Things are Slower Here

There are no traffic lights in the Mad River Valley. Not a one. There are stop signs and yield signs, cow-crossing signs and speed limit signs, but no traffic lights. It’s hard to know how important this is until you leave the Valley and spend time in an urban environment—Boston, for example, or New York. And then you begin to understand how this one feature—or rather, lack of a feature—can have such an outsized influence on your state of mind, not to mention your blood pressure.

Life is slower here, a little less frantic, and thank goodness for it. But if you’re new to town, it can take some getting used to. Rushing to get somewhere? Forget about it. In Love Bridges All, Rand has no choice but to slow his Porsche to accommodate both the dirt road and the tractors slowly making their way along it. In that same way, people new to the Valley must learn to slow down. Any attempt to pop into the local market to pick up a few quick items will be stymied by the animated conversations taking place between the smiling cashier and shoppers queued up in front of you—most of whom she addresses by name.

Newcomers find this annoying, at first. Can’t I just buy my King Arthur Flour and tollhouse morsels and get out of here already? But in time, annoyance turns to delight. In an era when more and more transactions take place on a computer keyboard, such impromptu human interactions take on more meaning. You come to realize that every outing in the Valley is made up of equal parts ticking items off your “to do” list and lingering to chat with people you meet along the way. This is what community is all about, and you’ll get it in spades in the Mad River Valley.

Come and see for yourself—and leave your blood pressure pills behind.