Sophomore Summer at Dartmouth is, for the most part, all fun and games.  I take two classes, one of which seems to encourage students to skip the vast majority of class (Astronomy) and one of which is entitled “Pirates, Robbers, and Terrorists” (it’s as awesome as it sounds).

Still, summer up in Hanover ain’t all it was made out to be.  The weather still blows, for one.  It isn’t cold, of course, but it manages to rain just about everyday and at the most inconvenient times possible.  And if it isn’t raining – well, the weather is cloudy and doing it’s best to reassure everyone and anyone that’ll listen that it could downpour at any moment.

But the worst parts, without a doubt, are those few terrible moments when one is hit with the sinking realization that their summer is being spent somewhere in the Granite State, and not too far from the Canadian border at that.

The latest incarnation of this distressing realization hit me yesterday, as I spent four lovely hours upon the overcrowded Greyhound from Manchester back up to Hanover.  The road from Manchester to Hanover is the toughest part of the journey back to Dartmouth.  It’s hard enough to twiddle your thumbs for however many hours while you wait for the Dartmouth Coach’s shittier cousin to arrive (late, as always).  And then you have to board a decidedly foul-smelling bus that lacks all the amenities that those who take the bus from Boston are so used to – complimentary wi-fi and movies among them.

In this case, I was heading back to Hanover after a weekend trip to Chicago (I needed to remind myself what a real city looks like).  Just an hour away from lovely Hanover, my Greyhound found itself ensnarled in a traffic jam that usually befits much bigger cities and states.  Roadblocks, traffic accidents, and construction on I-89 all came together to prolong that final hour into a three-hour endeavor in patience and sanity.

I didn’t even have it the worst.  Kudos to the few people who arrived to find standing room only on the bus and spent the better part of the journey on two feet.

I wish there was an easy solution to putting Hanover on some bigger maps.  I think part of our tuition should go to constructing some sort of high-speed railway to Boston or New York or wherever (just not Manchester).  At the very least, let’s get some more flights to Lebanon’s regional airport.

Dartmouth is, arguably, one of the country’s best colleges.  People should be able to get here, then, in a timely manner – something that doesn’t remind them of the horse and buggy era, even if this is New Hampshire.