Don't Ask for Whom You Pay Tolls, Part 2

We have some new friends from France (my son and Nathalie's son met in school); they were here for N's work. Since they return home on Wednesday, we made plans this past weekend to hit the beach. Our first choice was Salisbury, but then I discovered neither of them had visited Maine during the entire year (Chicago, New York, Miami, L.A., yes--but not Maine). You can't spend a year outside of Boston and not visit Maine. (It's sort of like that old Seinfeld joke about his parents moving to Florida--it's the law.)

So we kept going past the turnoff for Salisburyand headed straight for ... the Hampton Tolls! (Insert spooky music here.)

WHAT WAS I THINKING? Because of the New Hampshire legislature's slowness in installing EZPass (and yes, I heard the tokens will be history in a year or so, and NH's installation of EZPass will become a reality), the lines to pay ONE DOLLAR were astoundingly long. Can you imagine how much the state of Maine must resent its neighbor to the immediate south right now? (Don't those big signs for the Maine Turnpike that scream "EZPASS ACCEPTED IN ALL LANES" have the ring of contempt to them?)

If I wasn't so determined to get our friends over the Maine border to York, we wouldn't have gone. Period. Otherwise, it just wouldn't have been worth an extra 40 minutes of my time, which is what it ended up taking.

Based on the recent news, I guess they're paying attention. I like to think I did my part through carefully thought-out whining.