly picks up a tall chain-link fence that marks off Pike's property. You can't see anything industrial through the trees. Maybe 3/10 of a mile in, there's a small cemetery on the right. It appeared to be a Jepson family burial ground, and someone had been added as recently as 2001. Apparently the Jepsons have been in Wells for almost 300 years--anyone know any of the current generation?

As an aside, ghost hunting back here would have been about 5x as scary as doing it back on 9B. For the psychology project where we had Emily (among others) dress up as ghosts and recorded people's reactions to seeing them, we could have used this graveyard and then had somebody close the gate, "trapping" us. And we could have had somebody over at the kennel/shelter getting the dogs riled up and barking like crazy. That was a missed opportunity.

At this point, the road was a good dirt road with some gravel sporadically spread on top. You could tell that typical passenger cars could and had been down it. Things were pretty quiet for a while, with only a few "Blasting zone--keep out" signs disturbing the peace. The one gate in the fence not only was locked, but had large boulders on the other side that precluded any vehicle larger than a scooter from getting out. An old stone wall ran down the other side of the road for a while before petering out.

Maybe 3/4 of a mile in, the fence and the road took a left turn--not quite 90 degrees, but apparently we had reached the back of the Pike property, when a red sedan was suddenly headed my way. It looked like there were 3 people inside but I avoided eye contact and breathed a sigh of relief when the driver didn't stop.

It looked like the sedan had pulled out into the road, and indeed a side road that looked less-traveled soon popped up on the right. Somebody had duck-taped an empty bag of Quik-rete to a tree and, a short ways down the "driveway", had clumsily attached a "Keep Out" sign to a too-thin branch. I still kept out. Soon, the fence changed from chain link to wire. The road became rougher, muddier, and more grown in and as the dusk set in, it got incredibly buggy.

Soon, I came to what I assumed was an old gravel pit. It was now a small pond with a steep rock face rising on one end and assorted boulders on another. Either they had been strategically arranged or mankind got very lucky as the boulders form a rough semicircle. As you approach, the boulders are covered in graffiti (the "Guitar Hero" writing and drawing of a guitar player is presumably fairly recent, and who knows about the picture of a cat and the scrawled "MEOW".) There was a fire pit and a bunch of trash. I thought that it was similar to, but not the same as, a spot I came to a couple of summers ago. I believe that one was on one of the trails between Cheney Woods Rd. and the Newhall Road extension, but my memory could be scrambled.

Here's a map of the area:



You can see on the map that the marked road ends at some weird purple stuff. Similar purple stuff just off of Route 9B between the Turnpike and Loop Rd. is labeled as "Sand and gravel pit". By the way, I got the map from http://www.digital-topo-maps.com/, and its get-a-map technology is great--once you have a topo map, you can zoom in and out and drag it just like a regular Google Map.

On another side of the pond was a large, very rusted piece of equipment. It looked sort of like a crane with a thin, circular piece of metal on one end that looked like it would have had run some kind of belt or pulley.

I wish I had thought to check what the fence did around this spot...is the piece of equipment now outside of the Pike boundaries? Or is this where you could"break in"?

The road turned into an ATV trail here, albeit one with quite a few recent tracks. I followed it for a while, bypassing a number of muddy patches, before the mother of all mud patches turned me around. I was surprised to not have reached Cheney Woods Rd, but looking at the map now, I shouldn't have been. One narrower but discernible trail had left to the right--looking at the attached map, it was probably headed for the Allen Rd. extension.

Having now been gone for quite a while, I was starting to get a little creeped out and didn't dawdle on the return trip. I was my garden work clothes (long-sleeved shirt and lined wind pants) and the air was not cooling off so I was sweating buckets. I won my race with the sun back to the car, but, surprisingly, the creepiness continued into the drive home.

I hadn't stopped sweating yet and soon had sweat running into my eyes, which stung to the point of me being barely able to keep them open. This was on the part of Thurrell Road where the road makes a few sharp turns and the asphalt is badly eroded. I kept it together for what felt like eternity before finally getting to a good spot to pull off the road.

It was getting foggy, and a short while after starting up again, I came around a turn and thought I had lost it. I was driving straight into the woods! No, it was just a branch that had fallen across the road. Fortunately, it was suspended high enough in the air that I could drive under with just leaves grazing the top of the Honda.

