Reuniting the lost lovers of time and distance

This past summer, I finally cast off to live aboard my sailboat. I had been thinking about that moment of casting off for four years before slipping the docklines.

My vision was to live mainly aboard for several years. That may, or may not, still come to fruition, but at this point, I was happy to spend two months living aboard. The fine ship Dolphins is now back "on the hard" for the winter. I look forward to spending next summer living aboard again.

This past summer, I navigated Dolphins down Lake Champlain, through the 12-lock canal to the Hudson, down the river around Manhattan and out to Long Island Sound, across to Provincetown. And from there straight north to Maine for ten days of gunkholing before backtracking to Lake Champlain.

Journeys are discoveries. That's why we enjoy them. I discovered parts of Lake Champlain, I had never seen. I got to imagine being an Abenaki indian rowing a canoe along and seeing the massive Fort Ticonderoga declaring its dominance over north-south traffic along the Lake. I discovered islands and coves in Maine that can only be discovered by boat.

The challenge is to experience journeys as discoveries about ourselves. As such, this journey taught me skills which I had hoped and had expected to learn. Refining my docking techniques, engine maintenance and repair, and navigation skills. It also introduced me to some feelings that I knew I might encounter. I discovered the terror of being underway in fog. I am glad I ran into fog, so that I could learn to overcome my terror and deal with the circumstances.

There were a few discoveries on this journey that were unexpected. And those I treasure the most. Those discoveries were beyond the physical or geographical. They were insights into life in general. In order to make such discoveries, I have to put myself in a dual state of consciousness. One in which I am in the experience and the other in which I remove myself from the physical experience and observe myself objectively.

One if those discoveries was the relationship between time and distance. We have lost the true appreciation of that relationship. I can drive from Burlington, VT and to Manhattan in about six hours. I can board a plane and be hugging my siblings in Germany in just a couple hours more than that. Airmail and FedEx has made shipping distances irrelevant. Internet has closed gaps in finding information and made shopping all over the globe instantaneous.

We have come to expect that distance is a variable. Even flying to the moon is a shorter trip than driving from coast to coast.

But once we are forced to travel at the speed of yore, about seven miles per hour, you begin to realize just how large this globe is. It takes five to six days to get from Burlington to the Statue of Liberty. I saw the Tappan Zee Bridge and was excited that after days of motoring down the Hudson we were "finally" arriving in the city. I stood on the bow while my friend took a picture of me in front of the Tappan Zee. Well, it took another hour to get under that bridge. And since the Tappan Zee is about a dozen miles north of Manhattan, it took another couple of hours to reach Harlem. And the same time again to get to our slip near Liberty State Park. My moment of "finally" was close to an entire day's trip.

Is there any value in rediscovering this relationship between time and distance? Have our advances in technology, which allow us to diminish distance and distort time, been beneficial or to our detriment? I can't say categorically.

But for me, it is hugely important to reconnect with slowness. I feel my mind and focus has suffered from the so-called conveniences of modern day. The cell phone, the fax, the internet, the now, the quick, the superficial, the gloss. I have certainly appreciated the backspace on computers. Compared to the typewriters. But it has changed how I think. I used to maintain regular correspondence using the typewriter and the postal service. I would receive a letter from my friend on the West Coast. It would have taken three days to arrive. Sometimes I wouldn't read it right away, but let it sit on the counter because I wanted to make sure I would be in the right mind-set. Then I would take a few days to absorb the letter, and begin composing my response in my mind whenever I had a few quiet moments. I would have general idea of the shape of my letter. And finally, I would sit down to write back. At a typewriter, you must not only have the general outline of the letter in your head, but also the general sense of the paragraph. And certainly the sentence before committing to the first word. Writing by typewriter made me think in wonderful ways. Today, I get an email, and the pressure is on to respond immediately. Type away, anything will do. Don't worry, the delete key is your way of finally saying what you want. Oh hell, an email is too long. Condense it down to a sentence and text message back.

I know, I am a curmudgeon. And I appreciate the irony that I am bemoaning modern technology's ill effects right here on a blog. Great, I am a hypocritical curmudgeon.

I look foward to living aboard my sailboat again next summer. This time I will be expecting time's inexorably self-determined pace and its jealous relationship to distance which can only be observed from such places as the deck of a ship.

Motoring the splendid Taconic Parkway

I'm going to sound like a Department of Transportation marketing intern now, but trust me, I did not so much as receive a free toll for writing this piece.

Decades ago, I heard someone call the Taconic State Parkway the Catatonic State Parkway. And ever since then, even though I had never been on the Taconic, that silly pun tainted my perception of that route.

The parkway runs straight south-north from NYC to almost Albany, about a dozen or so miles east of the Hudson.

I guess it wasn't so much the pun, but just the interstate options that forced the Taconic off my active mental map. When I'd travel south, I'd take I-87, which is the New York State Thruway (sic on that official God-Bless-America spelling) or as an option I-89 and I-91. But never the Taconic, which threads its way between the two options.

Today, heading back home to Vermont, on a lark -- with only visual exit distance as my deciding time -- I made the turn onto the Taconic State Parkway.

What a trip. Instead of traveling north, I suddenly was traveling backwards. Backwards in time. I left the busy suburban New York traffic and was transported back into a time when I and just a few other "automobiles" were "motoring" along this scenic parkway.

If you go to the official website (yes, this parkway has its own website) you will see that the Taconic was built, in installments, during the 30s, 40s and 50s. On the southern end are stone archways carrying the overpasses. And in the areas were the north- and south-bound lanes are contiguous, there is a "box-rail" divider, as opposed to concrete segments.

The road meanders in much tighter curves than modern interstates. Toward the northern Hudson Highlands, you are surprised with sudden wide views of the Hudson Valley. For most of the 70 miles I "motored" the Taconic, I was the only car. Nothing in front of me. No push-push, hurry-hurry from behind. And truck traffic is prohibited. (According to the wikipedia entry on the Taconic, it was as late as the year 2000 that pickup trucks could get a special license plate to legally travel the Taconic.)

If you choose to take the Taconic (and you should) be sure to use the modern advantage of cruise control. The speed limit is 55, and with those tight turns, you will never see the cops hiding in their pull-offs. I set mine at 66 and was ignored by two "patrol" cars, which I passed. I was actually half-expecting to see a motorcycle cop with a three-quarter helmet, Ray Bans and equestrian-type riding pants, but apparently some modernization has occurred on the Taconic.

The speed posting is appropriate because the Taconic is so old-fashioned that it still has crossroad intersections every now and then. No ramps, just perpendicular intersections, at which crossing or entering cars have to gun it. The only reason that works is because there is so little traffic on this 1950s antiquity.

Yet, despite that speed limit, I made just as good time back to Vermont by saving the trip further west to pick up the interstate.

The official website indicates that the highway is being considered for historic preservation status. In that case all upgrades, including the proposed conversion to ramps, will be done in keeping with the existing style.

The northern end of the Taconic terminates in a tollbooth entrance to the Mass Turnpike or I-90. It was fitting that this rolling, recherche a la road perdue would end in an empty tollbooth.

Empty tollbooth? Was this a scene from The Phantom Tollbooth?

No, wait: there's a sign: "If no one in booth, please be patient. Attendant is serving other lane."

I loved it. I waited something less than a minute while the "attendant" was apparently taking the toll from some lucky soul who was about to motor south on the Taconic. Then she appeared in the service window. "Have a great day," she said as she handed me my ticket.

I already did, I thought.