With a good night’s rest and making sure to take breaks for every few hours of
traveling, I think we will be energized to finish the second half of the trip as strong as the first without becoming fatigued by some seemingly endless stretches of monotonous interstate driving. Russ gets an A for navigating through Times Square yesterday like a champ. I guess if medical school doesn’t work out, he would make an excellent taxi cab driver on Manhatten Island. Coach Bryant once said, “Act like you’ve been there before,” and Russ certainly piloted the pathfinder through the chaos of the Friday five o'clock traffic like a local. However, on the TSDA Report Card, Hayden would receive a minimally passing grade as he struggled to follow course through the Yale campus in New Haven, CT. He missed a couple of crucial turns that led us through the Ivy League school twice. Needless to say, he was one wrong turn away from getting a hickory switch behind the wood shed.
Similar to simple-minded Lloyd Christmas chauffeuring Mary Swanson to the airport, Hayden managed to not make any more mistakes and successfully reached his
destination in Providence, Rhode Island. Mary: “Could you keep your eyes on the road please?” Lloyd: “Oh, yea! Good thinking. You can’t be too careful. There are a lot of bad drivers out there.” The other members of the TSDA collectively concluded that Hayden receives an F+ since we did arrive in The Ocean State safely.Continuing with the TSDA Driving Report Card, I would not receive a much higher grade than Hayden. I took over the wheel in Rhode Island’s state capital and drove forty miles down the road to Boston to see Quincy Market, Harvard, and Fenway Park. We dined in Quincy Market, which was very clean like the rest of Boston, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire. Russ and Hayden tried prime rib and I went with sushi. I think everyone on the trip would agree that Rhode Island and Massachusetts would receive an A for the friendliest cleanest places we have visited.
Heading on to MIT and Harvard, we wanted to have a few sightseeing stops before reaching our northernmost stop in Portland, Maine. I thought I was acclimated to the driving conditions in the area after doing pretty well for the first couple of
hours. We luckily found a parking garage only a few blocks away from Harvard, so we could see the campus quickly before checking out Fenway Park where Dave Matthews was playing a show. After a swift tour of the oldest university in the US, I piloted the pathfinder onto Fenway Park. However, I had a misfortunate incident pulling out of the parking garage in front of Harvard, completely missing a red light and a large police van resembling an ambulance. Russ and Hayden immediately made me aware of my mistake, but the blue lights were already flashing behind me. My sheer nervousness, absolute honesty, and luck facilitated the officer to let me go and say “just be more careful next time.” Why doesn’t this happen to Hayden? Because he never drives. He is way too focused on reading about Auburn recruiting on his Blackberry to be able to drive a car.
A few minutes and a sigh of relief later, we arrive at the entrance of Fenway Park with the sweet sounds of the Dave Matthews Band resonating around Kenmore Square in Boston. I listened to the melodies of Dave’s “So Damn Lucky” driving by the baseball stadium, probably as a tribute to me luckily avoiding a dilemma in Harvard. Funny the Way It Is. We safely made it to Portland, Maine, two hours later and will begin to direct our travels westward in the morning.
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