Derry

Ronnie, aboard Rocinante (his trusty mount), felt the thrum of steel belts and asphalt as they rolled over the state line. The final stickpin on their quixotic “Hot Springs or Busk” tour… Maine! Land of sprawling nothingness peppered with the occasional Dunkin’, or so Ronnie imagined… Time for some lobster rangoon and a few more chapters of “Journey to the End of Night” from his audiobook.

“Upta camp!” Ronnie yelled to Rocinante, who responded with a disconcerting hesitation. Celebration was, as usual, premature. It smacked them in the face like a rogue wave of rockweed and kelp. Outside a dilapidated general store smelling faintly of woodsmoke and looming dread, a specter materialized. Tall, gaunt, skeletal, seemingly woven from the shadows, it pointed a bony finger.

“You ain’t from ’round here.” The phantom croaked, its voice like dry leaves scraping together. “This here’s puckerbrush country. Ya can’t get there from here, not really. Not without payin’.”

Ronnie scoffed. “Paying who? The moose mafia?” He’d heard this kind of backwoods hokum before. An encounter with a kooky pair in Derry, New Hampshire, with their whispers of clowns and floating balloons, had been similarly dramatic. They said they were from Bangor, and they seemed quite hesitant to endorse Ronnie’s wish to visit the home of that town’s famous resident, Stephen King. The woman had a pale anti-witch sort of countenance, like viewing a photo negative. White hair, fairly translucent skin, and a wry, knowing grin that gave Ronnie the stumbles. Her companion was a tall brooding figure reminiscent of one of Ronnie’s favorite childhood television programs. He was a dead ringer for Lurch, The Addams Family’s butler. The couple had a dog on a stout leash who took stock of Ronnie in a manner not typical of canine pets, a more sophisticated intelligence, not anxious, but not willing to let Ronnie pass without a proper olfactory inspection.

This motley bunch seemed to be warning our heroes away from Bangor, but the ever-rational Ronnie wasn’t willing to reroute the tour. He considered himself immune to such provincial spookiness.

But Maine… Maine hummed with a different kind of weird. Twelve thousand years of human habitation, the rumble of ancient glaciers, the ghostly echoes of birchbark canoes and longboats full of grumpy Vikings who probably just wanted some mead and a decent pillage.

Upon arrival, our heroes found Bangor a bust. Rocinante, usually welcome in the most unlikely parking lots, was met with glares. The traffic was a Gordian knot of SUVs and pickup trucks, each driver seemingly mainlining black coffee and simmering with a quiet, territorial rage. Ronnie felt like a single, tangled strand of dental floss in a Sasquatch’s beard. Downtown, brick and shadowed, felt less like a literary pilgrimage and more like the prelude to a particularly grim Edgar Allan Poe story.

Then he heard it. A voice, omnipresent and resonant, seemingly emanating from the very asphalt. “Get OUT!” Ronnie didn’t wait for a second opinion. They needed to skedaddle, but not before soaking up a bit more authentic provincial dread for the upcoming loopcircus.com post, “This land: Maine.”

Their escape route twisted through a labyrinth of densely wooded backroads, the “puckerbrush!” A claustrophobic embrace of pine and shadow. Every rustle of leaves like spectral footsteps. Every twig snap prelude to a jump-scare directed by a particularly malevolent George Romero on a sugar rush. Coastal Down East Maine, advertised as a haven for artists, felt more like a haven for things with too many eyes and teeth and not enough discernible flesh.

The meander back south was a blur of paranoia and close calls… a shadowy figure by a deserted lake that turned out to be a very large, very still loon. A guttural snarl in the woods that was probably just a disgruntled beaver, but still… Maine had gotten under Ronnie’s skin, a splinter of ancient fear he couldn’t quite dislodge.

Finally, the familiar, slightly less but not completely un-haunted bramble of Tewksbury, Massachusetts, appeared through the pines. Rocinante practically sighed with relief. Boondocker-friendly! And the library! Sweet, glorious, digital-nomad friendly WiFi. Ronnie parked, the tension draining from his shoulders. He could almost smell the lukewarm coffee and the comforting sight of the open laptop. Time to finish this damn story and forget about Maine if only for a little while. The unsettling, unforgettable vibe of a state where one truly understands why you “can’t get there from here.”

Onward through the fog… Rohlfie

The road to Bangor…
Lined with puckerbrush…
The ancient glaciers…
The rocky coast…
If you can hear…
The Viking ghosts…
They’ll say… you can’t…
Get there from here.

On a July Monday in the year of our lord, 2025, Ronnie and Rocinante woke up to a new day, in a strange land. And with all apologies to the natives, it appears they brought the Kanorado weather with them. Average July temps in Derry New Hampshire (no, not that Derry) is between the upper 70s and mid 80s. Today, it’s 92 with tomorrow’s forecast predicting temps up to 96! Fortunately, no one in the Derry Public Library knows it’s Ronnie’s fault… woo hoo!

Anyway, New Hampshire, the Granite State. The first to weigh in on the various candidates making bids to run the most powerful nation on the planet (till it’s not). These loopers are fiercely independent, proving themselves resilient and worthy from the jump.

