Rather than give you 2500 words on our trip, I’ll force myself to share the highlights via bullet points for brevity’s sake.
- The weather, as I alluded to earlier, sucked. We didn’t expect 85 and sunny each day, but this was nothing close to Chamber of Commerce weather. Luckily, I had some good books with me.
- M. did phenomenally during our travels. She largely slept on both flights and our 90 minute drives between Boston and the Cape. She even behaved wonderfully when her mom and dad forced her to take a 90 minute tour of Fenway Park. We flew both ways on small CRJ jets. It was funny watching the looks of fear in the eyes of the other passengers as we boarded with a small child. Benadryl is the traveling parents’ friend.
- Bad joke of the trip. As we descended over Boston Harbor towards Logan, S. nudged me and said, “We should get some tea bags and throw them in there this week.”
- Quintessential Boston scene: As we were driving by the BU campus, trying to find the right route to Cape Cod, several crew teams rowed their boats (what are those called, skulls?) down the Charles River.
- The trip to Cape Cod was kind of strange. First, you’re never more than ten miles from the water, but once you get out of Boston, you never see it. Second, unlike Midwestern highways that are generally cut through flat, open lands, the route to the Cape is cut through old forests. It’s as if you’re on some deserted highway going nowhere rather than just south of one of the biggest cities in the nation. Since spring arrives later in New England, many of the trees still had muted colors, making it feel more like October than May. Not what I expected at all.
- Our house was nice. Room for all ten people we had each night. A large family room, a smaller TV room. Roughly a block away from the beach. Too bad we only made that walk twice, and then heavily bundled up.
- Monday, after an excellent lunch of Guinness-battered haddock and some outstanding chowder (chowdah), we drove to Hyannis. I wanted to go to the small JFK museum there. The museum ended up being closed for construction, so we walked around a bit, then drove to the JFK memorial near the marina. The winds were starting the roar in off the water then, so we ran out, took a couple pics, and scurried back to the minivan and headed home.
- On the ride back, we stopped at a roadside taffy stand. A popular sign at the stand said “Fill Your Own Box”. We had fun with that one.
- For years I’ve heard Bill Simmons talk about Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. I finally had some. My first attempt wasn’t what I hoped for, mostly because the person serving me spoke zero English, apparently not even comprehending the items on the menu. So I ended up with a plain coffee with milk. Not bad, but not what I was looking for. Later in the week I got an iced latte that was quite simply sublime. Far better than the iced offerings at Starbucks. We need to get DDs in Carmel soon.
- Evenings were spent making group dinners, then hanging out while the weather battered our old house. I went through two books (see up-coming Reader’s Notebook summaries) and following the Red Sox on either NESN or the radio. Unfortunately, the Sox decided to get swept by the Blue Jays, so that didn’t end up being quite the experience I wanted it to be. Some of my in-laws looked at me like I was crazy when I said I wanted to sit around and listen to baseball at night. I’m a geek, but I’m not crazy!
- One goal for the week was to avoid the news as much as possible. I wanted to chill out and not be bothered by the goings-on in the world. Our house came complete with 70 channels of cable TV, which once the weather hit, was quite popular with some of my house-mates. I ended up learning a little about what was going on in the world because we sat around watching the “24-hour, live, eyewitness, weather-watch, storm-tracker” teams on both the Boston on Providence stations.
- Wednesday, we headed to Boston to drop off my new college grad bother-in-law for an interview and pick up a sister-in-law at Logan. We had some time to kill, so drove around a bit, and made a quick trip to the Museum of Fine Art. Highlights were seeing a Jackson Pollack up close, and an exhibit that had old Red Sox jerseys, including Ted Williams’, Yaz’s, Carlton Fisk’s, and of course several items from last year’s team. Some of those old jerseys looked ridiculously cheap. Hard to believe it’ll set you back $200 to get one these days.
- Thursday, we went to Provincetown, which lies at the farthest reach of the Cape. That is where the Mayflower landed first and sat docked until they realized there was little fresh water and they then sailed across the Bay to Plymouth. There’s a huge (252 feet) monument to the Pilgrims, along with a couple smaller memorials. P-town, as it’s called, is a very artistic, open community. There are lots of flamboyant characters. I’m using euphemisms the guide books like to use for saying there’s a large gay population in town. Combined with the tiny, crowded streets and crappy weather, it definitely reminded me of my days in San Franscisco. We ate lunch at a place called the Lobster Pot. Appropriately, I had lobster bisque and a lobster salad roll. Outstanding. Driving into P-town was amazing. The land just disappears and suddenly you’re on a highway surrounded by sand dunes. Again, I felt more like I was in Northern California than the tip of Massachusetts.
- Friday was get-away day. We loaded up the minivan (including several bags we were checking for the in-laws who were driving back to Indy) and headed north. Since S. said it, I can just quote her, but the highlight of the entire trip was taking the Fenway Park tour. That place is just amazing. As someone who’s loved baseball since I was seven, it made me feel like a little kid again to be in a place with so much history, that seemed so unreachable when I was a child. I’m particularly pleased with how our <a href=”http://homepage.mac.com/dbrann/Album2/PhotoAlbum38.html”>pics</a> from Fenway turned out.
- Our trip to Logan and then home was uneventful, other than sitting on the ground for an hour at the gate in Boston. Memo to other travelers: flying into Indy on Memorial Day weekend can be problematic. There’s a little sporting event here that keeps the airport extra busy.
- So great trip, really. Sure, the weather sucked, but it was extremely relaxing for the most part. Kicking back in a comfortable chair with a good book while the weather shook the house made me feel like a New Englander for a moment or two. I imagined this is what Stephen King, Dennis Lehane, and all the other writers from NE do when the weather is shitty. If the weather had been great and we were running around each day, we would have come home totally fried. I’m a big fan of being boring and catching your breath when you leave home. Travel is stressful enough without having 20 of every 24 hours devoted to making sure you’re at this place at that time. And I definitely want to go back to New England sometime, perhaps during a fall when the weather is changing. And I want to get to Fenway for a game some day.
- I think that’s all the big stuff. Hope it’s not too detailed and you get a feel for how the week went.