Day 26 - Es-Cape

July 2 - We drove out Cape Cod to Provincetown, stopping at Plymouth on the way. Plymouth is a handsome old town by the sea, though the Plymouth Rock exhibit was disappointing given that its portico is being renovated. We could barely see the rock at all, which at best is not too inspiring - "a potato", as Kallie described. Years of souvenir-hunting, wind and water erosion have worn it down.

We spent most of our time in Plymouth at the Mayflower II, a full-size reproduction of the Mayflower ship on which the Pilgrims crossed the Atlantic from England to Massachusetts. One hundred two passengers and a crew of about 30 sailed the Atlantic on a ship that looks big enough for about half that many. The original Mayflower was lost to history soon after its return to England in the 17th century (it was hired for the trip). The Mayflower II was a joint project of the US and Great Britain in the 1950s, partially as an attempt to improve British-American relations, which had cooled after the immediate aftermath of World War II. Built to 17th century specifications, the ship sailed uneventfully from England to Plymouth in 1957. It still sails occasionally with a crew made up of core members and sailors recruited from the New England sailing community.

Kay remembered that there was an historic UU church in Plymouth. We found it atop a small hill, the First Parish Church in Plymouth, a congregation that dates back to 1620, the year the Pilgrims arrived. The church's origins make it the oldest continuous church in New England. To no avail, we looked all around for an open door or someone to show us around. Still, the sense of history was palpable.

We ate lunch in Plymouth and then headed on up Cape Cod to Provincetown, which is the most openly gay community I've ever seen. It was refreshing seeing people walking around being their true selves, but also a little sad, given that the scene was possible only in a town stuck at the end of a 75-mile-long spit of land--a similar story to Key West, Florida, the previous standbearer in my experience. Having already eaten lunch, we didn't do much - had some ice cream, walked on the beach, took pictures (I got two great ones of birds in flight), bought and found some shells for the granddaughters. We also found the UU congregation in Provincetown, where both the minister and office manager were present to talk with us. Their membership of just seventy people maintains a beautiful 19th century building with a sanctuary big enough for several hundred. The congregation rents the facility for various shows (other than on Wednesday and Sunday), which helps pay the bills. As we visited they were getting ready for a craft fair.

On the trip home we searched first for an Atlantic beach and then for dinner. We found the former in Truro, though I was too tired to climb and descend the dunes to see it first hand. We found food at the Lobster Basket (or Trap or something to that effect) in Eastham, MA. Kay and Kallie shared a 2-pound lobster. I got my own - 1-1/4 pounds. Erin couldn't bear to eat something she knew was alive just minutes before, so she ate linguini and mussels. (The lobster tank was right next to our table.) Kay asked if they would crack the lobsters for us; the answer was no. The lobsters came out, red and delicious. I cracked and devoured my own, and helped Kay and Kallie when they needed me. I think they decided it was all too much work. I loved both the lobster and the experience--of course, our opinions are about the same regarding boiled crawfish or crabs. Blue crabs are where I draw the line--give me king crab legs any day.

For more pictures from the day, please visit http://www.photoblog.com/dadlak/2008/07/02/es-cape---day-26.html

Day 25 - Boston Uncommon

July 1 - We took the "T" into Boston for a long day of exploration by air, land and sea. As mentioned before, public transportation is the way to go around here, especially inside Boston with its narrow twisting streets and drivers who view traffic signals and signs as guidelines at best.

The air part was actually from inside a building about 750 feet above the ground as we visited the Skywalk at the Prudential Tower. Similarly to the Montparnasse Tower in Paris, this glass-walled promenade at the top of an office skyscraper offers a 360 degree view of the city. "Buddy" was our guide via a handheld audio program. His thick Boston accent turned my daughter off, "How ya' doin?" but I stayed with him as he pointed out the many Boston landmarks that could be seen from the high vantage point. Particularly beautiful to me were Fenway Park, the crowded row houses of South Boston, the train on the bridge across the Charles River, and the Christian Science campus almost adjacent to the Tower. The tower's reflection in the glass walls of the nearby John Hancock tower is also striking.

After lunch at PF Chang's (I was a little disappointed that we came all the way to Boston to eat in a chain restaurant in a mall, but the fried rice was pretty good), we reported for the Boston Duck Tour just a block away. Duck Tours, which also run in at least Philadelphia and Seattle, use remodeled DUKW amphibious vehicles of World War II vintage to take tourists around the streets and waterways (in this case, the Charles River) of the city. Our guide was a part seaman, part actor with the stage name Jett Black, who fancied himself a one-time privateer - hired by the government to steal goods from enemy ships. He knew a lot about the city and was amazingly skilled at manuevering the 19-ton Frog Pond Lily, one of 31 "Ducks" in service in Boston, through the serpentine streets of the city. About 45 minutes into the 80 minute tour he steered the boat down a bumpy ramp into the Charles River. Once in he "threatened" sailboats and rowers and then allowed both Kallie and Erin to steer for awhile. The Duck has a strange delayed response to steering--it is definitely not a front-wheel drive vehicle.

Among my favorite sights seen from the Duck were the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge (Zakim was a hero of the civil rights movement), a 10-lane suspension bridge that carries I-93 traffic over the Charles. It is a spectacularly beautiful modern structure that kept drawing my camera back. It was also fun to see the finish line of the Boston Marathon, and surprising to see a large hunk of the Berlin Wall displayed as a monument. We drove past, but not on, some widened sidewalks posing as streets. Near the end of the tour we seemingly drove past ourselves as the Duck was reflected in the John Hancock building at street level.

