At this year’s holiday dinner the subject arose of travel distances. A nephew born and raised in East Texas is now in the Navy, stationed for the moment in Groton, Connecticut. On a visit north, his parents were amazed to discover that a trip from Groton to Boston, say, or from Groton to New York City didn’t entail half a day’s drive. Although in my younger New England life I often found such journeys incomprehensibly long and exotic, now I’ve spent nearly half my life in a state where driving two hundred miles to visit family, or five hours to get to the beach, seems virtually routine. Continue reading →