Thursday I flew to New Hampshire for my first meeting with a new client. I had never been to New Hampshire. I don't think I realized it would be quite as rural as it was. I flew into Manchester which is a fairly small airport and has very few direct flights from DCA. The hospital I was meeting with was actually in New London, NH, about an hour away but there are no major chain hotels near the hospital so I elected to stay in Manchester at the Four Points by Sheraton. The hotel was in the middle of a bunch of big box stores. The GPS said "I had arrived" when I was outside Sam's Club and across the street from Walmart. But a quick call to the hotel informed me I just had to drive up next to the Harley Davidson dealership and I would see it.
There wasn't a ton in the area to eat so I ended up at the hotel bar. I find that I prefer to eat the bar rather than the hotel restaurant. The menu is usually the same and it's slightly less awkward to sit alone at the bar than alone a table. Plus the bar usually has better people watching...especially this bar!
There was no one in the bar or restaurant when I arrived but shortly after I ordered my meal a woman walked in and ordered a glass of Chardonnay and sat down with a stack of scratch-offs. She was quite chatty and I quickly learned she waiting for her son to finish hockey practice. She drives a bus for a retirement home and never finished college, her husband is a botanist with a PhD. She has a son whose birthday is February 14th. They had his birthday at the hotel this year in the in-door pool. You can rent the pool for $25/hour and get pizza's for $10/pizza. They did the whole party for less than $200 last year! When the manager came in she started chatting with him about having the party there next year and kept chatting with him like they were old friends and she knew a lot about him. She said things like "How many hours do you sleep a night?" "How many hours do you drive a day?" "How late do you work?" "Last time I was here you were dating anyone"..."actually I was"..."oh, well my friend was slipping you her number"..."I know, I still have it"...Did I mention the bartender was a creeper? Other topics of the night included male PMS and if they should hire a male bartender. After a second glass of wine (and no food) my new friend left to go pick up her son.
The next morning I had to get up early to drive from Manchester to my meeting in New London. I was planning to meet my colleague at 7:45 (our meeting was at 8:15) as he was coming from another hospital in NH. The ride was easy and picturesque. I especially enjoyed all of the signs for the NH State Liquor Store and Rest Stop. One would think those two things shouldn't be housed together...but apparently one would be wrong...
As I neared the hospital it started snow. It was just enough snow to be pretty and not enough to actually stick, which I consider to be the perfect amount of snow. Although apparently the hospital is near some ski resorts and I'm hoping to work that into a future trip, so I'm sure I'll be hoping for some snow then. I arrived early (naturally) only to hear from my colleague that the road he was driving on had been closed. As he had been driving down the road a pickup truck in front of him stopped, turn around and flagged him down, letting him know the road was closed. Unsure if this was just something a random person decided my colleague pressed for more info. Apparently there was an accident and the road was in fact closed. Unfortunately, said random person, did not know where New London was! So my colleague meandered through the state hoping to arrive in time for our meetings (and fortunately, he did)!
Following our meetings I drove to Boston for my flight out. Initially I was planning to fly out of Manchester but I wouldn't have been able to leave until after 5pm. Fortunately I was able to drive the 2 hours to Boston and still get out earlier, landing in DCA at 4:30. I will be flying in and out of BOS next week when I go back for meetings on Monday and Tuesday. Hopefully the driving remains fairly uneventful!
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