New Hampshire has redeemed itself. For years bad thinks happen everytime I am driving through New Hampshire - people giving me the finger, getting lost out of Dover because the "Live Free or Die" folk don't like spending on road signs. I only drive through New Hampshire - like New Brunswick. Last evening at 7:00 pm, we blew a tire on highway 4 at the westerly Durham exit and New Hampsire came through big time.

I can change a tire. I cannot change a tire when the tire jack and lugnut wrench was left in PEI in a house I have since sold. We started to walk into town down the highway on ramp. First, a guy about 19 in a pick up driving the other way goes down the ramp into Durham, goes around and up our ramp to meet us as we are walking down. He drives us into town calling on his cell phone to all the VW owners he knew. We make about 5 stops with no luck. 25 minutes minimum.   He leaves us with a happy wave at the cop shop where we call for help (being after hours). This guy has just done this one a Friday eveing coming home from work at the Portsmouth Jiffy lube. Someone raised that kid right.  Didn't get the name but thanks.

Next, the cops call Smitty's Towing and in 15 minutes we are back at our car where for 30 bucks on my VISA, the nephew of the owner - about 23 - replaces the tire with our doughnut in about 47 seconds. Tells us all about the town as we are driving back, how the University of NH sucks up property taxes, how they came second in NCAA hockey last year, tells us about being a tow operator in Durham (picked up two DWIs Thursday night) and gives us directions on to Portland via back roads to stay under 50 mph. Again, someone raised this kid right.  Again, didn't get the name but thanks.

The trip was made by this.  Less than one hour delay.  Before that the highlights were the drive on NY highway 3 through to Saranac Lake; the 10 mile drive up and over the Green Mountains east of Middlesbury where you can pretend you are in a car ad pumping second and third gears through hairpins at a 12% ascent and decent; seeing Middlesbury College founded in 1800 sitting in a landscape of rolling farms with the lake to the west and the mountains to the east.  Also ate beef jerky for the first time.  Ate a whole bunch and then worried for an hour whether a entire pot roast was rehydrating in my gut.   Buy a VW, by the way. Whole drive was less than 30 bucks Canadian for the gas. My car is a '93. And make sure the jack and lugnut wrench are in the back.

Route: Kingston to Cape Vincent to Watertown to Saranac Lake to Lake Placid (avoid) to Westport to Champlain Bridge to Middlesbury to Concord to Dover to Gorham to South Portland: left house at 7:35 am, got to Ross's at 10:20 pm.   Off to the tire shop today.