Derry, Northern Ireland

Derry, Northern Ireland
A book I'm working on is set in this town.

Sunday, October 4, 2015

First hints of winter...

Driving from Buffalo to Washington was nice, for the most part. The only bad moments came from drivers who seemed unwilling to consider others on the road and a jerk who ignored a "lane closed" notice until he had no choice but to move over, then forced himself into my lane two cars ahead of me. He was in a Mercedes, so I guess manners don't apply to people like him.

Anyway, I came down the 390 and along the 15 to connect with the 83 to hit Baltimore and then did the Washington Parkway into DC. It's hilly till you hit the Susquehanna River, and the trees are starting to turn Fall colors. Now instead of huge blocks of greenery, I saw the beginnings of patchworks of red and gold and orange and brown and crimson and yellow and even some blue. It's nowhere near its peak; my hope is when I come back from Seattle into Boston and drive up to Portland, Maine, I'll get the full effect.

Damn...that's a week from tomorrow. I'll be taking lots of pictures then, I hope. Today was not a day for stopping, however; I wanted to get to the hotel by dinnertime. As it was, I didn't eat till 8pm...but it was a damn good 5 cheese lasagna with meat sauce. Which is amazing considering my hotel is not on the street it claims its address is on...and which GPS led me to...even though all the street signs say it's a different street.

I'm somewhat used to streets changing names from one block to the next. And part of Robertson has numbers in the 200s on one side of the street while on the other side they're in the 800s, or something like that...because on one side is Beverly Hills and on the other is Los Angeles. But to claim a street is what it isn't? That's fresh.

Sometimes when I go to other cities I feel as if I'm participating in an absurdist comedy.

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