Leaving New Hampshire - 8 June 2007

Left early in the morning, well loaded down; packed the trunk of the car the night before. Soon encountered heavy traffic we managed to avoid throughout our stay, when we left for our days' destination much later in the morning.

Lots of trucks, vehicles driving much too close.

In the background, the grand sweep of the mountains; their majesty, the panorama, the breathtaking grandeur refreshing our appreciation of the landscape.

The craggily forbidden jutting out of Eagle's Cliff, the taller promontory of Mount Lafayette fill our vision as we drive through Franconia Notch. The vast landscape envelopes us as we drive along, from the White Mountain range into that of the more distant Green Mountains, in Vermont.

On the median, daisies, lupines, conical-stopped evergreens beside the full deciduous trees, appearing perfectly landscaped. We pass the Moore reservoir, and there's a lone fisherman in a small boat. The morning sun glances off the rippled water; a blue jay wings its way across the granite-sided highway. Cedars, birches, dogwood in bloom.

Past the Connecticut River into Vermont. We've left "live free or die" once again; one more time over the decades we've visited. The undulating roller-coaster of a drive with splendid green-and-granite outcroppings and the far, humped views of the Green Mountains lay before us.

There is the occasional wide sweeping median, separating the highways. Beautifully landscaped, courtesy of Mother Nature. Prosperous-appearing farms here and there, sweeping green-swarded hills, populated by stands of birch, spruce, pine. Buttercups raising their sunny heads at the roadside.

We pass dreary old mill towns, run-down and seedy looking. The old brick municipal building, post office, bank look well built and ready to give service for many years, among the clapboarded old houses. We reach St.Johnsbury, unseen for many a year; large public buildings, the Athenium, fire hall, post office, town hall. A genteel mix of past and present.

There's a long verdant arras of broad valleys beyond the highway. Cattle grazing the tamed, bucolic landscape. Neat little clapboard bungalows outskirting old towns. Everywhere churches, banks, veterinarian services. Large verandahed old wood houses, slapped with house-proud new paint; colourful floral baskets hanging from porch uprights.

The road becomes a yellow-white striped black ribbon rising before us. Newly paved and proud of it. Road maintenance for rolling in high stock here Cabins for rent, fishing advertised alongside a sparkling blue lake. Houses tucked in beyond the treed landscape alongside the highway. The vast U.S. rural-suburban demographic.

Lilacs in bloom in front of run-down houses. Splendid rolling hills distancing this quiet highway and larger, more prosperous-looking farms and homes. We pass a garish display of lawn ornaments spread out over the ground; take your pick. Grubby, swampy terrain flashes by, with deteriorating houses, forlorn-appearing trailer homes.

Colour and textural variations of deciduous and evergreens flash by the side of the road, the forests beyond. A huge black corroded pipe lies alongside the highway transporting water downhill, pierced by weather, the aged metal fatigued, with water spurting forth in fine sprays. Another sleepy town, its dozing cemetery decrepit as the town, with its sole steepled church.

Eighteenth-century houses slowly fading into decay. Numerous cars parked alongside. Trailer homes, small story-and-a-halfs. A blacksmith shop. Rural America in New England. The manicured landscape gives way to scrub bush. The sky has cleared again, the sun warming through the car windshield. We pass large new schools, campgrounds, motels, alongside the Onion River.

Huge old bank, a crumbling old covered bridge, set down in a field, on blocks. Gas stations, cafes, gift shops - all seen better days. A succession of wooden buildings set close to the road. Bright orange Icelandic poppies and marigolds in someone's front yard. The town strung out briefly along the highway. A new log structure; hardware shop-cum nursery.

Old weather-beaten barns advertising themselves as antique, furniture, nostalgia emporiums. Vultures high above, coasting on the wind. Auto sales lots between tidy little homes. Chiropractic services advertised. Glaring white building beside an old red brick. Lupines, pink and purple, and buttercups embroidering a meadow.

Large lots of camper trailers for sale, and countless various-sized travel trailers on offer. The news on National Public Radio brings us up to date on the G8 summit in Germany. We pass old mills, power stations, farm equipment sales, used-car lots. School bus depots: "drivers wanted - now hiring".

