Welcome back! If you're reading this, I assume you made it back. Oh what tangled webs we weave when we try to get to or from Hanover, New Hampshire.
"For only a few thousand dollars (and doesn't the phrase "ten thou" just roll off the tongue so easily!) you too can have the vehicular freedom to come and go as you please without the horrible aggravation of public transportation and buying costly tickets!" Or so goes the sales pitch I've been giving my parents for the past two years. If you live within a day's drive, automobile travel is definitely the simplest way to go.
Don't have a car, you say? We move on to plan B -- get a ride. The Student Assembly ride board seems good in theory, but I always feel awful for those people who post things like, "Need ride to Omaha, Nebraska next weekend. Will pay for gas and tolls." Are they serious? And even if you could find a ride to the Midwest, just how many people could you tolerate for several days in an enclosed space? After working out schedules and destinations, a good ride is hard to come by.
The fastest and certifiably most expensive way to get anywhere is the beloved airplane. I especially enjoy the four-billion-dollar flights out of West Lebanon Airport. The airline worker smugly asks you whether you want a window or aisle seat, knowing full well that there's only one seat on each side of the aisle, so that every seat is both window and aisle. Anyone looking to overcome a fear of small noisy bumpy planes with no free beverage should definitely try the West Leb Airport. The feeling that you've cheated death when stepping off the plane is priceless.
"Just take the bus." It sounds easy enough, but anyone who has tried to go any distance on a bus knows the dark side of bus transport. What should be a simple ride from Hanover to Hartford ends up being a 12-hour scenic tour of New England bus stations. Claremont, Concord, Manchester, Salem ... Three hours later, green from motion sickness, you're still in New Hampshire. And what's more amazing is that no matter where you travel, "bus people" are universally creepy. You just can't avoid the 300-pound blue-haired old woman who snores or the five-year-old demon-child who likes to throw cookies and scream while his mother stares vacantly out the window. A wise bus travel tip -- buses are not the place you want to play the "name that odor" game. Some mysteries are better left unsolved.
The train is definitely a step up from the bus. It's got better ventilation for one, and it has a snack bar that sells both five-dollar boxes of tic-tacs and last decade's potato chips. It wasn't until I took the train from Philadelphia that I realized my friend's "spiraling theory of Connecticut" is all too real. Connecticut never ends. The train must have been going in circles, because it spends a full five hours in the Constitution State. Connecticut is simply not that big! Enfield, Meriden, New Haven, Stamford ... Trains stop even more than buses. From Washington D.C. to Hanover is a twelve-hour train ride. How long does it take for mold to grow on a stationary object? Bring some Lysol.
As much as I have headaches trying to get here from Pennsylvania, I know I'm lucky. Those who live outside of the Northeast have the most amusing travel stories of all. Just today I heard the most fascinating tale from a friend who takes the bus to and from St. Louis, Missouri. "Sure it takes 48 hours, "she said. "But you meet the most, um, interesting people in bus stations." Making airport connections can also be a delight. "No one flies directly to Indiana," said another friend. "Though I can't say I blame them." And then there's the old airline maxim, "A fool ... err, Dartmouth student ... and his luggage are soon parted."
But this week's travel story winner is this one: After a two-hour drive from New Mexico to Lubbock, Texas, a 90-minute flight to Dallas, and 5 hours there waiting for ValuJet, this poor creature arrived in Atlanta, only to wait 18 hours for New England to dig itself out from under snow, so she could pay an extra $400. for a one-way ticket to Boston. The mini-coach dropped her off in Hanover 33 hours after leaving home, which I'm told is approximately the door-to-door time from Dartmouth to New Delhi, India.
No, most of us didn't choose Dartmouth for its convenient locale, but hopefully for most of us the positives of the term ahead will outweigh the difficulties in getting here. After my seven-hour drive here on Monday, the phrase "I am SO glad to be at Dartmouth!" took on new meaning.
