Regional Differences

Between Ellsworth, Maine and Utica, New York is a veritable maze of toll roads. The tolls range between $0.25 and $6.10. A quick scan of the toll cards tells me that there are ways of racking up more than $10 at a time on some of these roads. This must be a New England thing.

It's not that toll roads don't exist in the Midwest or the South East. They do. There's the Ohio turnpike for one and an easily avoided $0.50 toll on GA 400 in Atlanta. I'm sure there must be others. However, in New England, it seems possibly to hop directly from one toll road to the next. Pulling out the wallet and digging for change is as much a feature of the trip as lobster rolls and motels.

At one point we even follow signs for a rest stop off of a non-toll highway which landed us on toll road that we left (after paying the toll). At this rest stop was a full-service gas station. I didn't even know these things existed anymore. After getting gassed up and tipping the attendant, we paid the toll again to get back on the road that we had just left. Only somehow during the time we spent at the gas station, the road that had not been a toll road, now was a toll road.

Thus is the joy of travel in New England.