Car wash, trading post, self-storage, potters, Chinese restaurant (and bar), Internet services, travellers' information. An old steel bridge, old mill - and we see the gold dome of Montpelier's capital-status glistening ahead. On the radio, Mozart, with glass harmonica. Old architecture of another past era, large brick smoke stack, the elegant and the mundane.

Daisies and phlox in a field - beyond a school, with children hurling themselves about in the schoolyard at play during recess. Crows circle above, cawing. Lumber mills, quarries, car dealerships; the stuff of extraction and commerce (exploitation of natural resources and the environment).

Traffic flowing more heavily once more. Tractor trailers, transports, refrigerated units, vans, SUVs and passenger vehicles; pick-ups. Again, granite cliffs facing off the highways, forest on the opposite side. And more spectacular mountain views in the distance. We are steadily descending. Power lines march against the horizon. Steel-and-cement bridges punctuate the highway.

Earth-hued stone walls rise against the road, water dripping through fissures, adding colour. The ornate needlework of lichen embellishing the already-beautiful. Densely wooded hills rise high on one side. On the other, broad valleys hosting settlements. A lone vulture, wings wide-spread, enjoys his dominance of the airy heights. Communication towers dimly seen atop summits.

Stone cuts blasted through the passes primitively evocative. Seeded farm fields stretch out on the plain. There is a traditional tee pee erected close to a copse of trees, alongside a small lake. Military trucks, bus-sized recreational trailers zip past. An old, hooped railroad bridge appears beside the bridge we're traversing.

The ambient atmosphere takes on a hazy look. The day is beginning to warm. Button wakes from her long nap. Riley lays across my lap, still dozing. A single windmill stirs its arms, a pleasant sight and a reminder of an urgent message in our public discourse on the environment.

A helicopter whirls above. A water tower looms in the distance, then disappears behind a screen of trees. Neat suburbs, approaching Burlington. Motels, condominiums, heavier traffic again. Ah, a weigh station: "All trucks turn right"; we lose some of the traffic.

We pass a primordial-looking swamp. But look, there's a chap fishing from a small motored boat. The highway is quiet again. A full luxuriance of hardwood trees companion the road on either side. Overcast again. Another vulture crests the sky. The landscape and its ephemera.

A rest area, landscaped, clean washrooms, lovely little flowering garden plots. We stop, refresh ourselves, give our little dogs the opportunity to stretch their legs and pee. And we finally have our tardy breakfast; banana, smoked turkey sandwiches, Earl Grey tea. Button and Riley had their breakfast before we left, but that doesn't stop them from cadging.

Evidence of affluence in the abodes and farms below the mountains, in the plains area. New, brick and stone, substantial-sized houses. Well maintained, upgraded and equipped farms exuding confidence in the present into the future. The presence of big-box stores; "shopping experiences". The palpable evidence of good times. The veneer of providence, of progress, of a social order well pleased with itself.

We gas up at a nearby station. I'm pleased to note the careful gardening. The green barberry, hostas, cosmos, red runner beans, morning glory vines, miniature sunflowers, sage, zinnias, pansies, violets and asters. I can hardly wait to see our own gardens, wonder how they've fared in our absence.

Progress; go with the times, the graduation from velvet art to the latest rage on the road - as distinct from road rage - itinerant rug sales. Tin or metal-roofed and also shingles, cedar or asphalt, collapsing porches, patched roofs, wide-flung cemeteries, huge farm equipment lots. American flags proudly festoon commercial and domestic buildings alike. Swanton.

Wildlife preserve, just off Lake Champlain; a long, winding canal skirting the road. Wetlands, old rusted train track. Alluvial plain below the Green Mountains. Highway level, tree trunks swimming in water. Water lilies, yellow flower heads, then the immense placidity of the lake, and a proliferation of water reeds.

Old stone houses, respectably dating from the 18th century; cottage and crafts-style houses alongside 50s-era white-painted wood bungalows and two-stories. Trailers, co-op laundries. Broken-down farms, dilapidated outbuildings, more cemeteries. Quonset-hut sheds, gas stations.

