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California 2003
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amazing - we got up on time, got everything packed, and were ready when the taxi turned up. We got to Bristol airport, and after a slight hiatus because the computers couldn't check us through from Brussels to Boston, we arrived in the departure lounge, ready to collect our currency and travellers cheques from Thomas Cook. however, things are never simple ... it transpired that Pete had failed to bring the debit card for the account to which I had transferred the money. A few frantic phone calls to the bank, and all was well, and we were funded for our holiday.
then, after a rather nerve-racking delay of two hours to our flight (bearing in mind that we had a 2½ hour gap at Brussels, and we weren't checked through to Boston), we were away. Thankfully, we made the connection in time, although we couldn't get our duty free [hiss] as we didn't have boarding cards.
Boston
- what a wonderful city. We stayed on a private yacht in a marina
- it was wonderful to roam the city, and then return and sit on the deck with
a glass or two, rocking in the water. And going to bed was delightful - the water
casting light and shadows, and the gentle ripple of the waves. A lot of people
actually live on their boats, and there were parties every night, to which we
were always invited. Our poor livers . . . well, it would have been churlish to
refuse.
We did the Freedom Trail, a Duck Tour (a trip round the city on an World War II amphibious vehicle which actually goes out into the Charlestown river), a trip out to George Island, a sunset boat trip round Boston Harbour (this should have been wonderful, but was somewhat spoilt by a) a family from ghod knows where, who should have taken their small son to Logan Airport, as all he was interested in was aeroplanes, and b) a group of giggly girls discussing men, wedding frocks and leg waxing, at extremely high volume) . We went out to Harvard, and had dinner in a Creole restaurant called House of Blues, where I drank far too many Margaritas (in my case - Pete was on bourbon), and met some good people. We walked and walked miles round the city, which we loved - Back Bay, Beacon Hill, the parks, the history . . . and the memorials. Particularly the Holocaust memorial, and one which we came across completely by accident - a tribute to Boston Firefighters . . .a wall, etched with the tale of how so many were lost in one incident, and their names, together with a slightly larger-than-life fireman's jacket and helmet cast in bronze, and draped over the wall. Extraordinarily moving.
off
to Logan airport to collect our car
- an Oldsmobile Cutlass, which we immediately christened the Great White Whale,
with the registration of 9111 EY. We never did discover what size engine it had,
but it sure as hell wasn't big enough. This was a car for the hard of thinking
- you couldn't switch the ignition off unless it was in Park, the headlamps came
on when the Whale thought the light wasn't good enough, it beeped like crazy if
you started the engine without the seatbelts fastened. Pete did eventually develop
a strange affection for it, but I never did. Having said that, it was an ideal
car for the sort of driving we did - set the cruise control, switch on the air
con, stick cups of coffee in the twin cup holders, find an 80s rock station on
FM, and we were all set to cruise the highway. This wasn't always easy, as US
direction signs aren't terribly obvious - you can quite often be travelling on
two roads at once, or even three, according to the sign. Couple this with the
faulty compass, and you can see how things might get a little tricky.
we headed up the highway, via Salem (where we bought some excellent bumper stickers and t-shirts), and ended up at Ogunquit MA, at an inn called Hartwell House, where we stayed for two nights. This was, with hindsight, a tad too genteel for us, but the area was gorgeous. In Ogunquit we had what turned out to be our only bad experience with American restaurants - after some truly appalling service, we complained and got $16 off the bill, which was a result.
having read masses about the weather conditions in New England in June, we had packed suitable clothing. However, our personal weather god had the hump, so we headed for L L Bean in Freeport MA, where we bought shorts and sandals, to cope with the heat wave that the whole of the Eastern Seaboard was experiencing. Oh, and a new watch for me, as mine had given up the ghost, and a compass, which always said we were going East. And sometimes it was even right. And as we drove out of the store car park, it started to rain, and continued to do so for six hours. He's a little bugger, that weather god.
