Boston Wrapup

I realize that my lovely wife has already posted her final analysis of our ill fated vacation to Boston, but I thought I'd go ahead and post my thoughts as well.

On Saturday we decided to rent a car and trek out to Lexington and Concord. Our purpose was twofold, first to see some of the historical and literary sites and second to see some New England fall foliage.

After traversing the airport and renting our car (which was, shockingly, a big white Hyundai...who would have thought?), we started out to Lexington. Now everyone knows that driving in Boston is a wiley experience, but I figured that since we were heading to the outskirts of the city that things wouldn't be too bad.

I was mostly correct for the first few miles. I was navigating the famous rotaries (or roundabouts for those of us in Indiana...or at least for those of us on the northside of Indy which has gone lulu for them) with great ease, and my time in China has made me very agile when darting in and out of traffic, as Erin noted. But at some point, we were making our way through a quaint little suburb when I began to whizz by a stopped line of cars, only to be stopped by the screeching of my own brakes and the gripping stare of an elderly woman who just watched approximately 75 years of livin' both fly past her eyes and nearly come to a halt all at once. There was no way to see the crosswalk coming due to the, uh, angle of the road, but I suppose the other lane of traffic being stopped should have been a clue. I received a brutal staring from both the old woman and the guy in the truck next to me, but in the end, nobody but the rotors on the rental car were hurt, so all was well.

We made our way through Lexington and then along the Revolutionary battle road, all the while enjoying what was a truly a feast of fall colors. I was feeling pretty much back to normal, and Erin was hovering around 75% (but her cholesterol was at an all time low, since she had been taking my cholesterol pills thinking they were anti-diarrhea pills for the past two days).

As we approached Concord, we made a brief stop at the Louisa May Alcott home. Erin tells me she wrote some books 'bout some women and stuff. Who knows. (I can say that since Erin's response to the "American Revolution" was something along the lines of "Now that was a war with England, right?" Bless the California public schools, where history started with Walt Disney.)

Our next stop was the Author's Ridge at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. Fascinatingly, at least to me, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Louisa May Alcott are all buried just a few yards from each other in this cemetery. The setting is beautiful, amongst large trees and rolling hills. Having just buried my grandfather, I was struck by how serene the cemetery really was, and somewhat inadvertently, this became one of the highlights of the trip for me. (Of course, I guess this is somewhat fitting given that a lot of the rest of the trip was spent on the toilet.)


Our next stop was Walden Pond, made famous as the location of Henry David Thoreau's two year stay. We took a hike along its banks, and eventually found the location of Thoreau's cabin. It struck me as odd that Thoreau moved out to the woods to get away from town, yet walked the whopping TWO MILES back nearly every day to see his mother. Actually, I learned a lot in high school about Thoreau that struck me as a little odd.


Next we moved back into Concord for lunch at Helen's. This was a recommendation from a friend of mine that grew up down the street from me and now lives in the area, and we were not disappointed. After sandwiches and caffeine, we strolled over to the Pricilla Candy Shop, where I purchased a moderate number of truffles which almost lasted the rest of the day. All in all, we found Concord to be quite lovely, and we both agreed that a future stay in Boston might better be spent in the outlying small towns.

We returned to the city and worked our way through the traffic to Beacon Hill. The Sox were playing that night, so we thought it best to get out of the city prior to the game, so we said goodbye and headed out to our hotel. I will say that it was endearing to see a city so devoted to its baseball team. Not being a baseball fan, I admit that I don't fully understand the way the game appears to bond the citizens of Boston, but we heard and met multiple people who had flown into town with their kids for the game or had been fans their whole lives. Everyone...EVERYONE was talking about the game that night. I guess it's similar to basketball here in Indiana or perhaps the Indianapolis Colts, but I got the feeling that I might be mortally wounded if I spoke out against the Red Sox, while I don't get that feeling in Indiana about our sports passions.

As it approached 6:30pm, I mentioned to Erin that pizza (a pie for those in Boston) sounded good for dinner. Part of what makes a vacation for me is poking around for local restaurants, so I did a brief (a bit too brief, as you'll see) search on the web for pizza places in the neighborhood. I was pointed to Luigi's Pizza (for whom I can now find no link to post...shoulda been a clue) which was only supposed to be a few minutes away, so we decided to head out.

