Surprise! It's Me!

Well, Melody, who has fallen into such a deep rut or never going anywhere or doing anything, went somewhere and did something. On Sunday I drove down to the southwestern corner of Connecticut to visit my brother Bob and his family. Hadn't seen them since May of 2009, when I stopped by their house on my way back from watching my god-daughter graduate from Bucknell University in Pennsylvania. Two years of not seeing each other, when we live a 5 1/2 hour drive apart. Seems incredible, until you examine our busy lives (theirs especially, with their two very active sons), the fact that I hate driving through Connecticut (very heavy, fast-moving traffic), and the fact that none of us ever has any money!

One Sunday a month Bob and Gwen throw a Vegan Artists' Brunch at their house. I'm neither vegan nor an artist (not in the visual arts sense, which most of their artist friends are), but I decided it would be the perfect occasion to show up unannounced. It was not easy, forcing myself to make the effort to do this thing I wanted to do, but Sunday morning actually found me on the road, my small cooler on the seat beside me full of the necessary snacks to get me through 5 1/2 hours of driving, the large cooler containing two bottles of champagne on ice. I went online to get some recommendations for decent champagne that was not wildly expensive. Two sites recommended Barefoot Bubbly Brut Cuvee, and several recommended Roederer Estate Brut. My local supermarket had the former (in Maine we do not have liquor stores; you buy your liquor at the grocery store), but not the latter; so I did something I've long wanted to do: stop at the New Hampshire State Liquor Store that is right at the border with Massachusetts. NH liquor stores are very popular with residents of Maine, Vermont and Mass., because NH has no sales tax on liquor, whereas said tax is quite high in the other states. I personally have no objection to being soundly taxed for my consumption of alcohol (I think things like candy bars, cookies and ice cream should also be taxed, instead of being treated as food), but I've just been curious about that big red barn of a place beside the highway where, presumably, they should have a decent selection of champagne.

Which they did, and that's where I got the Roederer. When I got to Bob's and Gwen's I tried some of each, and actually preferred the less-expensive Barefoot Bubbly. As the reviews I had read said it's lighter and "less complex," but has lots of bubbles. It's surprisingly dry, which I prefer to sweet, whether we're talking champagne, or any other kind of wine. The Roederer was, indeed, more "full-bodied," which I think could also be interpreted as "heavy." Had a good flavor, but was heavy, that's how I would describe it.

Getting to drink champagne was one of the perks of this trip for me. You simply cannot buy a bottle of champagne for one person. Wine will keep for a while, can be consumed over a period of time, but not champagne. You open it, you drink it, and I'm never up to consuming a whole bottle of champagne by myself, in one sitting.

Bob and Gwen were both properly amazed (and delighted) to see me on their doorstep, and it was good to spend some time with them and their boys, who came home later in the day. I also spent some time chatting with various artist types. I'm sure I was the most conventional person, and quite possibly, in many ways, the most conservative person there, which didn't bother me at all. I ate lots of healthy, mysterious food, and got to see a real live fox trotting around their back yard the next morning (Brookfield, where they live, is very rural).

I could only stay the one night, as I had a dentist appointment Not-To-Be-Missed on Tuesday morning, but that was o.k. I had actually made myself do something I'd been wanting to do for some time, and it proved pleasurable for all concerned.

I had gone down the most direct way, which involved traveling on three "hairy" highways: Route 495, from the Mass./NH line to Worcester, MA (in about the middle of the state), then the Mass. Turnpike, which is always incredibly busy, and always involves a drastic slow-down at some point, during which you're creeping along at 25 miles an hour for 10 minutes or so...and you never see a reason for the slowdown, just all of a sudden the traffic whips back up to 75 miles an hour. And then there was Highway 84, which cuts diagonally down through Connecticut, taking you through the capital, Hartford. None of this is fun driving.

So on my drive back I decided to take the "scenic route," going up Route 8 from Waterbury (about halfway between Hartford and Brookfield), in an effort to avoid having to go around or through Hartford. At first this seemed to be a really good idea because up until the small town of Winsted it's this excellent four-lane highway with beautiful scenery all around -- showing just how lovely parts of Connec-ticut are, with all the tree-covered hills -- and so little traffic (especially when compared with Highway 84!) that one is actually able to enjoy the scenery. Even after Winsted it wasn't bad, though it was now a 2-lane highway, and at one point I had to wend my way through the middle of a town (which may, in fact, have been Winsted). I turned off 8 just over the Massachusetts line, onto Route 57, which would take me due east to get to Highway 202, which in turn would take me a short distance north to connect me to the Mass. Pike.

On 57 I was in the depths of the Berkshire Moun-tains of western Mass., up and down steep hills along a very narrow, rough country road, passing through little hamlets with just a few big old houses and the requisite little white New England church, wondering where on earth these people did their shopping! Finally reached 202 and turned north toward the Mass. Pike, and that's when it got ugly. 202 proved to be a heavily commercialized, heavily traveled street, with lights, road repair, confusing signs -- I managed to take a wrong turn at the Westfield town center, which is all torn up with construction, and had to stop in a shopping center and ask a passer-by for directions, losing about 15 minutes in the process. I was very relieved to finally reach 90, and decided this was definitely not a viable alternative route for traveling between my house and the southwest corner of CT. But I'm glad I saw the scenery I saw, before the going got unpleasant. So much of travel by car is strictly functional, getting to wherever you're going by the fastest route, having to concentrate on the inevitable concomitant traffic to get there safely.

Once on the Mass. Pike it was smooth sailing, though I did manage to lose my turnpike ticket, so had to pay a dollar more than I should have, when it was time to exit. I found the ticket on the floor when I unpacked the car, which points up one of the many disadvantages of traveling alone: no way you can frantically search for a dropped turnpike ticket and drive, too.

In the end my trip back was an hour and a quarter longer than my trip down, and I was very tired when I got home. But...mission accomplished. And now I know a good, cheap champagne to get whenever the occasion calls for champagne!