After disembarking the Duck we got back on the T and rode to Cambridge to visit Harvard University. The brick buildings of this almost 400-year old institution (it was founded in 1638) are spectacular. The Harvard Yard was thronged with prospective students, many of whom lined up to have a picture taken while touching the golden left boot of the John Harvard statue. The rest of the statue is tarnished, but the boot has been kept polished by thousands of luckseekers. The buildings inside the Harvard Yard aren't prominently marked (architectural purity, I guess) so I couldn't tell which one, if any, housed the famous Harvard Divinity School. Ralph Waldo Emerson gave his famous Divinity School Address here in the 1830s, which turned out to be one of the seminal documents in American Unitarianism.

As though walking through the campus wasn't enough we then walked around its outside wall in search of a beer or soda (most critically, a beer, since we passed a couple of non-alcoholic emporiums along the way). The walk seemed somewhat ironic to me since we'd just bought weeklong T passes, and seemed to be trying to walk back to Boston instead. Finally we circled back near the Harvard T station and found a place to rest, but only after descending about 25 stairs into the bar on the lower level.

Thankfully, we took the elevator back up out of the bar. By this time we could start thinking about dinner. My friends from Boston told me that the best restaurants were in the North End, a mostly Italian neighborhood. We weren't sure where that was, but the T had a North Station, so we rode there and struck out on foot. My instincts proved pretty good as we bypassed a row of sports bars just outside TD Banknorth Garden (the new building that replaced the old Boston Garden) and found Joe Tecce's restaurant at edge of the North End. Dinner there was great - I had linguini and clams as an entree and tiramisu for dessert.

The rest and meal rejuvenated me a little. We made it back to the North Station and rode home. The walk to the station provided a great nighttime view of the Zakim Bridge. I took some of my last pictures (over 200 total) of the day. I knew I would have a big job sorting them out back at the hotel, but at least I could get off my feet.

The day made me realize why Bostonians love their city so much. At least in July it's a beautiful place, and I'm sure that's the case for much of the rest of the year. Always it's full of history, diversity and a spirit of progress - the most beautiful areas of the city were reclaimed from swamp; blighted areas are turned into parks; the river was cleaned up so that people can even swim in it. I doubt I'll take up rooting for the Celtics, but I'm happy we made the effort to be here. Stay tuned for July 4th from Boston--an event that attracts "hundreds of thousands" of people to the city.

Day 24 - Back to Massachusetts

June 30 - This was a travel day, so the writeup will be short and sweet. We got out of Oneida in great shape at 8:45 a.m. Both girls were inspiringly cooperative. Boston is almost dead east of Oneida, but we took a quick side trip west back to Can-of-soda to take a couple of pictures - most importantly of the purple house on the main street that we'd driven by several times.

The countryside in eastern New York State is beautiful - rolling hills and hardwood forests, the Erie Canal or the Mohawk River along side. Even the rest area on the New York State Thruway was pleasant - they had separate trash cans for recyclables - the first time I'd ever seen that. In Louisiana, we're happy if people use the trash cans at all. My attempt to photograph the Hudson River from the passenger seat of the CRV was thwarted by construction in the right lane and a bridge with a lot of steel.

We planned to eat lunch in Massachusetts countryside so we got off the Mass Turnpike almost as soon as we got on and started searching. The first two towns, Stockbridge and Chester, yielded nothing - any restaurant we found, and there were precious few, was either dinner only or closed on Monday. The song remained the same, almost, in Huntington, but Kay decided to keep looking after I was ready to head down the highway to Westfield, which was in bigger type on the map. Her determination was rewarded by the Foothills Grill, a struggling little place over the bridge on the other side of town. Their food was tasty even though the soup cook was out sick, and I enjoyed talking about the local economy (bad) with the proprietor. She laughed at my theory that the locals were trying to discourage travellers from passing through their paradise by failing to provide any services, but she did admit that their dedication to preserving the view prevented her from posting a sign to let travellers know about their restaurant.

We rolled into the Boston area right on schedule - early enough to miss rush hour, but as it turned out, not early enough to miss the amazing practice of driving in the breakdown lane (what we call the shoulder) on I-95 during rush hour. People don't just drive in this lane, they speed and pass other cars. Drivers merging from the on ramps have a new challenge--avoiding cars zipping along in the shoulder. God forbid someone should have a flat tire. I drove slack-jawed until we exited I-95 onto the next freeway, which didn't allow such a dangerous practice.

Sac took us straight to the Hampton Inn on Wood Road in Braintree, a wonderful hotel (a virtual palace compared to the Vacation Lodge in Pigeon Forge or the Super 8 in Oneida) that features free hot breakfast, a shuttle bus for trips to the mall and the train station, a pool, a laundry, wireless internet and duvets on the beds (no Bravo Network on the TV, to Kallie's dismay). We took immediate advantage of the laundry to wash dirty clothes that collected during our four days in central NY.

The laundry clean, we opted for a low stress evening - a quick dinner at a nearby restaurant and the 7:50 show of the new Pixar movie, Wall E. Pixar set the bar for animated features back where it was with their classics like Toy Story and Finding Nemo with an amazing story of "life" on a depopulated earth after humans have filled the planet with garbage and rocketed themselves into space to live (for the last 700 years). Title character Wall E is a robotic trash compactor. Early in the story he meets Eve (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator), another robot sent back to earth by the humans to look for signs of life. It's love at first sight for Wall E (whose ideas on the subject come from an discarded VHS tape of the movie musical Hello Dolly). The rest of the first act develops the love story between Wall E and Eve without dialogue, just clicks, beeps and "facial" expressions. It's amazing stuff. The second act takes place with the humans in space. What we become will give you pause for thought. The filmmaker clearly liked 2001: A Space Odyssey a lot, though we never see a VHS tape of it. Even if you don't have kids, go see this captivating and unique (G-rated) movie.