Today’s Throwback Thursday #TBT post goes back to 2010, when 3 of my friends and I set out to try and visit the 67 counties in the 6 New England states (Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine) in under 24 hours.  Having previously conquered Ohio and Alabama in under 24 hours, we felt confident that New England wouldn’t pose much of a challenge.  We put a camera on the dashboard of our car and set it to take a picture every 6 seconds.  Compiled into a time-lapse video, this is what it looks like.

I’ll break the recap of the video down into the musical segments

• Downeaster Alexa (Billy Joel): 0:00-0:33 – the night before, we parked our car at the Barnstable / Hyannis Municipal airport (HYA), then took an (expensive) cab ride over to Woods Hole, MA, where we stayed the night.  We took the first ferry of the day from Woods Hole to Martha’s Vineyard, and then immediately took a cab from the ferry dock to the Martha’s Vineyard airport (MVY).  We got in line for the first flight of the day over to Nantucket.  The minute the wheels left the ground on that flight, we started the clock.  We arrived at Nantucket (ACK) and had about a 30 minute layover.  As we went back out on the tarmac, one of the guys said “Wait, didn’t you just get here?” 😀
• Vampire Weekend (Walcott): 0:33-3:09  – With the apt lyrics “Don’t you wanna get out of Cape Cod tonight?”  As soon as our flight from Nantucket arrived back at HYA, we left the airport back to the car we had parked the night before and hit the road.  We made our way on Interstates through Cape Cod and into Rhode Island.  On I-95 our navigator was talking on the phone to his girlfriend, which caused us to miss our exit (5A), causing a bit of a delay as we decided to continue on into Washington County, Rhode Island down to the next exit (2:16).  At 3:01 you can see us accidentally knock the camera off the dash :-P, and at 3:07 you can briefly see us stopped as we turn around at the border of Tolland County, CT.
• Boys of Summer (the Ataris): 3:09-7:24 – We make our way through Hartford, and at 3:56 you can see us pulling a U-turn on I-84 at the border of Fairfield County.  I was driving at that point, and I seem to recall having to really floor it to merge into eastbound traffic! :-D.  Going through western Connecticut and into western Massachusetts, we were cutting through backcountry roads from MA-8 to MA-23 at about 4:49 when we made a wrong turn near the Otis Reservoir and ended up going in a circle before making our way eastbound.  A crew cutting logs with their “Be Prepared to Stop” sign at 5:01 didn’t stop us from motoring at a high rate of speed through Westfield, MA and onto the Mass Pike.  First gas break was at about 5:50 on the video which took a few minutes.  At 6:26 we got off of I-91 and crossed the Connecticut River into Cheshire County, New Hampshire through the town of Walpole.  We paralleled the river for about 10 minutes before crossing back west into Vermont at Charleston, NH (6:42)

Ferry to Martha’s Vineyard (Dukes County), Plane to Nantucket, Plane to Barnstable and car to the rest of the 67 counties

• Coward of the County (Kenny Rogers): 7:26-8:57 – This was (one of) the songs of the trip, named after one of our friends who was supposed to go on the trip but wimped out at the last second.  We called him “The Coward of the Counties”.  It is here that you first see the black motorcycle that paced us for what seemed like forever.  He first shows up at 7:43 (about 5pm local time) and we ride behind him on VT-100 North for about 30 minutes (8:03 on the tape).  Guess it seems longer when you keep screaming in the car “MOVE OVER OUT OF OUR WAY!!!” 😀
  I’ve been everywhere (Johnny Cash): 8:58-12:14 – (You knew this song had to be on here!)  This section has one of the coolest effects of the time-lapse photography – you can see the sun set as we move along!  At 9:30 you see us crossing the Lake Champlain bridge into Grand Isle county, Vermont, turning around in some guy’s driveway (9:34) and then back east to finish out Vermont as the sun goes down.  Much of this section and the next is a dark night on the Interstate / other middle of nowhere roads, or in other words, not super interesting :-P.  We take our 2nd gas stop at 10:56
• Keep the Car Running (Arcade Fire): 12:15-15:39 – That would be more…. dark Interstates.  We roll through Boston at about 2 a.m. (by design, to minimize traffic) and go through the Big Dig tunnel at 14:32 and into Maine.  3rd gas stop at 15:24 near Biddeford, Maine in York County (about 3:15 in the morning.  It’s always a little dicey trying to stop for gas in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night – never quite sure what will still be open.  Astute observers will notice a 15 minute gap at about 3:30 a.m. (15:40 on the video) – that’s when we were pulled over for speeding.  Trying to minimize the number of awkward questions (“Wait, you’re doing WHAT?!?”), we pulled the laptop and camera off the dash.  We were let off with just a warning.
• The Gaslight Anthem (The Backseat): 15:40-19:49  – A little before 5 a.m. (16:30 on the video) the sun begins to rise in eastern Maine.  It was at this point as I navigated in the front seat with most people asleep in the back that I decided while there were many things about this trip that I enjoyed, I REALLY wanted to come up with some trips that required MUCH less of me being awake at 4:00 in the morning… I also accidentally knocked the camera off target so you can enjoy about a minute of pictures of the sky 🙂 before we adjust the camera after we make another gas stop.  It was at this point (about 6 a.m.) that we realized there was no way that we were going to make it under 24 hours (our original goal), so it was decided that we would not rush QUITE as much.  At 19:18 we stopped the car because we thought we saw a moose (we did in fact NOT see one).
• Maine’s 16 counties (Random Maine schoolchildren): 19:50-20:13 – Our journey which began on Martha’s Vineyard off of the Atlantic Ocean ended after 26 hours, 38 minutes and 44 seconds on “8 road” near Wytopitlock, Maine in Washington County.  You can see starting at the 20:01 mark that 8 Road is definitely on the far end of the “Is this a road… or someone’s driveway” game (one of my favorite games to play!) before we celebrate our completion in the only way a bunch of guys possibly can!It was a great trip and I hope you enjoyed reading and watching along!

Hope you enjoyed the video!

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