The really weird part (at least to me) was that 1) The branch hadn't been there when I drove through there about 8 hours before and 2) Had the branch been there 2/3 hours before, when I was driving to the farm, I wouldn't have seen it as I decided to take the "front way" of Route 4 for the first and only time in my life. It was as if those Jepson ghosts knew I was coming and conspired to make the experience as creepy as possible.

Next up is to wait until things dry out a bit and then try trails off of Cheney Woods Rd. until I find the other end of this one.

Sunday 3/15

Weather: Sunny, 50s
Music: OSI - Free

Sunday was warm and sunny from the start, but I was going nowhere fast. Finally, shortly after 1:00, I emerged from the blue room, threw open all of the shades, and stumbled out the front door.

Irregular melting has left monorails in some spots and muddy patches in others. I head out with the classic long-sleeve/short-sleeve t-shirt combo, but returned to grab the green fleece. After feeling cold so often of late, I welcome the opportunity to be a little too warm. I pace past the mailboxes, up Alder, and left onto Willow. It's remarkable how high a baby hill, nearly imperceptible in a car, can feel when you're on foot.

There's no doubt about this weather, so quite a few people are out and about, a few even carrying sports equipment. I spend most of the 0.75ish-mile Willow Street slowly gaining on a pair of woman in typical sweatshirts and tights, just frumpy enough to avoid the obvious yuppie pigeonhole. As I get close, I debated my options. Stay quiet and risk surprise or breath unnaturally loudly? Keep up the pace and nearly run them down or walk awkwardly slowly to stay back? I wonder about gender roles, sexual predators, and how scariness and skinniness interact before taking the first convenient opportunity to pass on the left.

Here's the route:



When you think about it, the Old Mill/Agamenticus Estates region has an awful lot of people living in a small area. It's no surprise that there are small crowds at the new "The Barn" teen center on the corner of Willow and Agamenticus and at the convenience store/"game center" across the street. After a few safe steps on the wide shoulders of Agamenticus Rd., I bear right past the Dead End sign onto an unmarked dirt road--Crooker Lane under the blackout above.

The road runs along the edge of a cemetery for a while, and then next to a field. For a brief stretch, there are clearings on both the left and right. Maybe a quarter mile in, I start to bear down on a lone house, and with a number of vehicles parked out front, it earns a "vaguely threatening." I swing right into a gully, ascend the tiny headwall, hop a chain-link fence, and walk back in the direction I came.

Soon, I'm confronted by a scattered front of recently-placed gravestones--the far end of the cemetery. Even though I'm headed for cremation, it's nice to see that there's some room for expansion. I turn down a central artery of sorts, past headstones dating back into the 19th century, a couple of mini-Washington Monuments, and even a tiny crypt. I think about what I'd do if somebody called me an intruder and decide that the dead probably like getting to observe a passing pedestrian from time to time.

Back on Willow, I'm plenty warm even after removing the fleece. And I'm real glad that it's all but Spring.

A chance to complain

Weather: Dark, mostly clear, 30s
Music: Frank Zappa - The Best Band You Never Heard in Your Life

Sometimes, you try to look like a nice guy and you get stuck driving around uncharted Boston at night. Still, with any luck, you're at least not a complete jerk and you set off lightheartedly. It helps that there's no inner turmoil about whether or not a nice guy gets to pick the music.

Alicia tested my "I'm just going to drive and let you tell me where to go!" pronouncements right off the bat, sending us back through Davis Square to get to Elm St. right away instead of snaking through one-ways to avoid the square. I commented, but probably shouldn't have since it looks like that is the Google Maps-recommended route. A good demonstration of the principle of "get to the fast road as quickly as possible."

Anyway, we <3 Beacon Street and Alicia had been this way before, so we took off on this odd-looking route that, in retrospect, can't be that much slower than going through Harvard Square and the heart of Cambridge. It didn't take long for me to become completely disoriented. There's something about driving in cities that completely scrambles my sense of direction. Since I talk enough smack about how good that sense usually is, I'm insecure about this and want to tell you three possible reasons why.

1) I psych myself out about driving in cities, which leads to focusing on the moment and the next move above all else instead of devoting some mental energy to keeping track of which way we're going.