On January 5, 1776… long, long ago, the cantankerous loopers of New Hampshire decided they’d had enough of old King George. Wham… first colony to declare independence! Nearly half a year before those other guys got around to signing the Declaration. Brave souls, or maybe just impatient.

“Live Free or Die!” It’s what they say.

Established in 1629, named after some place in England… typical. Then came the British troubles. In 1774, before most folks even knew what was what, New Hampshire jumped the gun seizing Fort William & Mary, just like that. Two years later, they had their own government and constitution. First again. No dilly-dallying for these loopers.

“Live Free or Die!” Sounds about right.

Later on, when the big American family squabble happened, the one they called the Civil War, New Hampshire was all in for abolition. Thirty-two thousand soldiers, give or take a few, marched off to fight for the Union. After that unpleasantness, boom… factories everywhere! Textiles, shoes, paper. The Amoskeag Manufacturing Company in Manchester was the biggest cotton mill on the planet. Can you imagine? Then came the French Canadians, by the droves. Now, a quarter of the population has French-American blood. And these days, New Hampshire is rich and smart. Go figure.

“Live Free or Die!” A mantra, if you will.

They’re not big on religion here. Least religious U.S. state, they say. Staunchly libertarian, they won’t be taking orders from priests… they really like their freedom. A Pew survey in 2014 showed that thirty-six percent here were part of the fast growing demographic known as the “nones“. Thirty percent Protestant, twenty-six percent Catholic. Not many Mormons or Jews. They don’t go to church much, these New Hampshirites. Only fifty-four percent are “absolutely certain there is a God,” compared to seventy-one percent elsewhere. Curious, isn’t it? Oh, and here’s a kicker: New Hampshire is the only state to have a woman governor and two women as U.S. senators. There’s another kick in the agates for the patriarchy.

“Live Free or Die!” And make room for the ladies in your ol’ boy network.

Now, before all the European colonizer hullabaloo, the Abenaki tribes were here, minding their own business. Different cultures, different gods, but same language, mostly. People were living near Keene up to twelve thousand years ago! Imagine that. You can commune with the sacred spirits in the White Mountain National Forest, winding through the Appalachian Trail.

“Live Free or Die!” A long, beautiful nature hike.

On Mount Washington, they call it… the “World’s Worst Weather.” Hurricane-force winds every third day. Through the years, more than a hundred visitors underestimated that fury, and now they cant. Little dwarf trees, all matted and gnarled, like angry bonsai. So it goes. And the Old Man of the Mountain, a face carved by nature itself, watched over Franconia Notch for ages. Then, one day in May 2003, poof! Gone. Just like that. And Ronnie thought Kanorado had windy days.

“Live Free or Die!” Until you can’t.

Lakes, ponds, rivers, streams. Eight hundred of the first, nineteen thousand miles of the second. Hard to keep track of all this windy river vertigo. Sometimes state boundaries get bungled. New Hampshire and Maine had a little squabble over the Piscataqua River boundary, specifically some islands. The Supreme Court said Maine owned them. But New Hampshire still says the naval shipyard on Seavey’s Island is theirs. Stubborn, these Granite Staters.

“Live Free or Die!” And don’t tread on me.

New Hampshire has the shortest ocean coastline in the whole darn country, eighteen miles. Blink and you miss it. Hampton Beach, where folks go to get sunburned. And the Isles of Shoals, nine tiny islands offshore. Four of them are New Hampshire’s. Poet Celia Thaxter had an art colony there. And Blackbeard, the pirate, supposedly buried treasure there. Treasure and art. A strange combination.

“Live Free or Die!” For rum, booty, and framing services perhaps?

And New Hampshire has produced an impressive list of notable people: Mary Baker Eddy, who started Christian Science. Robert Frost, a poet who knew a thing or two about lonely roads. Alan Shepard, who went to space. Ronnie James Dio, the flaming heavy metal icon. Dan Brown, who writes those mystery novels. Adam Sandler, Sarah Silverman, Seth Meyers… funny people. So it goes.

“Live Free or Die!” Or at least, take it with a generous sense of humor.

And with that, again we point out the fact that New Hampshire’s average July temperature ranges from the mid-70s to mid-80s. As this entry gets logged the thermometer is in the mid-80s, on the way to a high of 96! Now without sounding like a total narcissist, Ronnie is rehearsing excuses in case anyone were to irrationally put the blame on him and Rocinante for bringing the Kanorado “Dawg Days” all this way north. You gotta admit, it is an astonishing coincidence. On the drive from Burlington VT to Derry, NH, the conditions were gorgeous. Light rain and upper 60s to mid 70s. Ronnie was breathing a sigh of relief for getting away from the punishing Kanorado summer heat, only to find he had apparently brought his customary suffering with him, to the astonishment of the Yankee natives.

PS: There is a silver lining… Ronnie always manages to find one. That being, evening temps cool down significantly so that Ronnie’s able to switch the ceiling fans off around 10 or 11 P.M. as they aren’t needed for the rest of the night. So… there’s that.

Onward through the fog… Rohlfie

You won’t get far…
In the Granite State…
With Shuck and Jive…
They can’t relate…
First to weigh in…
On the Presidential Race…
Live free and chalk it up to fate.

Loopcircus

Loopcircus

This Land: Maine

This Land: New Hampshire