Friday morning was The Morning of Toll Roads. Good heavens,
I’ve never seen so many points for collecting tolls, starting with the toll to
cross the Susquehanna River in MD where it empties into the Chesapeake Bay and ending
with the toll to exit the New York State Thruway in Albany. $17.75 in tolls
that morning. Random barricades of tollbooths scattered along the length of the
Garden State Parkway bottleneck traffic. Cryptic signage above each string of
booths baffles non-natives. E-Z Pass? Blinking green light? Blinking yellow
light? Steady green light? What language is this? If you don’t figure the
scheme out quickly, other drivers communicate their disapproval without
hesitation.

The Catskills Mountains sure are lovely. A Mecca of the
Hippy Era, Woodstock, is located in the Catskills. Sure do wish I’d had an
extra day to tour the area, and that I’d also had time to tour the Saratoga
battlefield, located only about half an hour north of Albany. But what the
heck, it’s only about eleven hours north by car, and by the end of the trip, I
had those user-unfriendly tollbooths on the Garden State Parkway figured out,
so maybe I’ll go back soon.

The Desmond Hotel and Conference Center looks like a
colonial village and is a beautiful facility with two indoor pools and an
indoor courtyard that’s a favorite for bridal parties. My room, furnished with
a four-poster bed plus canopy, had a balcony that opened onto the courtyard.
Charming.

After a reception and cash bar that evening, all the
conference attendees headed into the King Street Ballroom for a scrumptious
buffet dinner. What a shame when they set up the desserts as a buffet, too, and
then I accidentally sat near the dessert table. Books were given away as prizes
for those who correctly answered Trudi Jacobson’s post-dinner questions about
the HNS and history.

Keynote speaker Bernard Cornwell — author of the Sharpe
series, an Arthurian series, the Saxon Tales, and numerous other books — had
us belly laughing over his caustic schtick. Awhile back, those Sharpe novels of
his were made into a miniseries starring a lanky, hunky, blond,
thirty-something Sean Bean. Cornwell quipped, "They picked Sean Bean for
that role because he looks like me," and when the laughter died down added,
"That wasn’t supposed to be funny."

Thanks to all the folks from the HNS who planned and helped
execute the evening. If there were snags in it, I sure didn’t encounter them.
Looked seamless to me.