It was a hot sunny Thursday in July and I'm finally starting to feel a bit better. The previous two weeks were a collection of progressive symptoms from dry cough, then wet cough, then sinus block, then pain in the diaphragm, culminating in a wheezy mess with some shortness of breath mixed in. I'll save the vibrant descriptions of the sights and sounds emanating from my lungs, but let's just say that both my condition and demeanor were quite phlegmatic.

Regular readers of this blog have noticed a pronounced swing towards travel and personal interest pieces. The 10-part Odyssey was borne out of a desire to relive my recent trip to the US last August whilst learning and sharing various anecdotes along the way. This was never intended to be a permanent shift. This is not a travel blog, but rather a pharmacist who happens to be writing about travel.

Waking up spry, we could almost smell the faint scent of maple syrup and beaver tails. Today, we journey to the great white north! Follow I-91 north for about an hour and twenty minutes to the hallowed border crossing near Derby Line (US) and Rock Island (Can). A brief comment about border crossings; we tend to get nervous heading into the US.

I couldn't come up with anything clever or cute for the title this round, though White River Junction sounds like the proper setting for a western, replete with saloon, general store, and train bandits. Alas, this village on the Vermont-New Hampshire border does not hold the excitement of a duel at high noon, but we'll get to that in due course.

We woke up the morning of Aug 18 to some down-home Holiday Inn, egg-in-a-carton, conveyor-belt-toaster, do-it-yourself-waffle, gourmet breakfast spread. Ready to hit the road once again, we jumped back on the I-90 for a three hour eastward stretch. We had been fortunate with the driving weather; other than encountering torrential rains along the Lake Erie stretch, the roads were dry and visibility was excellent.