Alone in the distant woods or fields.

Day 4 – Today I had a complimentary bagel and drove. Toll roads are ridiculous; I saw the exit for Stoddardland; I saw NY and drove over the George Washington Bridge (988.5 m); I found Connecticut beautiful and saw the WWE headquarters (1013.0 m); Massachusetts has falling rock zones which only made me think of Zelda rather than actually watching for falling rocks; and for all the talk New Yorkers do about their traffic, it’s Boston I had the most trouble with (though probably because of the timing).

What really consumed me today is the slight desire to be a hobbit (I’m audio booking some Tolkien right now). A day of tromping around DC has left my feet with some painful and gross looking blisters, and really it doesn’t matter what kind of shoes you wear, or if you have the right socks, or take preemptive measures with some band-aids – you’ll get blisters. The only solution I can think of is going barefoot, though I see there are some problems with that too. Now hobbits, you see, have big thick-soled feet that require no shoes, even when traveling across the whole middle-earth to fight some evil. So what if you can’t get stuff off the top shelf.

The one thing I got to do today (due to stupid traffic) was Walden (1202.1 m) and I think it was worth it. It was a lot bigger than what I think of as a pond but it was lovely, despite the team of school boys in speedos cheering/mocking their fellows swimming across the pond. I considered taking a picture of them for Steph but she has Evan now, plus being in the land of Puritans I thought better of it. I picked up another thimble and the shop guy said that all southerners were trustworthy so he didn’t require my ID, and he also informed another shopper that New Englanders drive crazy and would likely hit her if she didn’t cross at the cross walk.

The next leg of my journey took me through NH into ME which made for some interesting signage on the roadway. NH said Welcome & Bienvenue (1251.9 m) and then kept touting their liquor stores selling lottery tickets. ME went with “Welcome to Maine – the way life should be” and then followed up with signs summarizing various laws. And the Rodeway Inn is my new favorite cheap motel – the one in ME is even better than the NJ one (1305.2).

God Bless America.