DUELLING BANJOS

Possibly I made a mistake. Yes, I know that sounds quite shocking but it is nonetheless true. When Ben and I peered out from behold the curtains this morning there remained a very stubborn layer of dense grey and white cloud right across the Presidential Range of the White Mountains and it blocked any view of Mt Washington completely. But we could not hang around to see if the promised break in the clouds would actually materialize, we had a date with Bar Harbor to keep. By 10.30 we were on the road and heading NE. It is a long, twisting and undulating drive from Bretton Woods to Bar Harbor - some mapping apps have it pegged at just three and one half hours while others are decidedly more generous in their time allowance. If you ever plan on doing this particular leg of the journey I would suggest you believe none of them. Just factor in that I did not arrive in Bar Harbor until some 6 hours after departing. OK, I was taking it easy and stopped three times for Ben’s comfort but that is a very wide disparity between estimate and real world experience.

The mistake I may have committed is to have not allowed two nights in Bretton Woods and two in Bar Harbor. The former in order I could have a better chance of a drive to the peak, the latter so I could have a day at leisure in Bar Harbor. It is not as if I am constrained in any way - other than having already booked my ferry ticket to Nova Scotia. One lives and learns.

This morning I found a bridle path that ran out from close to the hotel and used it to take Ben for a decent walk. He was in heaven scenting the horse poo and wandering around in the woods. It was cool and wet so it was no real hardship to call it a day, head back to the hotel and check out. With the van loaded once more I punched our destination into the little plug in nav unit and off we jolly well went. Several times I had to turn back when the nav tried to send us on old mountain paths that would have required a Land Rover to negotiate - it was a very cheap plug in nav!! Somewhere around the back of Mt Washington and a short distance outside Gorham I pulled into a gas station to refill as there had been no obvious sign of habitation for a while and I did not fancy ending up high and dry in rural NH. It can be VERY rural.

While most US gas stations are nothing much to write home about this one was different. It was so bad it immediately set my writing juices flowing……. The pumps were pretty old fashioned - they had no pay at the pump option - but I tried the lever and it allowed me to pump without going inside to pay. The building could politely be described as ‘ramshackle’, a clapboard structure that had seen much better days. After pumping my gas I went inside. Two things immediately struck me. First was the smell - more of a stench really - of wet dog. But this was not wet dog as in a dog had just been swimming and wandered in. No, this was a very well established and practised all enveloping odour of wet dog and it clearly had malevolent intentions. The other thing that I found surprising was the lack of light, the interior was very dim indeed and I was not aware of any source of light other than that which could force its way past the filthy window glass.

It was then a while before I was able to discern the three assistants inside the store. When I lived in VT I was introduced to the concept of Hill People. These are the characters that live in the woods and keep themselves to themselves and are generally only spotted at the State Fair in Rutland briefly each summer. They really do exist there - and now I know they exist in New Hampshire too. All were elderly and all wore dungarees. Pappa Bear was behind the rudimentary cash out desk, Mama Bear - I never did work out where she fit within the hierarchy - waddled around front of the store while another lurked suspiciously near the rear entrance. All failed the BMI healthy score by a very wide margin and I suspected none of them were in the slightest bit aware of the olfactory nastiness that had beset my nostrils. I approached Papa Bear with the dimly remembered chords of Duelling Banjos and the nastier scenes from Deliverance playing through my head. Surprisingly he produced a credit card terminal, not a Bowie knife and when I asked for ice the order was relayed to Mama Bear who grunted and threw things off the top of a small chest freezer and reached inside. Alarmed at first, I was relieved to see it was just an ordinary bag of ice she produced from the depths.

Before leaving the hotel I had drunk my morning coffee and loaded another into the van and now I needed to jettison the load. When I enquired where I might find the restroom I was told that it was “round back, right round back” but that it was currently occupied and I would in any case need a key. At their suggestion and really to save my nose any further damage from the odorous gases within the shop I returned to the car, loaded the ice into my cooler and went right around back. Waiting outside a dim and very dirty entry door bearing a handwritten sign “Toilets are in here’ those images from Deliverance resurfaced - the filthy and rotting woodwork of the few structures nearby did nothing to reassure me. Suddenly a door just further along swung open and a grinning Mama Bear appeared and proffered me a key with an 18” long stick attached with “WOMEN” etched upon it. Also dirty. I have a friend in Rochester that rather fancies himself as a magician in his chosen profession of orthodontist. I am quite sure even he would be beaten by the gap toothed grin that uttered “no tellin ow long he might be”. Given the general state of dirt and disrepair I felt that perhaps to use the “WOMEN” room might be more hygienic and gratefully accepted the offer. And it was there that I made my second mistake of the day.

I entered a small room that was completely dark and windowless. Unlike those idiots in Hollywood movies I did not continue without illumination but threw the light switch. It was not a pretty sight. Let me just say that not for the first time in my life I uttered thanks that the good lord designed men to pee standing, not sitting. As I did my work I took the time to read some of the notices hanging from the wall. One was a sign on a small pink pig, “DON”T HOG THE RESTROOM”. Talk about redundant, surely it was inconceivable that anyone would wish to spend a nanosecond longer than absolutely necessary in this place. Another had me wondering if perhaps I was wrong about anatomy of the fairer sex “My aim is to keep this place clean. Your aim will help”. Really? Needless to say it was one of those places where one quickly calculates that to touch the tap in order to wash your hands means you will end up more contaminated then if you just cut and run. Besides, I carry copious supplies of hand sanitizer in the van. I was outta there in a heartbeat.