Crossing Lake Champlain on a gracefully arched wonder of a bridge, old ruins of its predecessor bridges alongside. Marina, well-masted with a multitude of sailboats. Cottages fringing the shore in New York State. Grouse's Point. A long arcade of shops. Large old houses, dressed stone, brick, wood. Well-kept and treasured, giving way to modest-sized, sometimes decaying, some proudly maintained.

Then rows of townhouse look-alikes and other, single, pretty, stylish homes of more recent vintage. Riding stables, horse pastures. As we progress, the price of gasoline has risen steadily by more than 20cents per gallon. Dental, medical service centres. Methodist, Unitarian, Catholic churches. Hip-roofed barns.

Gleaming silos, long drive sheds, well-established agrarian centres. Warehouse and distribution centres, banks. Homes nestled comfortably into verdant hillsides. Large suburban-rural plazas, with chain grocers, pharmacies, home decor. More cemeteries. People do have this unfortunate habit of dying.

Mobil, Exxon, Irving, Subway, McDonald's. Tchaikovsky played by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. The sun is back out again, the road ahead empty. Two vultures surveying their domain flirt overhead. A large bug splatters the windshield.

Large expanses of greensward meticulously mown. One man has a small gas mower, his neighbour sits astride a lawn tractor, both under the warming sun, both achieving the American ideal, substituting the anarchic impulses of nature, to tame and smooth out their world, carpet-velvet their lawns.

Another cemetery. More flags. Fields and forests, barns and silos. Homes with neat gardens (far-flung, private). Milking cows in pastures. Straw spilling out of barns. Immaculate stretches of house lawn, waving patriotism in red, white, blue. There, a driveway littered with yard sale items.

Maple syrup, Citgo, Sunoco, Mobil. Funeral homes, sawmills, lumberyards. Pepsi-versus-Coke signage, iconic symbols of the country. An encapsulation of American life, frozen in homogeneity. John Deere, Kubota, Snell. Pizza. Holstein, Guernsey. Time Warner cable. Suzuki, Yomaha, Snowcats, motorcycles. Laundromat, pizza parlours.

Gulf. First Congregational. United Methodist. Neo-Gothic structures. A spreading maple cemetery. Auto repair shops. An octopus, a great presence of a water tower. Correctional facilities. ranch-style and high-ranch bungalows. Salad bar, prime rib.

Button throws up. Her turn. Riley did it last night. They've obvious stomach upsets. They'll be glad, like us, to finally arrive back home.

Vast, perfectly flat fields. Amazing that a few hours of driving will transport us from mountains to valleys. A tractor pulling a huge rake, turning over hay to dry. High-tension power lines marching across the landscape. In an adjoining field, gathering silage.

Miles of houses, stretched out alongside the highway. Cultivated fields edging up to forest. Open-barn beef operations. Sky clearing again; wispy white clouds. Beethoven now. Button asleep and comfortable in her seat-diminished back space. We're bringing back more than we took with us originally.

Riley, awkwardly insistent on stiff front-legged upright stance, asleep with his hind-end down on me. Cross Little Salmon River. Too late to stop - ran a red light. Good thing it's so sleepy here. Our bums are sore. Love those lawn gazing balls, those low-slung white-clad expansive cottages with loooong green, smooth lawns. Storage units.

NPR, just wonderful at information gathering and distribution. Its interviews, investigative reportage, opinion-panel exchanges represent the best in public radio.

Akwesasne. Cheaper gasoline, discounted cigarettes, neither of which we require nor wish to acquire. Substantial homes, well-cared for. And trailer homes, small businesses. Convenience stores. Mohawk Bingo Park, Casino.

Lurid, female-exploiting signage. Backyard above-ground pools. Mounds of discarded furniture, wood scraps, household and yard detritus piled high at the side of the road. Garbage pick-up on strike?

Comfort Inn, Quality Inn, Casino! Bakery, gas bars, cemetery. St. Regis River. Church of Christ. "This is Mohawk Land, not N.Y. State land." American Legion post. Pawn shop. Community buildings. Senior services. High speed Internet.

Gracefully lovely suspension bridge over the mighty St.Lawrence into Canada. The International bridge at Cornwall/Massena/Akwesasne.

Exeunt.