Previously, previously, previously. That last one didn’t go out as an email, whoops. If you were enjoying the story of Faerie Camp, definitely go back and read that last link.
Internet at Faerie Camp was nonexistent, but everyone said there was a picnic table out back of the local town library where you could use its wifi, so I headed there. Trust librarians.
Turns out Chester has municipal wifi all over its classic New England main street, across from its grassy Commons dotted with picnic tables, so I didn’t need to bother. But it was starting to rain. The only place open on Labor Day was a pie shop, and its tables had no cover. Fortunately, though, the commons also has a big old hotel with a wraparound veranda that has power outlets, so I settled in there after a conversation with the proprietor.
Make yourself comfortable on the porch, he said, but your job is to tell anyone passing by that our dining room isn’t open today. A fair trade, given I was going to be making it look like they were open.
I had to fend off a number of restaurant queries. Then four grey-haired guys—taciturn fellas whose bearing suggested they might be military brass or former pilots—came through on rangy, dirty Yamaha motorcycles and were looking for a place to stay, not the dining room. I ran out back to find the proprietors, who were enjoying their own Labor Day drinks in the backyard.