2) The bright lights and activity of a city are just too much for a Mainer like me.

3) I always think city grids are laid out NS/EW, but they almost never are, so me and the map are usually way out of sync.

Anyway, we ended up a couple of blocks south of Western Ave, but recovered nicely to take the second bridge and swing onto Soldiers Field Road. Brian Urlacher was nowhere to be found...


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Soon, there were a lot of signs overhead. The designers had fit in a regular grade-level intersection right next to a full interstate interchange, necessitating two turns to the right in quick succession. Alicia saw the a sign saying to turn right for Cambridge Street--unfortunately, the first right was for the Mass Pike. This seems to happen to me an awful lot--most notably at that Pine Hill Road /Route 9 left-turn bonanza in Berwick, ME that I told everybody and their townie dads about. I don't have the energy for another bulleted list of explanations--next time.

It seemed more likely that there would be a quick exit going eastbound than westbound, so east we went through a toll and on to the Copley Place exit. Well, Back Bay is sort of familiar. Alicia got off the phone with Regina, our destination. "She's clueless, huh?" No, not really, but the sense of entitlement was persisting.

Things were mostly uneventful from there--I "remembered" (guessed) to head North to Comm Ave and we took Reg's good advice to take Beacon St. to Washington. The only incident was white-knuckling for a minute at a red light while preparing to go straight from a left-turn only lane, but in the end I didn't even have to go over 3,000 RPM. You can go pretty fast in a city when the street is empty and the lights are going your way.

Dropped Alicia off at the corner of Washington and Commonwealth. Saw the sights of Newton and made it back to the Pike, 128, and on home. Pretty good ride, all told. Let's see if it sticks.

What's better, static image maps or dynamic insertions?

Monday 3/17

Weather: Partly cloudy, low 50s
Music: Primus, Hush, Pigeon John

Having finally determined that the roads signed "No outlet" really don't go anywhere, I found Hillborn Road on the first try and, after dodging a surprising number of cars, caught sight of a red fox running into the woods behind a house. A pretty cool way to start the afternoon. Wallingford Road was narrow and crowded as always; I picked my way through edges of lawns and ran across the bridges.

Many people independently know about the Leiper-Smedley Trail, the bike path that runs past those old garden ruins near the Blue Route. I've been on the commonly-traveled section between Plush Mill Road and Avondale Road many times but never the northern end. Where could it go?

Three minutes later, I knew: the trail runs flat to the Baltimore Pike / I-476 interchange with the set-back light that I always almost run, crosses the road, and ends in a small park with a picnic table up on a small rise. A pretty spot, allowing for the 10 lanes of traffic running just a few hundred feet away. A couple of dog-walkers had set up shop so I continued onto a well-defined dirt path heading towards the highway. One trail leading towards the trolley tracks was blocked by two young rough toughs so I turned left towards the freeway.

Andy and Annette memorialized their love in a large oak in 1973, and others had left their mark later in the 70s, all before the Blue Route made this a far less attractive place to hang out. Surprisingly, the trail led right under the highway, the supports of which being completely covered with graffiti. Once across, a couple of man-made bike jumps loomed as the trail turned uphil, and a number of fresh-looking treads made me lower my ipod volume a little.

The Pike broke back into view and we followed it up a fenceline before the fence ended and a side path went over to the pavement. Crossing five lanes of traffic is fun! Memories of running across to route 1 from work for Skin Sandwiches kept the good times rolling as I continued straight across onto Turner Road. This is the road you end up on if take Avondale Road down by the condos and never figure out which road to take over to PA-252. The shoulder was narrow, but the traffic was slow and the walking pleasant. Passed by an entrance to Furness Park, a Nether Providence presentation. Next time...

A number of dead-end left turns into small developments passed before the turn to Rogers Lane, just across from the road to the Wallingford train station. This is the road that comes out on Wallingford Road just W of where the trail through the Crum ends. After passing a gardener and studiously avoiding eye contact, I hung a right onto the southbound section of Leiper-Smedley.

