O Little Town(s) of Littleton....

On the road again. Two nights. Flew Sunday night to Philadelphia and rented a way cool Volvo Cross Country wagon, drove 30-some miles to Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania.

My colleague, The Producer, made a minor error in the meet time with the client. We arrived at 9:30am at an office complex which the Hertz Neverlost™ GPS system in the rental car couldn’t quite narrow down to exactly which building we were supposed to enter. My colleague whipped out his handy-dandy book with all the dates, times and locations, and discovered that we weren’t scheduled to meet with the client until 12:30pm.

So, with three hours to kill, and too late to go back to bed at the hotel we had just checked out of, we looked up local attractions in the Hertz Neverlost™ GPS system and discovered that we were only 10 miles away from Valley Forge National Monument and Park! Never fearful of soaking up some American History, we ventured out to see where the ragtag rebels of the colonies were whipped into shape through one cold, hungry winter, into a disciplined army that kicked some British arse!

In the evening we returned to the Philadelphia airport with plenty of time to spare, so of course our flight was delayed. There was no clear explanation…the gate agent kept announcing over the intercom that our plane from Chicago had landed, and would arrive at the gate any minute. “Any minute” expanded to 25 minutes, and still there was no plane. Finally, a half-hour after our scheduled departure time, we were told our plane had arrived at the gate. Instead of a flood of people gushing out from the jetway, the gate agents started loading us on…to an empty plane. I still can’t figure out what happened.

We flew, about 90 minutes late (thank you, US STUPID Airways), to Manchester, New Hampshire, the first time I’ve ever set foot this far northeast. We arrived just before 11:00pm, and looked ahead to a 110-mile drive to a place that was equidistant between two major airports. Manchester was the lesser of two evils. How less evil I don’t know. Our rental this time was a Ford (Ugh!) Escape. I hauled ass up I-93 north, pushing about 80 most of the way until we entered the White Mountains. I imagine in summer they’re green mountains, but I’m sure they’re still called White Mountains, no matter how un-white they might be. I don’t know if it was a weather system that had moved through at the same time, or if it was just mountain weather, but it sucked. Snow and strong wind. The roads weren’t slippery, though the snow was collecting there and they looked treacherous.

Ever since I’ve been with this job, there seems to be some peculiarity each year that stands out. One year it seemed like a dozen trips to Orlando, Florida. I HATE Orlando, Florida. You should have seen the size of this one Mouse I saw there! Another year it was the three trips to Hawaii in three months! I know what you’re thinking, but I was working and got no beach time. And that’s practically a whole week on a plane when you add it all up!

This year it seems – on a minor scale, at least – to be shoots in towns called Littleton. In January I arrived at night in the mountain town of Littleton, Colorado. Tonight I arrived in the mountain town of Littleton, New Hampshire. Odder still is the layout of the hotel where we’re staying. The building is a three-story hotel, up on a hillside, facing the town. It’s bitterly cold, as it was in Littleton, Colorado, in January, and it’s snowing. Or I’m having the strangest, longest dream about two months of my life, and I’m still in Littleton, Colorado. Somebody wake me up and tell me the Bears haven’t actually made it to the Super Bowl, yet, because, in my dream they do, and it isn’t pretty!

I wonder if there’s any rivalry between the mountain-Littletons. You know, some “my-mountains-are-bigger-than-your-mountains,” “oh-yeah-well-we-never-had-a-massacre-at-our-high-school” kind of thing going back and forth.

Probably not.

My coffee-for-the-road caffeine buzz is wearing off, now. Funny that it kept me awake long enough to write something that certainly must have put you to sleep!

Visit New Hampsha! Its Littleton is littler than the bigger Littleton in Colorado!