Road Trip Diaries

We were just in time for our complimentary breakfast, and by 11am we were ready to hit… The Mall. Debbie was determined to do some clothes shopping. The drive to the mall took us throught Providence’s quaint downtown area.

While Debbie went off shopping on her own, I spent a while in Borders, browsing books, of all things. Provincetown was the home of H.P. Lovecraft, and although I felt little sense of dread, and all the angles in the town seemed perfectly Euclidian, this seemed to be reflected in the large number of horror stories in Borders’ local authors section. I also spent some time in a comic shop that didn’t sell comics. That is to say, it had "comics" in the name of the shop, but it only sold action figures, novelties, CDs, DVDs, T-shirts and the like.

The mall boasted a good view of Providence’s riverside area, marred only by a car park under construction.

I met up with Debbie, and we followed some signs out of the mall, towards restaurants. We passed a few restaurants by, thinking that a light snack would do: we could get these at the mall food court. We were near the Rhode Island state building, so we climbed its steps to take a look.

When we got to the doors, it turned out to be closed. I tried out my oratory skills.

At the food court, we seeked out our light lunchtime snack. I was drawn to the Japan Cafe stall, with its "famous brown rice sushi".

Debbie had the regular party tray, and I had the super party tray. Yummy!

Just kidding. What we had was quite a spread nonetheless:

We left Providence on US-6, heading for Hartford, Connecticut. Lonely Planet says "It’s a rare person who goes to Hartford on vacation", so we went straight through. The way in was a dense and complex system of Interstate interchanges, while the way out took us through Hartford’s inner city, where urban decay and poverty were evident. I saw a tatty building with a sign: "No trespassing. No loitering. Tennants included". There were kids loitering on the steps.. As we moved into the suburbs, Hartford got greener, the houses got bigger and nicer, then soon we were driving on pretty roads, heading for the Massachusetts Berkshires.

We found ourselves approaching the Connecticut border, and Debbie hadn’t got out of the car on Connecticut soil. To remedy this, we stopped to exchange our bodily fluids for some drinks at McDonalds in Canaan.

We drove back into Massachusetts on US-7, with a mind to stop the night in Lenox. On the way, in Great Barrington, we spotted a gorgeous motel called The Lantern House Motel, with a lovely traditionally roofed office block, a well tended garden, and hanging baskets.  I had a great feeling about this place, as we went into the office. No vacancies.

Disappointed, we proceeded North up US-7, but just out of town, we came upon the Briar Cliff Inn. It doesn’t have quite the funky office of the Lantern House, but it too has hanging baskets, a lovingly maintained garden at the front, and our room is clean and pleasant. We’re surrounded by wooded slopes to the East and West: it’s very pretty but it gets dark early.

We drove back to Great Barrington for dinner at a Mexican restaurant called Xicotencatl (I think). Muy tasty wild mushroom crepes (in a Mexican style) followed by Pollo Poblano for me, and fresh tortilla chips with guacemole for Debbie, followed by a rich Lamb dish.

We bought some soft drinks sodas from a petrol gas station on the way back to our motel. At 8:15, we’re settled for the evening. Very relaxing.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 13th, 2005 at 1:00 pm and is filed under Oregon Trail. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.