One time, I crossed the Crum going in the other direction and found a trail back to the bike path, but trying to make the return trip didn't go so well. There were beaten paths down to the area by the railroad trestle, but down there was just mud and prickly stuff and no clear place to cross anyway. The only well-defined path led back upstream, but I figured the old crossing point was somewhere nearby so I headed that way. The water must have risen or something, since it never showed, but the path was easy to follow past biology experiments and petroleum pipeline signs. Four white-tailed deer ran up a hill as I blundered near.

Finally, I came out back on Wallingford Road, crossed on the bridge, and was back on the regular trail through the Crum. I was late for dinner and tried to run home, which was a really bad idea.

Wednesday 3/12

Location: Meridian to New Orleans, LA
Weather: Sunny, high 60s
Music: Don Cabellero – World Class Listening Problem, Mission of Burma – onOFFon, Frank Zappa – Hot Rats, Porcupine Tree – In Absentia, R.E.M. – Fables of the Reconstruction

It’s hard to differentiate between meaningful discomfort and mere adjustment time. We sat right next to the kitchen area at my first-ever Waffle House and I didn’t exactly feel at home with all the noise, the matronly supervisor and drawling waitresses, and the camo-wearing and/or smoking clientele. It was easily the most stereotypically Southern experience yet, and I struggled to avoid placing my prefab life stories onto the participants. A day later, though, I also remember that my cheese and eggs were good, that I actually like grits, and would like to go back. So maybe there’s hope after all.

The forests became more and more dominated by pine trees. Alex pointed out that by turning the soil acidic by dropping needles, pines both encourage the survival of their own species and crowd out others that aren’t so fond of the acidity. I-59 was two lanes each way all the way to I-10 and usually featured a concrete roadway. These seem to be much more common down south than up north; there must be others, but the only ones I can remember now are I-95 in northern Maine and on the Pottstown Expressway between Allentown and Reading, PA. We’re joined by US-11, I-59’s sister (or is it brother?) road several times, often for long stretches; it’s as if the interstate planners decided to just expand the existing road and only build a completely new highway around the larger towns. Even when we do go through one of those towns, the highway forest remains unbroken--there aren’t too many people down this way.

I feel a surge of excitement while merging onto I-10, which deserves a geeky title like “America’s floor” or something. As we approach New Orleans, I nervously look for signs of devastation, unsure of how to properly react. Our first clue comes at the twin narrows bridge about 20 miles west of the city, where westbound traffic is down to one lane. In a different place, I might have suggested that we get off and bushwhack, but here we were duty-bound to experience the aftermath. An incredible amount of cranes, long lengths of incomplete bridge, and energetic workers were on the scene, confirming what I’d read about reconstruction occurring at rarely-seen speeds. We failed at lane-jockeying but were on our way after only about a half-hour delay. Even after failing to realize that “Vieux Carre” was the French Quarter, we had no trouble finding a visitor center and parking lot. Both of us had gotten plenty of friendly advice about staying safe in the city and I, at least, probably spent too much time worrying. Of course, it’s hard to say what “too much” is until you’ve seen “not enough”.

Most likely, we were both insulated from the worst areas and also not up to date on how much rebuilding has occurred. Except for driving to and from I-10, we stuck to Vieux Carre and the nearby Garden District. Certainly, there were signs that things were still not back to 100%--notices about newly expanded hours at many establishments, the occasional gutted building, and a number of for sale/lease signs even in lively parts of town. The roads seemed a little unnaturally empty, making for surprisingly easy driving despite a confusing street layout which had consecutive one-ways going in the same direction on at least a few occasions. Not nearly as bad as Boston, though. In a similar vein, Alex seemed mildly surprised at having to pay $12 for seven hours of parking, but I thought it was downright cheap.

Overall, though, I wouldn’t have found most of the effects unusual without knowing about Katrina. There were plenty of street performers, open shops, and tourists around. We enjoyed browsing a used book store with a friendly proprietor, relaxing while gazing up at Gen. Andrew Jackson, and just walking up and down past all the open doors.

And dinner! Good god it was amazing. We ate at what seemed to be a touristy-but-good restaurant, the kind of place I’d recommend to advice-seeking miniature golfers. There was a stage and the promise of nightly “Cajun bands” but we were too early for any of that. When we left around 6:00, the place was still maybe 15% full. I got a grilled seafood platter—catfish, crawfish, shrimp, and stuffed crab, as well as jambalaya and potato, and everything was just incredible. “One of the best meals I’ve ever had,” I’ll happily say to Grandma and casual acquaintances and the like.

