I arose at 5h30 under night skies and a very brisk +3 (37). My first stop was in Newport (Maine), where I had breakfast and got gas; when I came out, it was starting to get light in the east, but was still dark in the west. My second Maine stop was in Kennebunkport, where I got a cup of coffee to battle driving hypnosis. I got gas again in Tewksbury (Massachusetts) and then stopped at the rest area down the road in Chelmsford for a good while, again to focus my eyes and mind on something other than the hypnotic road. It had become a lovely day, sunny with white puffy clouds and plenty of blue sky, though it only reached +8 (46). My fifth stop was in Newtown (Connecticut), where I had a late lunch of soup (good for the cold I’m battling), salad, and a swordfish steak, which was on lunch special today; I also consumed two more cups of coffee, which finally did the trick, making me hyper-alert for the heavier traffic from there south. A final stop at Montvale (New Jersey) and I was ready to do battle with the Garden State Parkway and the New Jersey Turnpike. I arrived home, very tired, but in one piece, a bit after 17h; the sun had disappeared under grey clouds in North Jersey, but reäppeared south of New Brunswick (a city in New Jersey, not the Canadian province of the some name) and the temperature reached a relatively balmy +14 (57). I got the car unloaded and called my sister to let her know I was safely home. I had more chicken soup to fight the cold and will soon be in bed.
From Bangor to Augusta, there were noticeably more fall colours than yesterday between Houlton and Bangor, but they were comparatively dull and well past peak, with many trees stripped altogether of their leaves. South of Augusta, the trees were more intact: while some showed signs of stripping, there were far fewer than to the east; moreover, unchanged green deciduous trees started appearing regularly in southern Maine and became ubiquitous in western Connecticut and further south. In this stretch, partially turned trees were the majority, with green/orange or green/yellow mixes predominating. As in Cape Breton, the most vivid and noticeable turned colours were oranges and yellows, with vivid reds very rare (pastels and brick reds were more common, but still fairly scarce). South of New Brunswick, the trees had barely begun to change at all and oranges and yellows were quite rare, so I will get to experience a second fall, though in Jackson the red oaks mean the change is from green to red-brown rather than to more vivid colours.
While I’m sad to no longer be in Cape Breton, I’m glad to be home. Once I shake the cold and get rested up, I will begin writing the missing trip posts from my notes and posting them to my timeline. Then, I should get back to work on the web site.¹
¹ As events turned out, this did not happen. While I was diligently working on the trip posts, once I had recovered from the cold, the totally unexpected and devastating US presidential election results and the equally dismaying congressional results put me into a state of such deep disgust, depression, despondency, and despair for our country that, for the rest of the fall and much of the winter, I experienced near total writer’s block as this boastful, bullying, egomaniacal, misogynistic, narcissistic, petulant, xenophobic president, uninformed about public policy and totally unaware of the depths of his ignorance as well as unable to foresee the predictable consequences of his erratic actions, nominated the most incompetent cabinet in history and perpetrated daily shocking violations of longstanding public norms of presidential propriety, ethical behaviour, and standard democratic practice, whilst the craven, amoral party whose nomination he won refused to utter a peep of protest over his constant shameful lies, his corrupt behaviour, and his totally out-of-bounds conduct: in this horrible environment, where the future of our democracy is at stake, I simply could not find the words to do something so simple as to transcribe my trip notes, with the result that completing each day’s post took many days of effort. The writer’s block mostly remains at this juncture, but I have at least finally managed to finish up this task to my satisfaction, though the other work on the web site I had planned on has not even been started. I apologize for the long delay in getting these promised trip posts completed and up on my web site and hope you will be understanding of my failure to do so.↩