Home - even if it needs paint and landscaping and there's construction trash in the front yard!

It’s not always easy to leave Maine but this time I think we were ready – or mostly ready, at least. The big Nor’Easter probably helped our readiness a bit, too. We left the house in Maine on Saturday – also dump day which is why it was the chosen day – and headed to my brother and sister-in-law’s house on Boston’s north shore. We hit snow flurries and wet snow in lower Maine and it kept up to Massachusetts but as we neared the ocean, it turned to rain. Overnight, the big October storm hit … but where we were it was no big deal so on we pushed.

The biggest mistake we made was not filling up the truck with gas at the “cheapest gas station in the world” that we pass in Salem, MA. So, when we were starting to need gas (and a pit stop, too) in Connecticut, our first stop was a total flop. No power means no fuel – no pumps working. No lights in the rest areas. Doors blocked by huge closed signs. We got off the highway no fewer that three times and each time, we were unsuccessful finding a gas station (that was most important!) with power.

My old “home-ish” towns of West Hartford and Farmington had more power lines down that I could have imagined. Since we were pulling the Hobie Cat (an 18-foot sailboat) it was a bit dicey managing turns and avoiding downed power lines and tree branches. We gave up when we hit New Britain and were planning to head to a LaQuinta hotel that we’d stayed at on our way to Maine when we found a gas station in the projects that seemed to be pumping gas. We only slightly brushed the sailboat against the bumper of another guy’s car (enough to elicit some four letter words from N but no damage to the other car) on the way in and they only had premium gas (or so they said) but we filled up and were on our way again. A near miss. And who knows how many days we’d have been stranded without gas. There are still 200,000 people in Connecticut today who don’t have power returned to their homes.

So, when the rest of the trip went off without a hitch, we were relieved and pleased and grateful. And I have to admit it’s good to be home … even if it’s Florida!

Gone knitting.