Bourbon Street was hopping even at 6:30 p.m., and was much more sex and alcohol oriented than I had realized. I got jobbed for $5 for a photo of me and Alex holding a sign advertising “Huge ass beers to go”. Learning experience or bad sign? It’s pretty untenable to opine about how people need to stop the fragmentation of society and get together more while also fearing random interactions with strangers. Are spines available in stores, or is Amazon a better bet? Uh oh, there’s that forced humor again…and morbid self-awareness…hey, is that the Goodyear Blimp?!?

Our Red Carpet Inn was yet another pink hotel and was the secondary concern of what was primarily an RV park. Alex seemed pleased that the property was guarded by a gate, but it just psyched me out. Ultimately, the hardest thing was getting the cranky toilet to flush. Next time it’ll be easier.

Tuesday 3/11

Location: Gatlinburg to Meridian, MS by way of Chattanooga and Birmingham
Weather: Sunny, low 60s
Music: Pigeon John - …And the Summertime Pool Party, Peeping Tom – Peeping Tom, Radiohead – In Rainbows, Sunny Day Real Estate – The Rising Tide, The Shins – Chutes Too Narrow, Porcupine Tree – Stupid Dream, Beck – Guero, Deeper Shades of House

One ongoing traveling dilemma is how to deal with things that are “touristy”. One instinct, easily drawn from having grown up in a summer resort, is “touristy things are bad! You pay too much and/or miss out on the real essence of a place!” Another, sometimes stronger, is “Um, you ARE a tourist, and it’s laughable to try to pretend otherwise. Some of your favorite things to do back home are very touristy; would you tell people not to go to the beach or walk the Marginal Way?” The feeling of irony that comes from doing some touristy things is kind of like what comes from the institution of attending parties and other ritualistic behavior…but too much irony without accompanying flirting can get awkward real fast. There’s one easy mantra out of this, but it’s hard to just trust to instincts when Parent says you simply must see this or Good Friend strongly suggests that and there’s just that general pressure to get the most out of a vacation. As usual, ignorance ends up being pretty darn blissful.

Wait, all that about where we went for breakfast? Maybe the mantra should be “don’t take things too seriously.” Nervous laughter…

Anyway, we ended up at the Flapjack’s Pancake Cabin across from our trusty lavender Super 8 for breakfast, not fully aware that it was actually a chain. There’s no moral here; the pancakes were good, my omelet was pretty tasty, Alex thought it was a little pricey, AND IT WAS JUST BREAKFAST. WHY ARE YOU STILL TALKING ABOUT THIS?

150 miles later, we were at the International Towing and Recovery Hall of Fame and Museum. This was an easy one—irony galore and legitimate interest! Learning about offbeat stuff is fun, but what’s really great is getting insight into why people really care about things. I’m certainly not ashamed of not having anything in my life that I care about enough to develop a museum around, but it sure is great that other people do.

We barely paused to glance at the names and photographs of the members of the Hall of Fame, but the short clip of “average Joe tower” talking about how the Hall is “something to aspire towards” during the introductory video really stuck with me. OK, yes, it’s funny that there’s a tow truck hall of fame. But, again, what hall of fame do you get to shoot for? Oh, you’re trying to save the world—who needs halls of fame? Fine, fine, fine…

All that aside, it was fun to see one wrecker with a grille as tall as me and another that went 107 MPH while reading the stories of the people who drove them. Ignoring any analysis of what it means for people to care enough about recovery to compile large collections of toy tow trucks, they were still neat to look at. We left with a t-shirt each and I now finally own a shot glass. Ironic, sure, but also just cool.

Everyone’s less flustered when Alex drives and I look at maps, but we were reversed heading into Birmingham and had a mild adventure before pulling into a 25 cents / hour metered spot. Even cheaper than Portsmouth, NH! Well I’ll be. I had a higher opinion of Birmingham than Alex—I focused on the nice architecture, attractive park, and general safe feeling while he very reasonably pointed out that a number of buildings were for rent and we only saw one part of town, but I’d say we both had our expectations bettered.

