The shortest distance between two points is impossible

Sandra has gone to Chicago for a few days to visit with her cousin who is recuperating from back surgery. Marley and I drove Sandra to the Manchester airport this morning. We encountered some light rain and snow en route, but not enough to slow us down. The path to Manchester, somewhat north of northeast, required a zig-zag of north and east and even a bit northwest. Using Google directions, we arrived in good order and with plenty of time to spare. Her flight even arrived in Chicago a few minutes ahead of schedule.

When we worked for Digital, Sandra and I would regularly travel to the Nashua facility on Spit Brook Road, the first exit over the Massachusetts border. On occasion, we'd also travel a bit further, to Merrimack, for meetings or training. Southern New Hampshire, particularly in and around Nashua, is filled with strip malls and low industrial buildings. When the New Hampshire primaries were going on, the nation was presented with images of quaint small towns with a white-steepled Congregational church on the common. Those images are there, but you have to make your way past malls such as this:




















Leaving the airport wasn't as easy as arriving. The maze of roads and odd directions befuddled me and soon I was on a plain road with high snow banks, as though I was on a bodsled run. They'd received a lot more snow in yesterday's storm and in the storms before. I passed old farms and new McMansions. There was, as expected, the usual paucity of street signs. With the low clouds, it was impossible to get a sense of direction. I kept driving until I reached a roadway that had some directions. I briefly passed through Milford (where my father was born) and then bent back southeast so that I could go southwest again.