… this morning, and it was by mistake. I’d crossed over the river from Lebanon, New Hampshire, to White River, Vermont and I wanted a place to park in order to photograph the sign.
The bridge was under repair and there were queues of traffic about all over the place and so I nipped onto an industrial estate to park up, but I became somewhat distracted instead.
These three vehicles here, the older of which is a 1932 Hudson, are three of about 20 or 30 vehicles from the 1930s and 40s that were lying abandoned all over the place.
I’ve no idea what they are all doing here but it’s certainly something of a tragedy to see them lying about like this – for some of them, there’s not very much left to save and for others, something needs to be done with them pretty quickly if they aren’t going to end up like the others.
It also begs the question, if these are outside, what might there be lurking around in a warehouse or industrial unit around here? If these are simply the donor cars for other projects it would be extremely interesting to blag my way in for a nosey but there was no-one around to ask. But it does bring back old times when I used to do this kind of thing in France with Nerina all those years ago.
Just down the road from there is the Quechee Gorge on the Ottauquechee River.
It isn’t quite the Grand Canyonof course, but it’s the best that was on offer around here. Hordes of people from everywhere and, much to my surprise, much of what seemed to be on offer was free. Maybe the USA is “The Land of the Free” after all, after all that I have been saying. I’ll have to change the script a little.
I’ve been travelling steadily south-west through the mountains and there wasn’t really very much to see because with overhanging cliffs and forests and the like there was never a clear view. But somewhere along the highway between Londonderry and Manchester there was another one of these rear-view mirror moments as I crest an enormous rise.
That’s where I’ve come from, right over there in the distance. That far ridge is probably 40 miles away and this is really the first proper glance that I’ve had of it. It was worth the wait, even if the image can’t do the view any justice.
This image is rather sad, though. It’s Troy, in New York State, my destination and where I hit the Hudson River. This is civilisation and a sign that my holiday is drawing to a close. This time next Saturday I’ll be somewhere over the Atlantic if we haven’t crashed on take-off, and I’m not looking forward to going home. I wish that I could stay here.
However I did have a stroke of luck. The Lady Who Lives In The Sat-Nav directed me into town past a huge Home Depot and so I took the opportunity to go for a wander around. I did a few errands there but I also made another Ryobi purchase.
I don’t know if you remember that a while ago I broke my Ryobi flourescent light. Here in the USA the model has been discontinued because they have now launched a similar light but powered by LEDs, and all for $19:99 too, and that’s a bargain in any currency.
And I’ll probably have to use it tonight because I’ve left it late to find somewhere to sleep.
