Road Trip: Day 4

2007 September 12, 7:46 am
Filed under: There and Back Again

Most of the morning we spent driving north across Ohio, heading towards Pennsylvania. Ohio is beautiful, lots of water which means lots of trees -it was completely surreal! I slept most of the way from Cincinnati to Cleveland, but the little bit of Ohio I was awake for was absolutely lovely.

Pennsylvania, home of the Amish, who we didn’t meet, the Hershey Chocolate Factory, where we didn’t get samples, and the Liberty Bell, which we didn’t see. We took the shortest possible route through PA, and not because either Jo or I have an aversion to the state, it’s just we had already traveled hundreds of miles and didn’t want to be in the car any longer than absolutely necessary.

And all of a sudden, we crossed into New York and realized that we were in our FINAL STATE OF THE DAY! Now, there was just a long and suddenly VERY crowded stretch of I-90 Toll Road to negotiate, and we would be in Albany for the night. Why Albany? Well, I have a cousin who lives there (Hi Jen!) and graciously offered to let us stay with her. Albany is less than 3 hours from Boston, so we could get a good night’s sleep, get to Boston by 10:00 am and start unpacking. Sounds like a great plan, yes? Yes. Only I don’t think I realized how far Albany is from Niagara Falls… this last stretch “Are we there yet?” was on a constant loop through my brain.

Although, as antsy as I was feeling, I must say, upstate New York is absolutely gorgeous. There were all these completely picturesque towns with white clapboard churches, or an historical gabled house nestled next to a lake with a single pier and a rowboat, and mile after mile of red barns and silos, just like you’d see on a postcard. I started taking pictures – but soon realized that they were all beautiful, and all more-or-less the same. As we continued along the Hudson River valley I noticed that the leaves were beginning to change… every so often a patch of bright red or gold would break-up the never-ending greeness. Goodness, it was beautiful. I am so fascinated by all the trees, we just don’t grow trees like that in the desert. The few we do have in the mountains are scrawny and spread-out in comparison; and will only grow on one side of a hill. Here you have full-grown hardwoods spewing out of every possible nook and cranny of a rocky hill… incredible!

I also noticed these incredible fields of yellow and purple flowers, mustard and ironweed I think, that kept popping up in the few places where trees hadn’t taken everything over. Dusk settled in and everything took on a blueish purple hue, and despite the hours and hours of driving, I felt strangely content. I felt something similar last time I was in upstate New York, I don’t know if I’m describing it very well, but it’s the same feeling I get when I look up at the soaring rocky peaks that guard my hometown.