...fast moving, and I mean really fast moving. She hit Manchester New Hampshire about 5:00 p.m. Saturday night. I was working about 25 miles northeast of Manchester at New England Dragway in Epping. The drive from the track to my weekend home at the Hilton Garden Inn in downtown Manchester was quite exciting! Forget trying to see what lane you're in, just being able to see the road was a challenge! I made it to the Hilton without incident and watched the rain (and wind) increase in intensity as the evening progressed. The most significant casualty from Hanna in Manchester was the downtown police/fire station. It got flooded from both above and below. Water came up from somewhere beneath their garage submerging a few emergency vehicles.

6:30 a.m. Sunday morning, there were a few clouds to the north and the sun was rising. When the front of the storm hit New Hampshire, the rear was still making residents in Virginia and Maryland uncomfortable. This was a big storm. Sunday turned out to be a beautiful day. As fast as Hanna moved through the area, I figured she was hassling people somewhere in Ireland by 5:00 EDT Sunday night.

I flew in and out of Boston for this job. It had been about 40 years since I last visited Boston. I seem to recall reading about Boston building a tunnel system under the city beginning about 20 years ago. Two questions. When are they going to finish it? When will they put into place some kind of pass-through transponders in the tunnels for tourists who use GPS navigation to find their way around unfamiliar cities?

One thing I did remember from 40 years ago was double-parking on downtown Boston streets. It's just as bad now as it was back then, but turning on emergency flashers before one walks away from a truck or car now appears to be a free pass to keep doing it. Boston would have served themselves better by building parking garages to take cars off their roadways than trying to funnel most traffic through a confusing cone-zone-laden tunnel system. Other than that, it was kinda nice to spend a little time back in an area that still holds some good (and one bad) memories from my youth. As a child I lived in Burlington VT (6 months maybe), Dedham MA (a month) and Cape Cod (two-and-a-half years). My baby sister was born in Hyannis. My baby brother is also buried in Hyannis. ...a few mixed feelings there. I still hold the area close to my heart. Fishing with dad on the canal, trips up to P-Town to swim in the ocean and collect seashells... Those shells were my first chips!