Pat Clancy
Joined: 13 Jan 2004
Posts: 1353
Location: Manchester, CT1/12/15 4:36 PM |
Asking directions in New Hampshire
Some years ago we were driving I-95N through New Hampshire heading to Maine. It was over a holiday weekend and traffic was extremely heavy. We had been advised that if the highway was badly backed up at the New Hampshire tolls, it would be much worse at the Maine toll plaza. So, after struggling through the NH toll, we decided to do an end run around the Maine tolls by taking Rt.16 northwest towards Dover and try to work back to the Maine pike north of the tolls.
We got seriously lost after getting off of Rt 16 and it was getting really late. I finally pulled up to a convenience store and went in to ask directions. The man behind the counter looked every bit of 90, and with a wonderful northern New England accent started to give me directions. A few seconds later another man, maybe 70ish, walks down an aisle yelling "Dad, that's not the easiest way." The two of them walked outside with me arguing, and my wife sitting in the car swears she saw them simultaneously pointing in opposite directions.
Well, thinking the older gentleman might be a little beyond the bend, I went with his son's directions, which were loaded with "you can't miss it" statements referring to various landmarks. Sure enough, we missed everyone of them and continued lost for another hour. It was long passed midnight before we stumbled on a state route number that we could find on our map. The usual 3 hour trip took nearly 7 hours.
The kicker? It might have been just as bad had we stayed on the highway. When we left I-95 in New Hampshire, we had been alongside of a singular vehicle - a Chevette pulling a trailer cobbled together from plywood. When we pulled back on to I-95 in Maine near Biddeford, we came up alongside of the same car.
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