A few weeks ago my friend Val (who lives in Chicago) and her friend Sam (who lives in Silicon Valley) invited me to join them in New Hampshire for the weekend. Sam's family has a farm in New Hampshire and they were having a family reunion to celebrate the 100th anniversary of their family owning the property. Val said it was magical and there was a lot of room and it would be fun. She was right on all accounts.
But the thing I am still shaking my head about is the logistics of the trip. In order to keep this reasonably concise, I won't go into a detailed explanation of the reasons, but let me just say that circumstances changed after Val and I had booked our original flight. That plan was for a flight out very early Friday, arriving in Boston mid-morning. Somehow we'd get a ride from Logan Airport to New Hampshire, which is a couple of hours north. Then we'd do the reverse on Sunday afternoon, returning to Chicago about 10 p.m. on Sunday. That was the original plan.
Here's what actually happened: I took the Friday flight as booked, picked up a car which had been left for me at Logan Airport Central Parking, and then Friday night I returned to the airport to pick up Val on a flight from Seattle, arriving shortly after midnight, and then we drove to New Hampshire. The remarkable thing is that the entire plan worked without a hitch.
But that left me the problem - and of course by "problem" I mean "embarrassment of riches" - of what to do in Boston for a day. If everyone had more problems like this, the world would be a happier place. I emailed my friends Mary and Martha (yes, it sounds biblical, they've heard that before) to see if they were around. They were planning to spend a long weekend at Provincetown, at the very end of Cape Cod, which created another "problem" in the upside down sense in which I am using the word. Being problem solvers, we decided I would just come to see them there. And I did.
I took the "Fast Ferry," which means it takes less than two hours, from Boston, leaving from a harbor that looks like this.
I sat on the front deck of the boat which was fun for a while but then I got chilly in the breeze, even with a jacket, so I went into the cabin for the rest of the ride.
Land Ho!
Welcome to Provincetown!
Martha was working from their adorable condo all afternoon, so Mary met me and took me, via pedi-cab, to the Aqua Bar which has a great deck overlooking the beach and the bay. Then we went to their condo, which has a great deck overlooking the beach and the bay. You're getting a common theme, aren't you? Would that all travel problems resolved this way!
Provincetown is simply beautiful, and very fun. It's a very friendly and comfortable place for everyone - gay, straight, etc. - although the streets are probably not so friendly and comfortable for drivers (of whatever orientation) since they are pretty much overrun with pedestrians and bicyclists. Oh well. That is a minor inconvenience for being in paradise.
After dinner I took the Fast Ferry back to Boston, picked up some groceries for New Hampshire (Sam had given me a list), and read my book until it was time to go back to the airport.
Just for the record, between 3 a.m. CDT Friday when the alarm jolted me out of dreamland, and 3 a.m. EDT Saturday when we arrived at the farm, my transportation experience was as follows: walk to the L station, take the Red Line train, take the bus, take the Blue Line train, fly on a United flight, drive a car, take a boat, ride in a pedi-cab, walk, take another boat, and drive a car. The "Trains, Planes & Automobiles" guys had nothing on me.
We arrived at the farm, as I said, about 3 a.m. Since there were already people asleep, we turned off the headlights a bit down the gravel road and so approached in complete darkness. It was pretty disorienting. We turned on a couple of lights to walk through the house but between the need for quiet and my state of semi-consciousness I didn't see much. Except for the stars. The stars were thick and bright and beautiful.
My room was in a part of the house where no one was staying that night (morning?) and when I turned off the light in my room it was completely dark. The windows were closed so I couldn't even hear bugs: complete sensory deprivation. It's the opposite of my apartment in Chicago, which always has lights coming through the blinds, and where there is constant traffic noise. I thought about that for the 45 seconds it took me to fall asleep.
Saturday and Sunday were a blur of hiking up a small mountain (it seemed pretty big at the time); setting up, enjoying, and cleaning up the family reunion; sliding down a natural rock slide into water that was ice cold; watching fun family movies including some that were made in the 1930's; and driving back to Logan in time to get Sam and his son on a plane back home.
I do have one picture, of Val and me on top of the summit of the mountain:
Val and I had a later flight than Sam and his son, so we had dinner at the airport. While we were eating her brother called. I only mention all this because when I heard Val tell him, "We got to the farm yesterday morning," I had to think about it before realizing that she was, of course, correct. What a weekend!
When I'd originally plotted out the Driveabout, I planned to visit Massachusetts and Maine in the warmer months. With the trip ending a bit earlier than planned, that didn't happen, so I am very grateful to Sam and his family for welcoming me into their fold and giving me a wonderful taste of summer in New England.
