Bea, Where Is The Coffee Pot? And We Took The Scenic Route

Day 2: Did I mention that the lights went out in our van at 7pm yesterday evening? Trouble is the ceiling lights seem to be on sort of a time-switch. Whatever we haven’t accomplished within a few minutes we won’t be able to finish in the dark. That is unless we find a different light source. With the lights out there isn’t much one can do after dark, than go to bed. I’m positive that I was snoring through several hours right after 8pm. Before that, we were having a fit of uncontrolled giggling. Reason was we imagined what bystanders would be thinking if they knew that two older people were trying to be young again, sleeping in a van and then, to make it worse start giggling like 15-year olds. I’m sure that Molly down on the floor was wondering about why we people were having a fit. Anyway, going to bed that early results in waking up early. Bea predicted 4am and 4am it was when we both started stirring around. The Wallymart parking lot was a very quiet one, so we got all the sleep we needed. SIGNS ALONG THE ROAD  A Welcome to the MASS-State    ….and to NEW YORK STATE …and (down below) what we can’t understand in New Hampshire, how the State is animating drivers to go buy liquor, from the road. Probably a lucrative business for the State. We started this early morning with a sugary hot tea and that was all, before hitting the road. We were still on I-495, which throws a wide circle to the west around Boston. It was after leaving the Interstate that our adventure really started. Traveling down a two-lane highway through a totally unknown area at daylight might be interesting, but it is nothing like that at dark. It was pitch-dark and this road leading through the Appalachians has a habit of many ups and downs and curves. Finally the dark turned a bit grey and as daylight came to America it went away, showing an overcast sky. Awww…                                                    You drive – I sleep Of course we tried to find a place where we could get a coffee but no such place was open on this Sunday morning. First after 6am we found a place, a Dunkin Donut, where I ordered coffee with cream no sugar and a chocolate for Bea. I also grabbed a bag of “Dunkin Donut coffee” as we had forgotten to take any coffee from home. The older woman asked me whether I was a Senior. Huh..?  “I’m sixty”, I said and received a seniors discount on the coffee. Olala…does it pay off to grow old? Back in the van, I opened my coffee cup and bah….the coffee was black but the lady had put the unwanted sugar in it.                                                     ALBANY,NY Now, let’s get to this stories topic, before you click yourself out of the show. Being van-travelers we meet new challenges. Challenge #1 is to find the stuff we have stowed into it just a day or two earlier. “Bea where is the coffee pot”, marks just the latest of my wonderings. There has been a lot earlier and I won’t fill you into all these little details. Let me just say that we have a bit of a chaos when it comes to functioning in a daily life routine kind-of-way. You get the idea, right? What’s the next challenge? It’s got nothing to do with the van, but with traveling unknown little highways. You say you have a GPS-thingy? Well, let me tell you we have two (2) of those Garmins. #1 is an older model, purchased at Crappy Tire in good ole Canada, #2 was recently purchased at a Wallymart in the State of Maine. Both units were updated before we took off. I had fastened #2 unit to the windshield and we started to get “TURN RIGHT” and “RE-CALCULATING” way too often. Then the whole thing simply froze on the screen and left us in the dark – literally. Also, we were always reminded to be on the wrong road as GPS-Jenny wanted to lead us along MA-Toll-Highway #90, which we were not intending to use. So needless to say GPS-Jenny turned out to be useless. Now, we are used to that her Canadian colleague “Hannah” is more flexible. Yes, indeed, she understands it when we have a different idea of a travel route. So after a few “Make U-turn” she gives it up and finds out about our route, just by herself.  We love her. By the way we have put “Hannah” to speak Norwegian to us. Just another convenient feature of the Canadian GPS. The U.S. model speaks Spanish and French, but that doesn’t really cut it for us. So the entire mess ended up with a 2-hour sightseeing trip through deep-cut valleys and over high-top summits of the Appalachian Mts. I didn’t really value this side trip enough, but it was too late for other alternatives. Our first goal of the day was Albany,NY, and I must hurry to say that we did get there - in our own time. Typical old New England Brick-Town From there we finally made it close to the State Line of Pennsylvania, but went north again ending our day just north of the town of Bath, NY. It is funny that we ended up here, as we actually bought our van at the VILLAGE of BATH,NB Canada. Was it for the name’s sake that we holed up here? No, it wasn’t – we were simply worn out after close to 12 hours of travel. And tonight……tonight we are NOT sleeping in the van. Nope, found us a Super 8 and turned down the engine. Molly is actually rolled over on her back, which is a sure sign of her appreciation of tonights accommodation. Have a good night everybody and thanks sooooo much for visiting.