Distance travelled today: 154 miles
So it probably goes without saying that I
didn’t sleep very well after the trauma of the previous evening. Thankfully,
we’ve been so lucky with the weather that today has turned out to be another
beautiful day. The past few days have been very cold (around freezing, or as
the Americans say “frigid”), but very sunny. Goodness knows how I would have
coped with driving had it been raining as well.
We decided to make a few changes to our
plans. We should have taken the car back to Boston on Monday, but the weather forecast
is not good and I’d rather go back on Sunday afternoon during the day when it should be a bit quieter. Therefore, we have decided to take the car
back a day early on the Sunday, and stay an extra night in Boston.
Sunny start outside Jo and Mike's house
After a bit of a lie in and getting ready,
we left for Vermont about lunchtime. Jo had suggested we stopped at an outlet
store about one hour into the journey. This worked really well as it gave me just a short drive to get my confidence back, and something to look forward too that I knew I’d only be driving for another 15 minutes, 10 minutes etc. When we pulled up I was feeling a lot better.
The reason we stopped at this outlet was
that it was in New Hampshire, which actually has 0% sales tax (equivalent of
VAT). We actually didn’t spend any money except on a cheese and tuna toastie
and a scarf for me that was $30. The second leg of the journal was pretty long.
112 miles that took about 2 hours.
On the exit, there was a starbucks that we
stopped for a coffee before setting off again. On this second half of the
journey, the driving was pretty easy. I’d figured out that the 3rd
lane from the left is the safest, usually if 4 lanes appear, it means the
right-hand one will be leaving, so I was avoiding that. We were also
successfully making our ways through the tolls without incident.
Roads in Vermont, much quieter than those around Boston
We were heading to Woodstock in Vermont,
once we passed Manchester, it was about 60 miles, which we virtually had
the road to ourselves. We found
this radio station called Utopia that was a non-stop mix of 80s, 90s and 00s
dance music which was actually quite good for driving.
Soundtrack provided by Utopia, as we couldn't connect Kathryn's iPhone
The people who run the Inn we were staying
at had sent us detailed instructions of how to find them so that made it very
easy. After we pulled off the interstate, it did take about another 30 minutes
to find them, although it only involved 2 roads, they seemed to go on forever! The roads were windy, and very cracked surfaces presumably by the cold winters. Thankfully
we pulled up just as the sun was setting.
It was a bit odd at first as I’d done the
planning for this part of the trip, and as we’d been looking at it online, and
reading the reviews, it was a bit weird to actually be there in person. We went straight in as it was very cold outside.
Nancy and Mike gave us a warm welcome us and helped us to
our room. The Inn was fantastic and with a really nice interior. There were three downstairs rooms available for the guests to use; a library with computer, boardgames, dvds
and books, a sitting room and finally the breakfast room which had various hot
drinks that you could help yourself to at any time. There was also freshly
baked cookies waiting in the hallway too for the new arrivals!
Pictures of the room and wine, flowers and cookies too!
We had driven passed a resturant that was
no more than 500m down the road, we asked Nancy and Mike to make a reservation for
us. We had about an hour just to
rest and get comfortable and then we left for our evening meal. We were going to
walk, but they suggested we drive, which was a good thing as it was really
cold. Probably at least below freezing.
The restaurant was really quite and we were
seated straight away. Everything
looked good on the menu, I eventually opted for a Yankee Stew which was a large
piece of beef on some mash potatoes and vegetables. I had a beef stew as it was
cold and it was just the perfect thing to warm me up. There was a big chunk of
meat and it was just falling apart on the fork!
The food was really good, Kathryn had a
burger with bacon and cheese. Unforatuenly there was roasted garlic on the
vegetables! But I did my best to pick the bits off.
We were fnished about 7pm and headed back
to our room. It was so cold by now, even just getting in the car and driving
for 5 minutes was enough to chill right through your clothes. The inn was
really quiet and we just watched some TV in bed. There was also a wood
fireplace in our room so I lit that to warm us up a bit. It was really good and
the wood burned well without making the room smell at all!
Nice warm fireplace!
As you can tell, I'm am still catching up. Although today I set up Wi-Fi at Smiti's apartment so we should be caught up fairly soon!
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