First off, I just want to apologize about how horrible these pages are going to look, I'm just banging out the HTML as fast as possible with pictures so I can get some sleep. :) Day 1, the first day, the beginning of a long journey. Everything started out pretty anxiously today, I was pumped and a bit nervous for the trip, but some stuff cropped up, a fuse blew in some of my electronics and the tire was looking a little flat, so I had to fix a few things up quickly before heading out, which put me a little behind schedule, not too badly.
I've done the Portsmouth -> Wyandotte trip 5 times now, so I wasn't too much in the mood for sightseeing today, I just wanted to get there, its a 13-14 hour drive. 95 is not particuarly exciting, especially if you see it a few times a week, but here's the Mass flavor of the highway.
You're in Marlboro country now. Emphysema ahoy!
So yeah, Mass and Upper New York (along with the rest of New England) is mostly trees, mountains, and mountainous trees. Still, I really love trees in general, which is one of the main reasons I probably will never be able to stay away from this place for too long.
One thing I noticed this time on the trip that I hadn't previous times was a extremely large (and mostly decrepit) Beech-nut factory in upper New York. Its amazing, I was checking it out, the town looks like it was basically built around and supported by this huge Beech-nut factory (they make baby food). There are dozens of old railway bridges that stand connected to the factory, no longer leading anywhere (they end in mid-air), you can basically see the history of the town right there and how it was physically shaped, newer portions of the factory are down the highway a bit and you can see newer homes around it. I didn't manage to snap a picture of the factory but here is an example of one of those railway bridges.
I was making _awesome_ time even with my initial setback on my break-neck pace to Wyandotte, when suddenly, TROUBLE AROSE! We in the business like to call it a traffic jam.
But luckily there were some friends on the side of the road to talk to.
The smell was really overwhelming to be stuck in traffic around though. Anyway - not too much exciting today, but I wasn't really expecting anything much. By the time I hit Canada it was dark. Canadian border guards were nice, American ones were complete and utter jerks, as per usual. Anyway, I'm at the hotel, pictures of Emily and Maria tomorrow!