We spent a couple of sober hours at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. I thought back to Urooj saying how much “minorities” appreciate when white males come to cultural events, but also that they tend to count how many show up. There was no reason to feel that at the Institute since it’s a well-known and recognized “tourist destination” beyond just being an interesting place to go. Still, whether due to the high concentration of Blacks in the city streets and institute staff, my general unfamiliarity with the south and artificially low expectations of it coming in, or to uncertainty as to my role in society, I had a hard time getting comfortable. Of course, maybe that’s what’s supposed to happen. In high school, the complete lack of diversity didn’t seem like a big deal but now I’m left still trying to catch up.

I kept thinking about what to say if someone asked “What are you learning here?” and couldn’t come up with anything beyond blurting out something trite “Wow, they really went through a lot!” or artificially subdued. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned at four years at Swarthmore,” I thought, “it’s that some of the things that I thought were over really aren’t over after all. And then there’s the politics of a city like Birmingham—how does the past affect what leaders do to publicly acknowledge civil rights struggles today? Since it was a great experience; let’s focus not on this but on the remarkable primary sources, generally flowing narrative of exhibits, and friendly staff.

All of the area eateries seemed to be lunch only, but eventually we found a Quizno’s in the storm and left feeling great. I had been dying to see Vulcan Park, home of the world’s largest statue, great views of the city, and a “celebration of Birmingham’s past, present, and hope for the future” or something or another, and not surprisingly it was somewhat underwhelming. It wasn’t the offbeat, somewhat quirky place I’d hoped for but instead fronted by a massive parking lot and playing host to at least one giant, well-dressed group. After viewing Vulcan from afar, we both were immediately turned off by the $3 admission fee; it’s good to share obsessions.

Along the way, we realized that we’d get more time in New Orleans if we knocked some drive off tonight, so after consulting the map we set out for Meridian, MS. Two hours and one smoky Chevron later, we pulled into a Motel 6 on Frontage Road, where Alex once again did all the talking above the loud roar of an ice machine while I tried to disappear. Sometime, I really need to stop being a loser…our room was new and attractive, and after watching some Office, I couldn’t even make it through ten pages before falling asleep.

Monday 3/10

Location: Gatlinburg to Newfound Gap to Pigeon Forge to Gatlinburg

Weather: Mostly sunny, 50s

The more things change, the more they…don’t stay the same.

The mileage/distance profile of the hike to Mt. LeConte via the Alum Cave Trail (10.0 rt, 2,863 ft.) looked awfully similar to a typical dayhike to a 4,000-footer in New Hampshire. I’m not in great shape right, but it could be worse, and the ground conditions (some snow and ice up high but little cover) looked reminiscent of October in the Whites.

After another indecisive morning (should I wake Alex up? Get in the shower? Turn the lights on and let them decide? Why not just lie in bed and relax?), plastic-bowl raisin brain, and a quick stop at the visitor center, we were up to 3,700 feet and one of three cars in a large parking lot at about 10:00. I was minorly freaking out about setting off in pants that weren’t wind- or poly- or any other sufficient buzzword. As important as safety is, I also definitely take some pride in walking the walk, or at least so far as it allows me to talk the talk. Passing 20-30 people in jeans and sneakers on the way down, even if they were only heading to the halfway point, kind of put things into perspective.

We eased into things with a nearly level walk along a babbling brook, complete with scattered hemlocks and lots and lots of what I thought were rhododendrons, but were apparently actually magnolias. So far, so familiar; the first inkling that we weren’t at home was the first bridged water crossing. Instead of a bridge made up of slats laid parallel to the water, we had one long, narrow log covered with concrete and a handrail on one side. The concrete was a nice touch, since wet wood can be really slippery, though the handrail was a little too necessary.

More strikingly, we definitely weren’t in New Hampshire anymore when we came across a cave with blasted steps leading to nowhere. Turns out it’s actually a naturally-formed arch, but it sure looked like a cave from the bottom. I was grinning widely as we climbed to Mordor with the help of another man-placed handrail. There would be quite a few more handrails throughout the hike. Since the trail was wide and well-defined anyway, they didn’t eliminate any “wilderness” feeling and were often very useful in navigating icy patches.

