Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
grims, curiously enough, didn't mean to land on Cape Cod at all. They were aiming for
Jamestown in Virginia, but missed their target by a mere b00 miles. I think that is a con-
siderable achievement. Here's another curious thing: they didn't bring with them a single
plow or horse or cow or even a fishing line. Does that strike you as just a little bit foolish?
I mean to say, if you were going to start a new life in a land far, far away, don't you think
you would give some thought to how you were going to fend for yourself once you got
there? Still, for all their shortcomings as planners, the Pilgrim fathers were sufficiently on
the ball not to linger in the Provincetown area and at the first opportunity they pushed on
to mainland Massachusetts. So did I.
I had hoped to go to Hyannis Port, where the Kennedys had their summer home, but the
traffic was so slow, especially around Woods Hole, where the ferry to Martha's Vine-
yard departs, that I dared not. Every motel I passed-and there were hundredssaid N0
VACANCY. I got on Interstate 93, thinking I would follow it for a few miles just to get
away from Cape Cod, and start looking for a room, but before I knew it I was in Boston,
caught in the evening rush hour. Boston's freeway system was insane. It was clearly de-
signed by a person who had spent his childhood crashing toy trains. Every few hundred
yards I would find my lane vanishing beneath me and other lanes merging with it from the
right or left, or sometimes both. This wasn't a road system, it was mobile hysteria. Every-
body looked worried. I had never seen people working so hard to keep from crashing into
each other. And this was a Saturday-God knows what it must be like on a weekday.
Boston is a big city and its outer suburbs dribble on and on all the way up to New
Hampshire. So, late in the evening, without having any clear idea of how I got there, I
found myself in one of those placeless places that sprout up along the junctions of inter-
state highways-purplishly lit islands of motels, gas stations, shopping centers and fast-food
places-sobrightlylittheymustbevisiblefromouterspace.Thisonewassomewhereinthe
region of Haverhill. I got a room in a Motel 6 and dined on greasy fried chicken and limp
french fries at a Denny's Restaurant across the way. It had been a bad day, but I refused to
get depressed. Just a couple of miles down the road was New Hampshire and the start of
the real New England. Things could only get better.
