On the Road

Continued from page 15

We stayed in a pet-friendly hotel in the community of Sturbridge. Our hosts slept in, so we took it easy for the morning, catching breakfast in town. We rolled back into Worcester for our afternoon visit before hitting the road again.

On the way out of town we made a cemetery visit.

There was going to be a lot of highway driving, so we drove the local roads back to Interstate 84, avoiding the Mass Pike.

As it began to get dark, we began to get hungry so made a stop at one of our favorite restaurants in Connecticut Rein’s Deli in Vernon. The meal allowed us to decompress a bit.

It started to rain just before dinner. The long night drive on the interstate in the rain started to wear me out. I was the only driver on this trip, Ruth still recovering from her broken leg. Once in New York state, we decided the smart thing would be to call it a night, so we set about finding a dog-friendly motel and learned there was a Red Roof Inn on our route. We weren’t clear as to where it was and called their reservation line. They passed us along to the local phone number.

There, we got a good rate and confusing directions…I thought it was one place, north on Route 9E toward Poughkeepsie, and Ruth with her Google Maps, thought it was near Stewart Airport four exits west over the Hudson on Route 9W. After a ‘discussion,’ we headed west and arrived at a nice motel on a hill, then checked in quietly to not disturb a dog in a room several doors up from our own. It turned out there was another Red Roof north of Poughkeepsie and this one was glad to see us appear off the road.

The next day, we awoke rested. The rain had passed. Up to walk the dogs, I was amazed to see the hillside motel overlooked a gorgeous old upstate NY reservoir and dam. We were a couple of exits west of the Columbian restaurant, so had breakfast there and then headed towards Lake Harmony and home.

Gas prices went up a bit after this trip. We have another road trip for May, and at least one day at Knoebels, so we have some hopes that those gas prices will drop.