The grade slowly increased as we cruised past the bluffs that give the trail its name about halfway to the summit. Oddly, there was a strong sulfuric smell (from the alum) on the way down but not on the way up. Leaving the car, we had been unsure about how far we would be able to get but, having made good time to this point, we had no trouble deciding to continue on.

We took our first serious break a little later as Alex turned a post-it note into moleskin for a nasty blister. “What a trooper!” I thought. I was in the new winter boots and was fortunate to escape with just a small unpopped blister on one toe. The moderate grade continued through increasingly icy conditions; as self-appointed trip leader I tried to err on the side of “Are you sure you’re comfortable?” and was fortunate not to get eye-rolls in reply.

My favorite part of the day came after we reached the top of a ridge and the trail flattened out for the penultimate approach. The trees—mostly spruce—thickened on both sides and their needles formed an arch over the trail, which was now covered with a few inches of snow. Usually, I read trip reports that make claims like “it was like being in a cathedral!” with some skepticism, but this really was a spiritual experience. I was so thrilled just to be alive.

The spell was broken by the sight of the summit area lodge and a nervous passing of two other hikers at a trail junction (why didn’t I pack those damn pants?) Not knowing which of the several trails led to the true summit, we wandered around for a while before finding a nice-looking cairn in the woods and retreating for a quiet lunch at a nice outlook across the pass. We were still well below treeline, so the air was still and serene.

The view was simply mountains beyond mountains beyond mountains. It was kind of refreshing to just sit and bask without worrying about trying to figure out what was what. All in all, given the large differences in attractions (no arches or alum caves in NH), trail maintenance (bridges & handrails) and views (no treeline, general woodedness), the hiking experience in the Smokies was distinctly different from the Whites. I’m really glad to have tried and enjoyed somewhere else so much. After days of reflective travel, the trip down went by refreshing quickly as we traded roleplaying stories.

After all the worrying about turnaround times and mountain sunsets, we were back to the car by 3:30 and had plenty of time to drive up to the highpoint of US-441 (Newfound gap, 50xx feet), coast back to town, and shower up before dinner. We hemmed and hawed about where to go to dinner before ending up at a chain Italian place in the Macaroni Grill style; the food was great so we definitely won that one.

One great thing about this sort of trip is that you really do learn about other people and yourself. This most obviously happens, because of the out-of-character responses generated, with respect to quirks and pet peeves. So far, we’ve implicitly established that Alex hates ATM and parking fees and paying too much for meals, while I hate asking for directions and talking to strangers.

We were plowing through our chicken, garlic, and bowtie pasta and got to talking about the hike when I found that I just had to insert a “Yeah, and I was really impressed with how you kept going with that blister! You should give yourself a hearty pat on the back!” or something. “Uh-oh,” I thought and quickly tried to verbalize into a joke, “I’m turning into my dad” as past comments on bowling follow-throughs, test preparation, (of course) hiking accomplishments and most anything else flashed uncomfortably. Looking back, I guess dads are supposed to say stuff like that; maybe I should just work on stopping being so mildly conceited about stuff without dragging psychobabble into the mix.

Traveling with someone you don’t know incredibly well is hard! I know Alex as well as I know all but a handful of people, and still often have a hard time knowing when he’s happy with what we’re doing or is just tagging along. “You know, we can go into some of these shops if you want,” I hastened to remark as we strolled up and down Gatlinburg after dinner. Two days later, I got a little satisfaction out of being asked “Is this okay?” numerous times in New Orleans when, every time, it certainly was.

Sunday 3/9

Location: Forest, VA to Gatlinbug, TN
Weather: Sunny, high 40s
Music: Frank Zappa – Sheik Yerbouti, Porcupine Tree – The Sky Moves Sideways, King Crimson – Discipline, Liquid Tension Experiment – LTE I, Primus – Antipop, Netmusique – International Free Riding Radio Show, Pink Martini, Smashing Pumpkins – Greatest Hits, The Pixies – Doolittle, The Office (Season 4), R.E.M. – Green

I was deathly afraid of waking up at noon after rocking deep into the night so I went to bed restless and suffered accordingly. Or maybe it’s just one of those mother-son things. Regardless, I got Alex up at around 10:00 and we were on the road just after 11.

