East Coast Trip Page 3: Montreal to Boston
Saturday, June 2, 2007: We woke up after getting to sleep pretty late last night at, surprisingly, 7am and got on the road fast by 7:30am. David had the great idea of driving down a road which goes directly through the middle of Lake Champlain via a series of islands connected by bridges which was misty in the morning light and absolutely beautiful. The drive brings us to Boston about 5 hours of road time- plus stops between for things like skipping stones on the perfectly flat, windless Lake Champlain and stopping off at Ben and Gerry's original Waterbury, Vermont creamery for a tour. That was so cool! We got to try at the end of the tour the newest flavor for 2007: Cinnamon Bun. It was vanilla with swirls of caramel and bits of cinnamon bun dough in there. It was really good!
So
the upper left shot is one of the islands in the middle of Lake Champlain connected
by little bridges. As you can see, it was misty and raining and it was really
ethereal driving there. The right upper shot is of a covered bridge we drove
by on the way through Vermont called "Cillyville Bog Bridge." The
bottom picture is a stop we made outside of the Poet Laureate Robert Frost's
home which he inhabited from 1900-1911. Seeing the top left picture of the fog
I can see how "...the fog comes in on little cat feet..." was inspired.
Ben
and Jerry's and the Flavor Graveyard. Very funny.
Ben and jerry's has this hilarious thing called the flavor graveyard up on the hill at the back of their property which is where retired flavors are buried. Each has a grave stone complete with an epitaph, and according to our very knowledgeable tour guide, they actually bury a pint of the flavor under the headstone. Funny. It's got a white picket fence and everything.
Driving south through Vermont is really beautiful, and it continued to rain on and off the way it's been this whole trip. The drive is really fast, Vermont is actually a pretty small state after all so we got to New Hampshire in no time. I had us slated to see this place called the Lower Shaker Village just over the border in NH, and possibly to visit Dartmouth College. David really wanted to see Dartmouth, so we went in search of that first. The sun actually came out when we got to the campus, so we walked around in the sunlight for an hour, exploring the very colonial architecture and open spaces of Dartmouth. It's a pretty elegant kind of campus, colonial in flavor, as I said, with a large group of people fly fish casting in the main quad. We wandered into the stores on the main town square (you can tell it's a nuveau-Ivy with the very upscale shopping) but neither of us ended up buying anything.
Dartmouth
After our wandering through Dartmouth for some osmosis brain power, we left on a quest to find the "Lower Shaker Village" which I actually though was one of those re-enactment kind of towns of Shaker life. It was not marked at all (like the Robert Frost house!) so we drove around in circles for a while till we found it. It was a collection of buildings which were once part of the Eastham Shaker Village- the simple, large buildings as well as the stone church which is massive and surprisingly ornamented with stained glass and carvings in the stone. I was surprised. Finally, a little children's swing which was very Shaker. We were hoping to look at furniture, but alas, none open to the public was open. We opted out of the museum tour and wandered the grounds ourselves instead. The village is now defunct and the last Shaker has expired, but they left an interesting legacy of architecture and furniture for sure- "Hands to work and hearts to God," Mother Ann Lee.
The
Great Stone Dwelling House, left. Above is an old work building (left) and the
surprisingly ornamented and carved church (right). Shakers were kind of interesting,
although born from the suffering of a woman who lost all of her 9 children and
had a series of miserable, abusive husbands who wanted to escape into a utopia
(Mother Ann Lee) who had experienced God in a dream full of shaking. Sexes were
treated equally, there was no marriage, no intersex dating or relations, separate
sex dorms (on separate floors for sisters and brothers) and no children, since
there was no sex involved. The Shakers worked hard and lived simply, much like
the motto of their song, "Simple Gifts." All Eldresses were female
and they were the community leaders. Some things I like about those Shakers
were the pacifism, peace mottoes, the racial and sexual equality.
'Tis the gift to be simple,
'Tis the gift to be free,
'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
It will be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gained,
to bow and to bend, we will not be ashamed
To turn, turn, will be our delight,
'Til by turning, turning, we come round right' composed 1848 by Elder Joseph
Brackett
Finally past the Shaler Village, we were finally en route to Boston. I love Boston, but haven't been there is a very long time. It's only a short 5 hour drive from Montreal, surprisingly, and we made it before noon since we got up so early at the grungy campground in New Hampshire. David really seemed to like Boston best so far- I think that's because of all the history you can just feel in the architecture. It was another rainy, drizzly day and it we were really cold walking around. I thought we'd introduce ourselves to the city by walking the Freedom Trail, a 3 mile trail through the city hitting the main historic sites, most of them involving the American Revolution and forging of our new independent government. It was really cool so see, despite the cold and rain.
Pictures: top row, left: the historic clock tower in the industrial village of Eastham, north of Boston. Right: Boston Common park, commissioned in 1683 for the city for public announcements, meetings and hangings. Second row, left: The Massachusetts State Building. Built in the 1700s, gold leafed in the 1800s by John Hancock, still in use today. Right: The Grannery Burial Yard, Boston's second oldest, where John Hancock, Mother Goose, and Paul Revere are buried along with any others.
