Thanksgiving In New England

My husband who is not always one to want to travel said:" let's go be with the family in New Hampshire on Thanksgiving".  We decided we would gamble on the weather.  I have spent many a late November weekend at the farm in New Hampshire for well on to fifty years, and I didn't remember much snow.  We flew to New York a week before and went to every museum conceivable.  I was in my mink jacket and thankful as an evil freezing wind whipped up and down those avenues.  We saw the Cubist show, saw the Matisse cut-outs for a second time (first was at the Tate Modern in London), saw the marvelous Natural Disaster show at the Museum of Natural History along with every single school child in the city.  God, what a nightmare!  Learned later that they go away in the afternoons, so that's the time to go.  Wish a similar disappearing act could remove the crowds in Times Square where we went on Saturday night to a performance of Stoppard's "The Real Thing," which I have to say was as bad as Ben Brantley claimed.  We paid two hundred fifty something dollars for two seats at the back of the orchestra, half the time couldn't hear a line, as American actors tried to be English, brittle and clever, and left at the intermission.  Well, nobody held a gun to my head when I bought the tickets, and I always say after every Broadway fiasco "never again," so I have only myself to blame.  Then Tuesday we hopped on the Dartmouth Coach to Hanover NH where dear friends live. We planned to take them out to dinner at seven o'clock at the new restaurant in the Hanover Inn.  And then we got to Hartford, and from that moment until we were on the ground again in Sarasota the day after Thanksgiving, it was one strange misadventure after another.  There was an impending huge storm, and to escape it, people were leaving for the holiday on Tuesday instead of Wednesday.  From Hartford to Springfield the Coach sat in an immovable mass of traffic, or more or less immovable.  We got to Hanover minutes before eight o'clock, and our friends forewarned were just arriving, the restaurant had moved the reservation.  All was well, great food, lots to drink, and general merriment.  We were told that the blizzard would commence at eleven in the morning on Wednesday, and I have to wonder if the Weather Channel and Mother Nature work in sync nowadays since, that was when the snowflakes started.  We were to have a second meal with the friends at their historic farm; the meal was moved to two in the afternoon from evening because of weather's threats.  Driving there was a madness.  They live at the top of a steep steep and winding sandy very narrow road with deep ravines on either side and no protective railing.  Oh, the slipping and the sliding.  We were in a rental with no snow tires and no four wheel drive. We even had to deal with meeting another car and nearly went deep into the ditch.  Noble husband plowed on, skidding and sliding but making it, hoorah!  A glorious meal, lots of fellowship, lots of great wine (Thank God, husband is a teetotaler!), and off we were sliding down the hill again in total darkness back to the hotel.  The next day packed and off to my daughter's at the historic farm (been in her mother's family for seven generations now).  Made it to Concord with one and sometimes two lanes cleared on the interstate, the snow had stopped and sat heavy heavy--very wet snow--on the trees making for a very beautiful drive, but very claustrophobic.  Daughter's house is not the historic farm property but another newer place situated prettily enough in a deep ravine, which is down a steep and curving sandy driveway.  Another moment of sheer drama and we were there.  Knowing that there would be no liquor at this event, I had prudently bought a demi bottle of red wine which I drank before we arrived.  All was well save that the power had failed and the dinner was delayed until three.  But the magic of the assembled group was such that hugely entertaining conversation ensued until that time and continued at the festive board.  When darkness descended we had not yet reached the pies set out on the side board, so there was a little bit of rapid eating at this point.  I should say that a power generator was keeping us warm, or sort of warm.  I guess people from Florida did not call it warm.  Back at our motel in Concord, early to bed with a four am wake up call.  At five on the road me to the bus station, hubby to the car rental agency to drop off the car and where  a cab was arranged to pick him, and we made the six am bus.  Barreling along the interstate to Boston when suddenly snow plows loom on the road, a complete barrier of them going at maybe twenty five miles an hour stretching across.  Oh, the suspense of it all, oh, the relief when they turned off at Manchester.  A half hour later or so we were arriving at the terminal at Logan, and through security  and quietly collapsing we waited for the plane and of course there was all the deicing and so no and so forth, but we left finally, left the ground, flew on, and then there we were whew! back home in Sarasota, sunshine and warmth.