Prior to the trip, I had done a lot of planning in the sense of “looking at the map and finding possible ways to go / things to do” but had hardly come up with an exhaustive list. For today, I had seen us heading west to I-81 and taking that nearly all the way with a stop at Mt. Rogers (the VA state highpoint) along the way. The 300-mile trip would be nearly all on interstate. With a serious trip to Mt. Rogers not looking too good after our late bedtime, a trip down the Blue Ridge Parkway looked like a better bet. We’d be able to sightsee from the road, make brief stops to gawk and maybe tramp around a bit, and then cut back to the highway.

The gawking went well; cutting back, not so much. After some troubles getting out of Lynchburg and finding coffee, the drive down to the parkway was great—two lanes each way of 55+ MPH driving through beautiful farmland with the ever-nearing mountain backdrop, and the parkway pretty much lived up to its “America’s Favorite Drive” billing. We stopped at most of the first few “Overloooks”, nearly always enjoying a fine view of mountains near or far, beautiful houses, or gently rolling terrain, and finally stopped stopping because the afternoon was running away, though we did make a special stop and walk down to America’s smallest hydroelectric power plant. The parkway was always two lanes with a lot of mild curves and elevation changes; in the summer it must be painfully busy but, nearly deserted, it made for fantastic driving. The Escort didn’t seem to be laboring at all. Things were mostly brown except for a few dazzlingly lush lawns, so it was hard to tell plants apart, but there were a few spots that had just been demolished by what looked to be invasive vines. I don’t want to think about it.

After a while, the roadway moved primarily into the trees, and progress was slow with all the winding around. Just into North Carolina, we got off and headed up to US-221, which appeared to be a more direct southwest-running option. We passed through the “city” of Sparta and its Trojan Shopping Center uneventfully and things were looking good as the speed limit went up to 55. That wasn’t happening, though, as most of the next 80 or so miles were spent ascending, winding, and descending past farms, open space, and generally decrepit housing. At some points, when we passed through more forested areas, it reminded me of the road to Sculpted Rocks in central New Hampshire, and the general “poor farming area” was similar to parts of central/southern Virginia, but I had never seen it on this scale. The landscape was consistently beautiful—I’m still not fully over the sheer amount of open space and how beautiful it all looks—but we couldn’t figure out what any non-farmers did for work. A pickup truck followed us closely for a number of miles over one of the slowest sections before finally passing, and it was clear that the fun must get old pretty quickly. I feel like an idiot for ever questioning the ruggedness of the southern Appalachians.

Finally, things straightened out, we got back to interstate-land (I-26) and we heard our first hints at southern drawl at a Subway near Johnson City, TN. The sun set on our cold cuts, so it was prime time to cruise down I-26, I-81, I-40, and finally onto TN-66, the divided road to Gatlinburg.

We got onto 66 in Kodak, and according to the maps passed through Severiville, Pigeon Forge, and finally Gatlinburg but you’d never know it from the car ride alone. Except for a short stretch of parkway, the entire ~20-mile drive was built up on all sides not only with every chain hotel and restaurant imaginable but with a gaudy assortment of local attractions. Even in the off-season, there was neon everywhere as we were invited to visit the indoor roller coaster, two race tracks, several mini-golf adventures, a bevy of Ripley’s Believe-it-or-not extravaganzas (including, it Gatlinburg, the museum that started it all), and oh so much more. Alex compared it to a family-friendly Las Vegas; I was completely without a point of reference. I’m sure the approaching national park in the background would have made for nice contrast during the day. Tennessee, we hardly knew ye!

The desk clerk was frosty at first but softened after we didn’t try to negotiate down from $35/night. Have I mentioned how much I love AAA?

Our post-morteming with Google Maps revealed that once we took the Parkway as far south as we did, we were in for a really long day no matter what and the thing to do would have been to get of at I-77, about 25-30 miles north of where we ended up exiting, and taking 77 NW until we hit I-81. Someday I’ll surprise my child by looking at his/her planned route and saying “Yeah, it’s most direct but taking the ugly highway route will be a lot faster”, but he/she also probably won’t believe it until they see it. As a route-finding geek, I’m not thrilled with having taken over ten hours (with stops) to make this trip, but we sure did see a heck of a lot.

Forgot to pack: toothpaste, wind pants, long johns, ibuprofen.