On the (New England) Road Again

 

The bride and groom (yesterday)

The wedding was magnificent. 

Victoria looked beautiful and AJ looked great. The food was delicious. The staff was tremendous. The venue and its view of Boston were magnificent. The people were all wonderful and kind to a broadcaster from New York who went stag and knew literally three people (the bride, groom, and mother of the groom). Those three each said how much it meant to have me there but it meant just as much to me.

But that's not why we've assembled tonight. AJ (the aforementioned groom) told me he loved the post on Saturday. I've actually heard those slice-of-my life/play-by-play of the day posts tend to be some of the best things I put on the blog.

So I felt I owed it -- as a gift to AJ -- to do the same for the return trip today.

Spoiler alert: it was nowhere near as eventful on Saturday.

In truth, I woke up around 3:30 this morning. In that moment -- wide awake -- I considered beginning to drive home. It would have been pure me with mostly empty/quiet roads. Maybe I would have been able to find something to eat on the way and be back home (and, likely, in my own bed) by 8 a.m.

Somehow I went back to sleep for a bit. Still, I was up and out of the hotel by 9 a.m.

I needed breakfast and, well, it's safe to say that finding a simple egg and cheese sandwich was not an easy thing. Where you can sneeze and hit a deli around New York (and even Fairfield County) that is not quite as easy in Brockton, MA.

With breakfast in mind, I hit the road with my first goal to take a look at Campanelli Stadium, home of the Brockton Rox of the Future's League. A stadium literally next to Brockton High School, it holds 6,000 and I was able to look through the gate at the field.

Brockton High School is the home of Rocky Marciano Stadium, and a large statue of the boxer is just outside of the facility.

I pursued something to eat from there. Not looking for a long, fruitless pursuit, I began looking for a Dunkin Donuts (good grief they're everywhere) but stumbled on a Cumby (Cumberland Farms). At worst, I knew decent coffee awaited. Lo and behold they also had little pre-made breakfast sandwiches, including an egg, cheese, and chorizo wrap. 

Shockingly it not only wasn't bad but was decent. Or even good.

With that, I jumped back on MA Route 24 and considered a route. I'm never (ok, rarely) content to take the same route both to and from anywhere. Could I dip down to Fall River to drive past Battleship Cove (a place I first visited back in the late 70s and loved)? But what about Lizzie Borden? Forty whacks and all, I decided to hold off for Fall River for some other time.

Instead, having visited one baseball stadium already, I thought I'd head to McCoy Stadium, the former home of the Pawtucket Red Sox, in Rhode Island. That meant getting back on Interstate 495 and heading to its parent: I-95.

The visit to Pawtucket was almost more exciting than need be. I found the entrance to the stadium and turned in, figuring I could get out of the car and take a few pictures. Then I discovered other cars were coming into the lot and there was a line.

A line for COVID tests.

I departed. Quickly.

Still, I wasn't done with Rhody. Approaching the last exit on 95 in the state, I took a diversion down into Westerly just to look around. I didn't get out. I was afraid Taylor Swift's people might find out and eject me, so I departed without incident into Connecticut.

I did need to stretch my legs eventually so I stopped at a mostly empty outlet center and walked around. There's a larger outlet center a few exits away but nothing about it intrigued me enough to stop. Plus I could see where I-95 was beginning to act like I-95. It was, after all, a holiday (to some) so traffic returning from a three-day weekend was beginning to pick up.

That's where leaving the hotel at 3:30 in the morning would have been just fine.

The GPS in my car (I turn it on for laughs) was telling me to go all the way to White Plains before turning north. I laughed at that idea.

I left 95 in New Haven, electing again to pass on pizza and Ikea. In fact, my goal became not stopping again. I passed Yale Field and the nearby Yale Bowl and rolled through Derby on my way to connect with Interstate 84 in Newtown.

I told Sean I'd be home around 2:30 and that's pretty much what I did. Given that I didn't leave in the middle of the night, I chose to take my time driving home.

I was greeted by Sean and Rascal, and a house that I never once worried about. It was in perfect hands with Sean, who said things were very quiet all weekend.

As I reflect, I wonder if the joy of the road trip just isn't what it used to be anymore. Consider the traffic nightmares Sean and I experienced driving to North Carolina in July as well as the headaches I had on Saturday. I still love it -- and am already longing for another adventure -- but it just feels hellacious when looking at a long string of brake lights. In fact, I feel claustrophobic in those moments.

Don't get me wrong. It's still strategic for me. It's a mind game. As soon as I see those brake lights, the wheels start turning for an alternate route. Quite often it's successful. Often, I'm going out of the way and it might take longer, but at least I'm moving. Other times, I just find more traffic headaches on the second route.

Then again, maybe these (First World) problems are a mostly Interstate 95/northeast things. That's not to say other areas don't have traffic -- quite the opposite of course (LA, San Francisco, Florida, Texas, Chicago, etc) but it often feels like I-95 is a quagmire (Giggity) from Richmond, VA to somewhere in Maine.

And I love 95 but it's a time suck.

So, yeah, maybe 3:30 was the right answer.