I had a small, hand drawn map to the location, and as I studied this at 60 miles per hour in the dark, I realized I forgot to put an indicator showing where the restaurant was actually located on my map. I was fairly certain I remembered though, so we continued.

Obviously at some point this plan went awry. I missed a turn and we ended up in a place full of refinaries and the smell of bodies washed ashore. We drove around in circles for approximately 45 minutes, at which point the bruises on my right arm forced me to stop and have a discussion on how to get out of our predicament. To Erin's credit, she had us back (where we started, no less) in a matter of minutes.

Unwilling to give up on a dream, I restarted the trek. Much to my satisfaction, I knew exactly where I'd missed my turn, and when I corrected this error, there stood Luigi's. We'd only missed it by a few feet.

Luigi's was situated near the refinery district that was previously discussed. It was obviously a local's place, and I was excited by the prospect of a good pie and some sort of import brew. We entered to find a handful of locals watching the Sox pregame (surprise!). I moved toward the counter to order, while Erin chose her seat at the bar. I questioned this decision, given that the patrons at the bar appeared to have been there for some time, and her chatty friendliness came in stark contrast to the vibe given off by the locals.

I quickly ordered a pizza and then requested of Erin that we relocate to a nearby table. Nobody seemed offended that we moved, and we waited for our food and Budweiser products. (My dream of an import brew came crashing to earth upon entering Luigi's. I was pretty certain that I saw the body of some import-microbrew-orderin' sissy laid out near the stoop as we entered the joint.)

As we awaited our food, I could tell that Erin was dissasisfied with her life at that moment. Two drunk dudes were fighting about whether Bill Cowher or "that guy who used to coach at Green Bay" was the better football coach, and another guy repeatedly fell off his stool. At one point several guys pushed each other out the door to fight about something in the street. There was much wrangling until the bar maid ordered another guy out to break the whole thing up. It was intense. The whole time, Erin kept mumbling about the Twilight Zone and how "this always happens." I thoroughly enjoyed the experience (perhaps Erin "Thoreau-ly" enjoyed it...yuk yuk); although, in the end, the pizza was pretty subpar.

The next morning we got up bright and early for our, yet again, separate flights home. As I was making my way through the inspection at the airport, I got behind a family with four young kids, including a set of twins. The twins were just old enough to walk, and both were decked out in some primo nice clothes and little animal backpacks. They would have been just darling had they not been little demons.

The whole time during the line, we had to wait for them to decide to walk. Neither parent would ever push them along or pick them up, instead we all waited for them to move at their own pace. This wasn't so bad in line, until we reached the scanners. This is a giant hassle these days, as everyone knows. You have to take your shoes off, take your laptop out of the case, take off your jacket, pee in a jar, etc. (Erin told me later that nobody has ever made her pee in a jar at the airport, so perhaps an apology is due someplace.)

In any case, as people were putting all their belongings in the little plastic tubs to go through the scanner, twin #1 starts screaming his head off.

"Which bucket do you want?"
"Do you want this one?"
"This one?"
"This one?"
"This one?"
"This one?"
"Do you want this one?"
"This one?"
"Do you want this one?"
"This one?"

Just as I was about to go postal, the kid finally says, "That one." Unfortunately "that one" was full of another patron's belongings. Did this stop idio-parent? No.

"I'm sorry. Can you please move your stuff to another bucket? He wants that one."

I was stunned. Literally, stunned.

People, have we lost all grip with reality? How do people not see the craziness of this?

The guy politely dumped his stuff in an identical bin and handed the other one to her. If it had been me, I'm not sure I could have gotten out of the situation without saying something.

In the end, my flight to O'Hare was fine, and my flight home was only a few minutes late. We were both glad to get home, and we were even more glad to be reunited with Grant. We discussed the fact that we spent over nine hours trying to get home from Boston on Sunday. I think it's about a 12 hour drive. I'm beginning to think I'm willing to spend that extra three hours to not deal with airports and twins.