Mile it-totally-doesn't-matter-anymore: Baaaaaaaaston!

It's gotten past the point where counting the miles makes any sense anymore, as I'm more kind of meandering at this point. With all the side trips, I figure I covered 4,500 miles getting from the Pacific to the Atlantic in two weeks. The GTI has performed like a champ, and I didn't get a single dent or ticket despite all that high speed hands-free driving (h/t Michelle at Bleeding Espresso Christina at The (Mis)Adventures of a Single City Chick.).Baltimore was fun, but I still was feeling the road call to me. Boston had always been intended as the furthest point of my journey, and from this point I'll either stay where I am or backtrack. I'm not feeling called to Maine, or the Maritime Provinces, and I'm really close to the coast here.

I took a side trip up to Philadelphia area to visit my friend M's sister and take in the old homeland. Philadelphia has changed in so many ways since I left for good in 1989... and, of course, at the same time hasn't changed at all. I had some forgettable fettucine at Marra's on Passyunk (note to self: recommendation from suburban Jewish moms may not be the gold standard for Italian food), and stopped in on a whim at the menswear shop a couple doors down. There I met the tailor Pasquale Sciolto, half-Italian and half-hobbit. It seemed like the guy was three feet tall. It turned out that he was from southern Abruzzo, near Molise, so we jibber-jabbered in mixed standard and dialect for a while as M goggled. I don't know if I got paesanu rate or not, but I did OK for a single-thread men's shirt, I guess.

Saturday morning early I hit the road. What amazed me is how much tolls cost on I-95 up from Baltimore. I spent $10 just on the 100 or so miles to Philly. With the Jersey Turnpike, the George Washington Bridge, and the New York Thruway, I figure I dropped about $25 on tolls alone before I even reached Connecticut. Add to that the most expensive gas of the whole journey ($4.81/gal in Southport, Conn.) and the trip to Boston was a spendy one. Also, sweaty: half of New England was trying to get to the beach towns, and 95 inexplicably runs right along the coast. I definitely won't go that way again: it was a crawl in humid heat. It took me about ten hours to reach my friend Liv's place in Ipswich.

The North Shore Boston suburbs are really great. We're in those thick Eastern woods that sort of make everything dim and cool, even though there's a fair amount of development. Also, really old homes (like, 17th century old) are not at all uncommon: Liv's boyfriend lives on the top floor of one. And there's all this nautical atmosphere around. These communities made their livelihoods from the sea for generation upon generation, and some - like Gloucester - still do. We had a few drinks at the Crow's Nest, the bar depicted in the movie A Perfect Storm (though it was not set in the real bar). These people have probably all lost someone at sea... like a wild extrusion of the eighteenth century into the twenty-first. Oh, and the drinks are cheap... and strong.

I met J, who I was friends with in San Diego, on a flawless summer Sunday in Boston's Public Garden yesterday.



We both remarked on how much it felt like a San Diego day... and how much nicer it was to experience that kind of day in Boston. In San Diego, it's just another day, but in Boston, it's something extraordinary. J grew up out in western Mass. but never got into Boston much; being a short distance from five colleges, she never really needed to go far for entertainment. She came back to raise her kid out here, and is, like me, checking out Boston as a place to live. On the recommendation of both her mom and one of my oldest friends, we rode a Swan Boat through the garden's lagoon with her three-year-old daughter.



We walked through the Garden and the Common, splashed in the Frog Pond, and got her daughter a totally weird balloon hat from the tweakiest street performer I've ever met:



We feel the child will make a complete recovery... given enough time and therapy.

I'm finally starting to feel a sense of having arrived - there's plenty more to see and to do (that is to say I need to figure out what to do with the rest of my life!) but for now I'm kind of settling down. I'm not sure how long I'll be here, but I'm putting out tendrils and feelers, and we'll see what emerges.

I dedicated this trip to all the people who can't - or think they can't - just pick up and take off like I did. This has without a question of doubt been the best thing I've done for myself since going back to university, and maybe the best thing ever. Please, if you have even the slightest opportunity to do something random, unplanned, and adventurous - do it. The benefits far outweigh the downside risks, in my opinion.

And I speak from experience.


the trip