we
had always thought, in our Limey ignorance, that Maine
was mountains and lakes. Well, it has those in abundance, but it also has the
most stunning coastline. We ended up at a motel in Boothbay
Harbor, where we took a room with a private deck, overlooking the harbour,
which is a working fishing port. We had a spectacular thunderstorm the night we
arrived - hailstones the size of quails' eggs, and amazing electrical activity
up above the cloud layer. Did we care? Not a jot - we just sat on our deck and
enjoyed the view.
here we bought still more t-shirts, and I bought a pair of gold lobster earrings - they're wonderful! And we ate what was probably our best value meal - two lobsters, with corn on the cob, baked potatoes, and a bottle of wine, for $22 including tax. Ridiculous! As we were getting all exhausted out, we spent one day at Boothbay Harbor when we only took the car up to the local market, and otherwise sat on our balcony drinking beer and reading (with frequent peeps at the view), and then wandered up for yet another stunning meal on the quay. Truly, it's amazing that Pete didn't turn into some sort of shellfish, the amount he consumed. And more about Pete's eating habits later . . .
I'm
a sea person myself, but Pete has a passion for mountains. So off we headed to
New Hampshire, the home of the White Mountains.
And he was right, as it happens - they were astonishing. We pitched up at the
Jefferson Inn in (strangely) Jefferson,
NH for the night, and the next morning, we drove the car up Mount
Washington - at least, to be more precise, Pete drove the car up Mount Washington,
while I cowered in the footwell on the passenger side. I mean - a car we didn't
know, and sheer drops of anything up to 100', do nothing for someone who suffers
from verdigris (I go green when confronted with heights). Curiously, the weather
god was in an excellent mood; when we arrived at the base station, the guard told
us that they only get about twelve days a year with conditions like that. Sunny,
clear, temperatures at the top (5,000' +) of 70° -and a view that was, quite
literally, breathtaking (for those amongst us who like heights!)
after that, we headed across the Kancamagus Pass through the White Mountains, which was a stunning drive, stopping en route at a resting place, where we came across an astonishingly beautiful river, studded with glacial stones. We ended up in Meredith, NH, at the Inns at Mills Fall. Meredith is located on Lake Winnipesaukee, which looked about the size of the Mediterranean to us . . . We spent the first night in the bar, where we ended up buying, and being bought, drinks by all sorts of people, and were invited to a wedding on the weekend. Sanity prevailed once the hangover had lifted, though.
we took a boat trip on Big Squam lake (where the movie On Golden Pond was shot) to see the loons, and gawp at the big money lakeside homes. One thing which struck us at the time, and again once we started looking at the photographs, was the colour of the sky and the water in New Hampshire - the air was incredibly clear, and everything looked so crisp.
personally,
I was looking forward to Cape Cod
more than anything else that we had planned. And, as is so often the case, I was
both disappointed and elated. So much of it is strip malls and tourist tat. And
then, just when you're losing faith, it comes up with a beach, or a town, that
is simply beautiful. Despite what all our guidebooks said, the Cape was fairly
full when we arrived - the perils of pitching up on a Saturday, I guess. We ended
up at The Edgewater Resort, a motel
in Dennisport which wasn't great, but had vacancies and was affordable ($220 for
a room with a sea view was outside our working budget, it must be said). And at
least it had a balcony and a coffee machine . . . It also had a private beach,
but we were never there when the mist lifted.
our weather god had decided to work short hours over the weekend, and the mornings and evenings were very misty (even foggy, in some cases). We ate dinner in the restaurant across the street, where we paid $120-ish for a very good meal, although to be fair, about $60 of that was wine and port and Armagnac. We woke, belatedly, on the Sunday morning, to find that we could see virtually nothing beyond 100 yds, but we tuned into the local radio station, to find that the forecast was good for later in the day. So we pointed the car towards Provincetown, on the easternmost tip of the Cape, and by the time we arrived, about midday, the sun had broken through, and there was just a haze over the Atlantic. We booked up for a whalewatching tour leaving at 1.30, taking on board their doom-laden comments about warm sweaters and waterproofs (all of which we had with us).
so off we sailed, on the good ship Dolphin VIII - to find 80° weather, bright sunshine, and yet again, better than ideal conditions. We saw about 13 different whales, including a group of seven, who basked, swam, breached, and generally played to the gallery at less than 10' away from the boat. This was probably the highlight of our holiday - it was simply awe-inspiring to watch these creatures from so close, doing what whales do.