Below left: a headstone in the Grannery burial yard: the puritans used to place wings on either side of a crude skull drawing symbolizing the resurrection of the soul to the afterlife after mortal demise. Right: the Old City Hall, outside is a statue of Ben Franklin and it's a gorgeous building. Today it houses a Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. Bottom left: charming Boston architecture.
We took the Boston subway to both Harvard and MIT just to see the places so revered in American Education- Harvard is colonial, austere and impressive, especially the theater which is built like the most immense and impressive of high gothic churches, as well as MIT. While we can now say we both "went" to Harvard and MIT, we both prefer to say "MIT". David at least gets to say he peed at MIT. The main building doors were open, so we went in and wandered around the hallowed halls. Both were setting up for graduations and the rhododendrons were in full bloom on the campuses. We were especially impressed with MIT's gardens. Wow. It was well into the evening before we peeled ourselves away.
Harvard
MIT
MIT
rodis.
We drove in the misty evening down the coast to Plymouth where I thought David definitely needed to see Plymouth Rock and the Mayflower reproduction ship sitting there. We came upon a lady waiting to guide a Haunted Plymouth walking tour, but it was not starting until 8pm which was too late for us, and David's ankle was killing him and we were both very sore and sick of walking all day, so we opted out after I pet the fat female pug the touguide had with her. We plan on going back for the tour- which she says has been extremely active lately with the mist and the full moon. Ooh!! And I missed my dog. Really, really missed my dog.
By 9pm we were on the cape and in Nickerson State Park, where it took some serious investigating to find our site which is technically a walk-in, right down on the lake. There were these frogs out- we actually saw one cross the path in front of our car while we were driving into the walk-in site (don't tell) to set up. These frogs are nuts: they sound like they're SCREAMING. it was surreal. It was not raining, but it was profoundly dark and I was a bit freaked out at being in this almost deserted campground with the screaming frog soundtrack, so we set up the tarp high up in the trees and centered our tent under it. The forecast was calling for rain and possible thundershowers that night, so even though it wasn't raining when we set up, I'm glad we put it up anyways. We read for a while and fell asleep by 10pm once the frogs had quieted down for the night. I've got to find out what kind of frogs those guys are. You can't believe the sound...
At 3am we were both awakened with raining. Our tarp seemed to be keeping us very dry and the wind was minimal. By 4am the wind was picking up and we were getting totally pelted, our tarp doing nothing in the wind. We also left the rain top off the tent, and of course it was in the car, so we ran out of the tent together in the howling rain and wind at 4am. We threw on the rain top and peed, debating about lowering our tarp for better protection but decided against it since we were getting hammered with rain. By 5am the rain had stopped, but the winds picked up to practically gale-force and the tarp was shaking and blowing so loudly we had to get up and fix it. The sides of the tent were soaked and everything inside was damp (I HATE camping in the rain) so we lowered the tarp so it was just covering the tent and affording us good rain protection in the blowing blustery wind. Neither of us were able to go back to sleep, so at 7am we got up and drove around the Cape. We drove into Provincetown looking for an internet cafe so I could work on this page and get out of the rain and damp, and maybe eat some breakfast. I found an internet cafe called the Wired Dog, but their connection was down so I bought coffee and a tee shirt (so cute!) and we walked down the streets in the mist finding this Portuguese bakery with cheap breakfasts where I had a fontina-cheese soaked omlette on a Portuguese bun, and David has the same with ham. Then we went to the Provincetown Library and got onto the internet to check email and for me to do some SMC stuff for a while before heading out to the national seashore in the pounding rain. We are getting hammered from Tropical Storm Barbara, which is hitting North Florida sending up warm rain, but a monsoon of rain with very high winds. They say in the forecast it's supposed to be partly cloudy tomorrow, with a chance of thunderstorm in the afternoon, clearing up for sun on Wednesday. I certainly hope so. We checked into Nickerson at 1pm, and I asked the very nice Ranger if there was an internet cafe or hotspot nearby and he directed me here, to the Chocolate Sparrow Cafe in Orleans where I've been sitting in the standing-room only cafe absolutely packed with Codders getting out of the monsoon getting this page together. Best not to get too behind- it takes me about 3 hours a night of work to get these pages together. Leave more than a day and I'm too tired to even think about doing a marathon web-page-design session. So time consuming. David wanted fresh fruit and milk, but seems to have fallen asleep in the parking lot while I sit in here sipping hot chocolate-latte working. We're probably going to go to bed early tonight and catch up on sleep, finish my new book, hopefully stay DRY, and get to the national sheashore tomorrow some more. Possibly back into Plymouth which David found extremely charming and I *hope* go on a haunted walk with the fat black pugglet. I'll keep you posted. Wish us better weather :)