Day 46: The final leg - Boston to Vermont

April 20, 2000

8:35A - Cleaned up and ready to move out of Boston for my final leg of the journey.

9:17A - Caz arrives at Logan 10 minutes late, tired and smiling from Atlanta - City of Thieves. She's been up for hours - the jacked up stereo playing Counting Crows and blue Vermont pillow send her off to dreamland in a matter of minutes. Route 2 seems like an easy afternoon drive west to the Berkshires!

 

10:50A - I swear someone i know lives here?

 

12:50P - The Mohawk Trail! Apparently, "the Mohawk Trail is the first scenic road in New England. It officially opened on October 22, 1914. With 63 miles of unsurpassed splendor and 50,000 acres of state parks and forests, it's an excellent vacation choice for fun and adventure for all ages during any season." Ok - looks like rolling hills in new england to me. The real highlight is rolling around the corner of Route 2 west and seeing the North Adams/Williamstown Valley about 1000 feet below you

1:05P - Arrive North Adams, MA. Quaint little town in a valley of the Berkshires. I can see why Doug & Caroline love this place.

Doug, Caz & I entered MASS-MoCA for some artistic review. This place has serious funding from Williams College & the Guggenheim.

The entranceway leads into the first exhibit - Cloning Gone Bad. A taxidermist went nuts with a Sheep and a Dog.

One gallery has a set of 20 or so giant photos of insect life cycles: Tomato bugs devouring their namesake vegetable, Preying Mantis eating the fat tomato bugs, Mantis eating their mates, frog eating the Mantis - for someone not inclined to befriending insects, these 4 foot wide color photos are brilliant but disturbing. I'm sure i have bugs a plenty to look forward to at Vickery Hill and this is no pleasant reminder.

MASS-MoCA also has the largest indoor gallery space in the country - i whole 100 yards long and 30 or 40 feet high.

Doug, Caroline & Ethan - just before his his "trained monkey" trick

 

Hacker arranged for me to park the SmartBeetle in the courtyard at MASSMoCA and as i pulled up, minor catastrophe - the rear view mirror plopped off it's mount

After lunch, the gang from StreetMail came out to scope out the car and ask a few questions. I was instantly overcome with a sense of finality. This place is only 2 hours drive south of Warren, Vermont and all of a sudden the 46 days away on the road feels like 9 days without sleep. I miss the sight out of my clouded sliding glass door, the calm of the starry night sky, the smell of home. Needless to say, i did a poor job of communicating my feelings with the StreetMail gang - i want to go home.

3:20P - As if being this close isn't bad enough,the speed limit is 55MPH and i cannot see my passenger behind me. Talking to a person sitting behind you is bad enough when you can at least see their eyes in the mirror - this is torture. A Wendy's parking lot on the right and 20 minutes of prying and the silvered glass is back in place.

4:17P - Back in business, Carrie helps me out with a little last everynetwork document review >

4:40P - We slice into Vermont with a blast of the horn and the music on full tilt. Not ten minutes later and we meet up with my old friend the Gorilla, he has captured an older cousin to the SmartBeetle and is displaying it to the world. Obviously this Gorilla is color blind, because he's hijacked a gold 1970-something VW Beetle.

 

Silly Gorilla with his hands full. Caz & I make an easy getaway.

"Until we meet again Gorilla...."

 

6:11P - Approaching Warren from the West as Dave, the Gov'Na & I did back in November brings us to a snow capped peak! Now this is Vermont - snow on the ground on April 20th. It also affords a distant view of Vickery Hill and the shining barn rooftop.

 

6:17P - Home at last.

 

7:35P - The journey is over. It's time to dismantle the SmartBeetle. This should at the very least improve my gas mileage. Not to mention rediscovering the joy of zipping in and out of traffic without worry.

I've decided to settle into home, review and correct any missing pieces of the journey and finish the Epilogue next week.

Rest in Peace SmartBeetle.
A give you a hearty "Thank You!"

Goodnight Grandpa. Goodnight John-boy. Goodnight Elizabeth...

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Endings, and Beginnings >

11762.6 miles later. 
And it only took me 46 days, 1 hour & 2 minutes or 1105 hours, 2 minutes

= 66,302 minutes

= 3,978,120 seconds ±60 seconds.

Relativity realization - being away from something you have fallen in love with slows the clock in one's mind. Minutes seem like hours, hours like days, days like weeks. Almost seven weeks on the road and i can still reference Star Trek.

I'd bet money that the look on my face is one of intense longing for sleep.

Time to get to work (on more things than one)