on the way back to Dennisport, we stopped at Head of the Meadow Beach, which is heartstoppingly beautiful. Vast stretches of white sand, blue sea, and nobody except us. I'm almost (but not quite) embarrassed to say that I drew an "I love Pete" in the sand, and he took a photograph of the result! The beach is one of those incorporated in the Cape Cod National Seashore, which is altogether stunning.
the following day, we wandered westwards across the Cape, and took a boat trip round Hyannis Bay, to gawp at the posh houses, and just generally ambled about admiring the scenery - a fairly quiet day.
well,
New York via Boston, where we had to return
the car. So we left at the crack of dawn (well, it felt like it - 8 a.m.) and
headed up the Interstate to Logan Airport. Dropped the whale off, and then got
a cab from the airport to South Street Station in Boston. We had to hang around
here for a couple of hours before our train left, but it wasn't too tedious. We'd
booked the tickets on line via Amtrak's site
before we left, and I was just a tad nervous that something would have gone awry,
but there was no problem.
the train journey was spectacular - the route runs all along the Long Island Sound, giving tantalising glimpses of Rhode Island and Connecticut on the way. We want to visit there! We arrived at Penn Station in NY at about 5.15 p.m., and had to wait ages for a cab, but eventually one turned up, with the typical NY driver - "help you with your cases?" - not a chance.
our hotel, The Malibu, was so far up the upper West side (Broadway and W103) that it was almost in Harlem <!>, but it was clean and affordable, albeit a tad noisy, and the aircon unit was broken, making for a rather loud and hot first night.
we ate in a local Thai restaurant that evening, where Pete ordered salmon, and I had chicken. The waiter brought Pete's dish first, and he tucked in with gusto, pausing only to remark how nice it was. When the second dish was put in front of me, I discovered it to be salmon - Pete had been scoffing my chicken. Oh, the shame of it for a non-meat eater . . . He duly returned the remains of the chicken to me, and ate all the salmon as well. This turned out to be but the start of a rapid descent to full carnivorism. He tried some duck in Chinatown, and pronounced it very nice, and then actually ordered and consumed a chicken breast sandwich in a kosher restaurant (and also sampled my pastrami). Now, nine months on, he consumes steaks, roast beef, lamb, pork, venison - the redder the meat, the better he likes it!
as to what we did on what days, it's all a blur. We walked. And walked, and walked. Through Central Park, and weaving between Park, Lexington and Fifth, boggling at the shops. We did the Circle Line and the Staten Island ferries, catching the Statue of Liberty on the way. We did the Bronx Zoo (amazing), and the UN building, and the Metropolitan Museum, where we managed about 4½ hours before we were suffering from complete overload, gibbering to find the exit, and whimpering about "not another piece of medieval art".
we did Macys and Bloomingdales, and Times Square. We ate Thai, deli, diner, Kosher, Chinese in Chinatown. I ate bagel with lox and cream cheese, pastrami on rye, and meatloaf - all things that I thought I should try in New York. We fell in love with a blue Abyssinian kitten in a pet store on Lexington - $1500, if you please, never mind the cost of shipping it home, so we didn't bother.
we got stuck on the subway (twice in one day - thanks, MTA), and got to grips with the buses.
well, it was more Sunday, really, as we'd booked a night flight to give us another day in New York. This involved flying from JFK airport, which is, without doubt, the worst airport either of us have even set foot in. The Duty Free shop was dearer than the liquor stores on Broadway, there was no bar (apart from a Sam Adams concession, that didn't serve gin), the Starbucks concession shut at 9 p.m. so you couldn't get decent coffee, no English newspapers . . . dreadful hole.
still, we got out on time, caught our connecting flight to Bristol, were collected by a friend, and home. We had a bath, drank several cups of good Assam tea, and then went to collect the cats, who barely spoke to us for several days. 'Twas good to be back.
and we never saw a moose :(
but ... we met some cracking people, and were shown unbelievable hospitality and friendship from complete strangers - at the marina, in bars and restaurants. What a wonderful country!