My trip, in brief

[mousme]

Twenty-three hours of driving.

Eight hours of that was in the driving snow.

All twenty-three were in the company of my mother.

We managed to have a good time anyway.

New England road signs are nearly incomprehensible, as far as I can tell. They announce exits a mile or two before you get there, but the actual exits are labeled with the name of the following exit. Muy confusing.

New England food, well, it was a mixed experience. Good restaurant in Montpelier called Sarducci's, very nice lobster when in Connecticut, otherwise blah.

In Connecticut, the lobster was accompanied by a meeting of the local chapter of the Lion's Club, which insisted on reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and then singing a rousing rendition of "America the Beautiful" before eating. Then there was a round of speeches in which each one explained at great length how grateful they were for the freedoms they enjoyed, etc, ad nauseam.

Now, I'm all for patriotism. This was a little much, mind you, for my Canadian tastes. My mother, OTOH, dislikes the States with a fiery passion, and it was all I could do to keep her in her seat at times.

We stayed at a sweet little B&B called the Brigadoon Inn in Mystic, Connecticut. Comfy beds, really really kitsch decor, everything painted and/or decorated in slightly different styles, prints and floral patterns, little garden gnomes and statuettes everywhere. Very nice hostess, and did I mention the beds were comfy? Very, very comfy. Beds were my friends on this trip. ^_-

The other hotel we stayed at was a Best Western (hereafter known to us as the Worst Western) which sucked big rocks through bendy straws (thank you, Griff, for the handy phrasing). The room was hot, dry and airless. No way to open the windows. Ground floor. People arguing outside our window until 2am. Gratuitous charges on the hotel bill that my mother didn't have the presence of mind to argue (I wasn't there when she paid, unfortunately), and very uncomfy beds. The contour sheet on mine kept coming off, so I had to get up and remake the bed every so often so as not to be sleeping directly on the mattress. We eventually had to turn on the shower in the bathroom to make it breathable. Did I mention the plumbing only worked about halfway decently? *sigh*

My uncle was not really in good shape at all, but he put on a very good front for us. We couldn't stay very long because it tired him out, but I think he was glad to see us. I might post about that more in detail later.

Then we drove. A lot. In the snow. We stopped for breaks, and for a night that was woefully too short at a hotel which was unremarkable but not unpleasant. Then we drove some more. In the snow.

Got home, posted, took a nap, went out again. Had very enjoyable afternoon and evening. Am now going to go lapse into a coma.

Comments

[vureoelt.livejournal.com]

Well, sounds like your trip was pretty successful for the most part. I'm glad things went fairly smoothly with your family members, even if the places you were staying at sometimes had lousy service.