Left Portsmouth, NH the morning of September 13th on a journey to the home of my nephew Jim and his wife Jen in Worcester, MA. We selected a back roads route that gave Boston a wide berth. Our only real encounter with city traffic was in Leominster (pronounced “Lemister”), MA where, owing to an error on our part, we found ourselves smack dab in the center of town at lunch hour. Our goal had been to skirt the town on the west side and stop of a picnic lunch “somewhere” in either the state park or

Picnic Lunch in Leominister State Park, MA

National Forest. Using the map on our GPS, we began a zigzag journey west and south of downtown Leominster until we reached the eastern edge of the National Forest. At that point, the GPS ran out of road and the snail that represents our vehicle began a journey on a featureless screen. Ultimately, a homeowner doing some roadside weeding directed us to Leominster State Park just 3 miles away. After our usual tailgate picnic lunch of peanut butter and honey on whole wheat bread we completed our trek to Worchester, MA.

We spent a delightful couple of days with our nephew Jim (the son of my only sister) his wife Jen and their 6 year old son Daniel. One evening, Jim took us to a friend’s small Italian restaurant in an economically challenged part of town where we were pleasantly surprised to find on the menu many of our Italian favorites, including linguini with white clam sauce, chicken cacciatore, and chicken parmesan. Was great!

Jim, Jen, and Daniel at their Home in Worchester, MA

As we traditionally do on Sunday mornings when on the road, Jean and I attended Mass at a local Catholic Church. Interestingly, one of the hymns sung was I Danced in the Morning which finds its roots in the 19th century Shaker hymn Lord of the Dance. When we had visited the Canterbury Shaker Village in Loudon, NH, during the Sentimental Tour the prior week, it had been mentioned that the Shakers had produced more than 1,000 hymns – many of which have been incorporated in modern church hymns – this was apparently one of them.

Monday, September 15th we bid Jen and Daniel farewell and made our way east from Worcester, MA to Little Compton, RI to spend some time at the home of Jean’s brother Rusty and his wife Gail. We stopped for our traditional picnic lunch in a city park in Tiverton, RI on the Sakonnet River a few miles north of Little Compton, RI. Accustom to traveling through the more westerly states, it is interesting to experience the small physical distance between the states in New England. However, congested traffic makes the time to traverse them about the same as traversing the larger western and southern states.

                                            Rusty, Gail, and Sam with Jean at Little Compton, RI