Busy And Boston

Monday was the start of traveling alone days. I travel well alone, and I was soon packed and ready after a shower and dressing in the clothing I had set aside during packing. I picked a dress shirt with a gray sweater vest for Monday. I write the blog while eating the complementary breakfast (I have to buy my next ones) and finish it. The lobby is quiet as everyone has gone back home, except me and a few other stragglers or folks there for work. Construction folks are often the other breakfast people, but I miss them since I start later (writing the first half of the blog in my room).

I finish and publish the blog, then head to the room to gather my suitcase, gym bag, and coat. I recheck the room for missed items. Mentally, I checked that I brought one pair of shoes. My black shoes often disappear into the room’s color and shadows and require a careful check. Deborah had to retrieve them for me once.

My plan to drive the car to the front desk is confused by a delivery that blocks that path. Instead, I circle back to the entrance on various streets and traffic lights, check out, and tell the staff that the hotel is in good shape (it is from the 1980s!) and that I appreciate their efforts to make it work. It was in better shape than some of the ones I have stayed at. I am on the road to Boston!

There is not much to recount on the drive. There was a complex of connections and one or two to dive to the correct exit. But no drama and no scraped paint. The traffic at the airport was long lines of cars and crazy, long one-way streets to a parking garage packed with vehicles. A man waved me to a halt, “In all my 23 years, I have never seen it like this,” he told me as they shuffled cars to get me a place. I have yet to see the bill (I am writing this on Tuesday).

I ask, and taxis are cheaper from the terminal, and I get one of the giant three-part buses and toss my bags in the rack. I talk to other passengers, and we are all amazed by the mess that is the Rental Car Return at Logan. I was going to take the subway, but the terrible mess made me jump off the bus with my bags and walk to the taxi line. I am soon with a friendly Tesla driver who gets me through all the tunnels and tolls, racking up a bill of about $40 to downtown with a tip. My later explorations revealed that the subways are like those in NYC and Chicago, with lots of stairs; no place for heavy bags!

My hotel is pleasant and looks like many I stayed with, but slightly higher class, meaning it is more expensive, and late checkout is $48. The room, which was ready when I got there around noon, is smaller than IHG’s; city rooms are often smaller.

Tuesday and Wednesday are supposed to be cold, messy, and stormy. I walked, using my iPhone for direction (looking like all the other tourists), to James Hook & Company for an expensive (they are always costly) lobster roll. It is cold lobster meat, freshly cooked, mixed with some mayo (butter, the other choice, for more $), on toasted bread. I had a local beer with it. And while good (and checking off a box for me, eating a lobster roll in Boston at the harbor), it is plain food (also, my tastes never recovered from the mouth infection after the brain surgery).

 

I order an Uber, and Brian, in a Ford Explorer, picks me up. He is chatty, and we walk around Boston and Portland, and he is repairing the Ford since he hit a trailer. It seemed OK to me. The JFK library is in an area that juts out into the harbor, offering a breezy yet lovely view of Boston and the harbor.

The library starts with a film, then descends into itself. They focus on JFK’s words and his wife’s experiences. The 1960 election and years in the white house take up most of the space. It is pleasant and the movie on the Cuban Missile Crisis is excellent. There is only a tiny section about the assassination, with Walter Cronkite’s reporting of the shooting and death of the president being the only thing covered.

A guide was giving a tour, and he talked about one bad day for JFK as he watched on TV Wallace’s declaration of segregation forever speech, his brother’s decision to fight Wallace, a monk set himself on fire and died to protest the war in Viet Nam, and then JFK, having asked the speakers to keep it bland, watches as Martin Luther King’s suddenly drops the agreed to boring speech and ad libs what is known as the “I Have a Dream Speech.” JFK later meets MLK, shakes his hand, and thanks him. “What a day,” the tour guide said as he stood in the Oval Office model in the museum with the original rocking chair that JFK likely used when watching TV. Indeed.

I stop by the shop and get trinkets that easily fit in my bags and are easy to carry. I then, directed by my iPhone, walk five blocks to the bus station. I stop and take pictures of an old armory. A MassU student tells me to just board a MassU transfer bus with them to get to the subway. I do, then get help at the station, and have to remember that the pronunciations of locations here on the East Coast are just as made-up as the West’s, when I am directed, and I cannot understand at first. I put it together and get on the correct train.

 

(Hemingway’s recipe for burgers; the two libraries work together)

It is just a few blocks away, but there are many, many steps to reach my hotel. I drop off my JFK Library items and head back out. It is dark now, but the bookstore around the corner is open. It is a used book and print store. Yay! Commonwealth Books ships, and soon I find two paperbacks that I might have read, but one is signed (the author long gone), and the other is a Judge Dee story (here). I bought them and then paid to have them shipped home.

I next stopped at Elephant and Castle, next door to my hotel. There, I had a few beers and then tried their flight of pies. The chicken pot pie and the steak and mushroom were excellent. The leeks and potatoes were also good.

I returned to my room stuffed and talked to Deborah for a while.

I also received the first bill for the refresh (about 50%) and sent it for payment. There were some questions, but the bill is now being processed. All good.

I slept through the night. The food, the beer, the nearly 8,000 steps, and a comfortable bed helped.

Thanks for reading.