The journey West...

Tuesday, October 1st.
Exterior.
As evening falls on Massachusetts the Ford Club Wagon winds it's way down highway 9, for the first time heading westward. So far the drive up the east coast has been a series of short trips from place to place. From now on the open roads lead westward into the horizon.

As planned, we woke up today and headed directly back to Walden Pond. We wanted to get some couch pictures with the Pond in the background, so in order to get close enough to unload the couch we parked illegaly in the small parking lot reserved for people launching boats. We weren't exactly launching a boat but we figured that launching a couch was close enough to qualify...

There was a small group of school children splashing around in the water in a half-hearted attempt at canoeing, so while we waited for them to clear out we sat on the fence and ate leftover pizza from the night before for breakfast. Once the kids left we unloaded the couch and lugged it down the beach to a nice sunny spot on the shore. We sat there for a while enjoying the great view and taking some pictures. An older man sailed by in a canoe and was a little surprised by our little spectacle so he sailed up to the shore to hear what we were doing. We explained it as best we could and he sort of seemed to get it.

We worked up a bit of a sweat lugging the couch back to the van so after that we jumped in the cool water of the Pond for a refreshing swim. Jens swam all the way across the Pond and back again while Dan sat in the shallow water and soaked up the atmosphere. The tempered freshwatered was wonderfully soothing, and taken in its historical and spiritual context is sort of Concord's equivalent to the sacred water of the Ganges River.

A couple of cops walked by the parking lot just as we were about to leave but we managed to escape without being ticketed. From there we drove to Hudson to locate a Salvation Army thrift store there. We have yet to visit a thrift store and not buy anything, and this visit was no different; our collection grew with a few more shirts. At a pawn shop a few doors down we found some more used cd's as well. By now we pretty much have enough to open up our own radio station :)

Not shopped out yet, we drove on to Marlborough, lured by the promising sound of the Salvation Army "Super Thrift" store located there. And it really did turn out to be a super store. This time we didn't stay within the usual narrow confines of "shirts" but brought home everything from hats to pants to suspenders and suitcases. And, of course, more shirts. :)

To leave Marlborough we got on highway 20, thus taking the first small steps on our long trek westward. The first leg of the trip will take us to Cooperstown, NY, which will take us all the way across Massachusetts. We stopped at McDonald's for a bite of lunch and then got back on the road to continue what we thought would be a long stretch of non-stop driving. However, we got no further than the college town of Worcester where we passed "Jelly's new & used cd's". Unable to resist the urge we pulled over for "a quick look". Well, we should have known where that would take us. Over an hour later we exited the store with a new stack of used music for the collection. We realized that we'd completely forgotten to put any money in the parking meter. Luckily we hadn't been ticketed, though.

We pushed on into the evening and night, stopping only for dinner (at the Taco Bell drive-thru: the only thing that was open late enough) and for gas. At 1:30 at night we arrived at Glimmer Glass State Park north of Cooperstown. We had planned to live cheaply and just sleep in a parking lot for the night. But as we drove down the last part of highway 20 towards the lake north of Cooperstown we realized that we were in an area way too rural for big Wal-Mart parking lots. Nor were there any signs of malls, fast food restaurants or anything of the like. Normally they seem to be everywhere and often are nothing but eye-sores in the middle of otherwise nice places. But then when you finally need them they're never there! :)

So we decided to camp out in the campground at Glimmer Glass State Park. The office was closed, of course, but we interpreted the ambiguous sign in the window as saying that we could go ahead and camp out and pay in the morning. We were unsure if that was what it ment since a regulatory sign further on said that only registered campers were allowed on the campground. But we had nowhere else to sleep, so we reasoned that it would be alright and that we would be able to explain the situation in the morning, should that become necessary. So we found a campsite and settled in for the night.