After a great time at the Leyden Winery, we headed up to North Brookfield MA and the Common Ground Cider Works for our second consecutive Harvest Hosts night. This place was not quite in the middle of nowhere, but you could see it from there. Pulling into the parking lot just a few minutes after they opened at noon, the empty place looked like just an old roadhouse. Longish grass around the empty picnic tables outside; a canopy, slightly drooping, to protect patrons from the weather; dark and almost windowless inside, just a rectangular space with a long bar. The three women working there were very friendly and were happy to give me all the information I asked for. They were quite interested in our trip. I asked whether they were dog-friendly, to which they replied, “Sure! Bring him in.” In fact, there was a tiny little dachshund named Nella in residence, the sweetest, most mild-mannered little dog you could find.

Two of the three women were new employees, less than a week on the job. Onre of them whose name was Crystal, however, seemed to be no stranger to this kind of work. She was kind and friendly but took charge. She made sure both Ollie and I were taken care of during our long day there. I had nowhere else to go on this day, so I was there for the cycle of customers for 3/4 of their working day. Since it was Saturday, the first patrons were a couple of larger groups of friends out on a drinking day. Live music in the form of a guy playing folk/rock on an acoustic guitar started at 1:00. Mid-afternoon the clientele showed more diversity, slanted toward both couples and workers getting off the early morning shift somewhere. At 5:00 “Music Bingo’ started, and then the crowd became divided among two groups. About half seemed to be drinkers and barflies, while the other half were families with kids all the way down to about six years of age. But people were all easygoing, and most of them knew each other. It really seemed like this was a place for everyone in the community. Ollie and I checked out early and went to the camper around 7:00. I must have fallen asleep, because at 9:00 I looked out and the parking lot was empty and the place was closed.

Sunday morning was Mother’s Day. In addition to the bar and cider works, Common Grounds (get it?) had a coffee shop at the corner of the bar. I was in no hurry to leave, as I only had about two hours’ drive to make, and check in time was not before noon, so I decided to spend a little time there. Lisa, the daughter of the owner, ran the coffee shop. She is in her mid-thirties and has a full-time job in HR placement for a large firm but does this on the side as a passion. My expectations of coffee made at a bar were not high and so I was surprised that is was really quite good. Business was slow in spite of the fact that Lisa was offering free coffee to mothers, so she had a lot of time to talk while I sat there and drank the coffee and ate a banana muffin. I asked if she was a mother, and she said no, except for Nella. At one point she had had a relationship that went sour and, feeling that she needed to get out of that small village for a fresh start, moved to Syracuse on a bit of an impulse. It turned out to be a disaster as she couldn’t find work in a depressed Syracuse, and she came back home nine months later. A girlfriend of hers had tried to get her to move to Branson, MO with her and her boyfriend, but neither the boyfriend nor Lisa thought that was a good idea. Lisa was pleasant and seemed to enjoyed laughing, but even when she laughed there looked to be some sadness behind it in her eyes.

Lisa and I had a good chance to chat, as she had two other customers during my slightly less than three hours there. By about 10:45 it was a good time for me to leave to make it to the coast, which I was pretty excited for. I gave her my card as we bade our farewells, telling her to look me up if she’s ever in the St. Louis area.. I have a sense that she won’t, and she won’t be, but it’s good just in case. It feels more hopeful to leave with “Look me up” than “Goodbye forever”.

Salisbury MA was only about 90 miles away, but it was 90 miles of back roads and little villages and 30 MPH speed limits. I was low on gas to begin the day and had vowed to stop at the first station I came across regardless of the price. I was never more than 1/4 mile from a house but did not see a gas station in my first hour of driving. How is that possible in America in 2022? I really started to get worried as there was space between the needle and the E on my fuel gauge – and it was on the wrong side of the E. The Gas Buddy app came to my rescue, and even though I had to take a four-mile detour each way, a crisis was averted.

Salisbury, like a lot of the towns in the area, is a mix between a tourist spot and an authentic New England harbor town. Just north of Salisbury is Hampton Beach, NH, which is a pretty but junky seaside beach place, complete with a boardwalk of cheap souvenir shops and restaurants. Just north of Hampton Beach is, oddly enough, North Hampton, which is decidedly more upscale, with some unbelievable mansions overlooking the water. I have arrived at an interesting time of the year, as the community is coming out of its winter slumber and getting ready for tourist season, which will begin within the next week or two. Many (most?) of the hotels are not open year-round, but are now being worked on to get them ready for the mass influx of tourists. The t-shirt shops are clearing out their inventory of hoodies and jackets to make space for their warm-weather apparel. Thus, good deals were plentiful on low-quality items.

Having seen what we wanted to see there, Ollie and I took a walk on an old train right-of-way which has been converted to a trail. It is in a very lovely town of Newburyport, which is slightly larger and more of a real town than Salisbury. That provided both of us with a much-needed workout.

The people that I have encountered in New England have been mostly friendly in a more subdued way than other places I’ve seen. Many will give you a warm hello, but only if you address them first. I won’t try to analyze why that is, but I’ve seen it from a lot of people in the area.

The RV park I’m staying in is also different from ones where I have stayed previously. It is mostly long-term residents or seasonal workers. A number of trucks from tradesmen are parked here at night, as builders and roofers come back to the RV they are living out of while they help fix up the properties here. As I walked to the shower room last night, I passed a beautiful Class A that proudly displayed a folded American flag with a MAGA hat sitting on it on the dashboard. Passing the rig, an overpowering smell of marijuana smoke hung in the air. LOTS of smoke. This isn’t your daddy’s GOP any more.

I purposely stayed close to our campground for the last couple of days, giving Ulysses (my truck) a chance to rest as he has been working hard for the last few weeks. Tomorrow I think we may go to Gloucester, which is about thirty miles away. That before we pull up stakes and say goodbye to Massachusetts for this trip.