A topless drive to Mass could be a little rough, but if the weather is good it would be fun. Nothing beats rolling around town on a nice warm day with nothing between you and the sun. My kids feel like royalty or movie stars with everybody looking at them as we go by, and they wave like they're in a parade.
A hard top is great until it's time to take it off - it's not really a one-man job. If and when I get around to building a garage at my house, I have one of those hard top hoists (the manual kind, no electric sissy winch) new in the box I've had for ten years since I bought my first CJ. Just never had a place to put it up. That would make it easy to yank the hard top off even just for a few hours.
I am known to leave my hard top sitting in a friend's yard for an afternoon, too.