it may be october, but it's always haunted here

     after leaving boston, it was not a far drive to salem, massachusetts.  based on a recommendation from jenn for a reputable tarot reader, i went to visit rick.  now i would say that in general i'm not one to search out various fortune or life path tellers, but i have always found the art of it interesting...i just never can tell who's a hoax or what, and then maybe what really the difference is.  but any who.

     i was told some personalish things, but what i really took from it was the recommendation to start my own business, that i could of gone into hand modeling, that i'm doing something good not only for myself but for the people that i run into through my road trip, and that i will be returning to where i came from [ now living or born? ].  afterwards, i did a little bit of walking around.  the streets lined with artist, artisian workers, and costumes.  and lucky for me, i was there just two weeks before halloween so the city was brimming with spirit [ and i don't mean steaming pots brimming or spirits roaming about.  or perhaps they were, but i just don't read life that way...haven't tapped into my para-normal ].  i didn't really spend much time because it was so busy and i didn't want to wait around to take the witch trial tours or haunted house hoop-la. though,  i did enjoy taking pictures of the houses all dressed up and this little beauty:

  i've never seen a state so concerned, and rightly so, for the various abilities of the citizens of the community.  with a rain cloud in the sky and drops hitting the streets, it was just the right amount of atmosphere and history to illicit a romantic feeling about the town and thus the desire for a return trip.  i guess i was just feeling a little anxious to spend some extra time with jenn and probably, mainly, being by myself for the first time in over a couple of weeks, i didn't quite have my adventure shoes on.  i mean, i was dressed properly, but i had regained my tentative nature about solo tripping that i had overcome already once in the trip.  but here we are back at square one, but really somewhere around mile 12,000.
     getting into rhode island, providence specifically, jenn and i headed out dinner at a mediterranian/mexican mix complete with sangaria!  there was a nice walk home from the restaurant and some tiramisu to ensure that we have the proper sugar plum fairies dancing in our head for a sound night's sleep.

     the next day, i was to have the honor of jenn's company all day long!  and we started out right with a trip to the gym to get our bodies into tip-top shape.  throughout the rest of the day she was going to treat me to the sights and legends along the road from providence to the shore of cape cod.  next stop was not the house [ and now inn where you can spend a night in the actual bloody memory murder, and there's a wait to get into that, room ] but instead to the accused's gravesite...lizzie borden.  there were arrows painted on the car travel roads to make it easier to find, but why travel the road most, well traveled.  we instead snuck in the back way and then walked around for awhile.  after leaving we made our way to mattapoiset, ma to visit a HUGE seahorse.  photo op!  we then made our way east, heave-ho...

and of course had to be funny and stop for a sandwich in sandwich.  yes that's right, we enjoyed a delicious seafood sandwich just minutes from the water, amongst the trees and historic new england at the sandwich, ma sign.  tee hee.  we made an additional stop at the salt pond visitors center and learned a little about local wild-life before moving on to the marconi station site.  it was interesting when we visited, but it was even more so after reading 'thunderstuck' by erik larson and the tale of marconi and the beginning of wireless communication.  i mean, how different would our world be right now if he hadn't of been a fanatic in the early 1900's?

we ended up in provincetown, which is where you end up when taking highway 6 out to the cape because that's where the land runs into the ocean...and i don't know about you, but that's not anywhere were jenn and i are willing to try to drive a car.  walked around a little bit as the night and evening chill feel upon us, and then much like many towns on the west, the beach towns of the east tend to be quiet during the fall months and much more heavily populated during the summer ones.  though provincetown is different, perhaps, than other beach towns in that it has a grand homo-sexual population and visitor base.  so we grabbed dinner at the post office cafe, background music compliments of lady gaga and two days before the 'naked boys singing' review.  darn on you opportunities missed.  finished dinner, headed back home to providence, rhode island.

the next day consisted of jenn getting some work done and me catching up on my some sleeping, blogging, journaling, and laundry.  that night was awesome because jenn's work, the roger williams zoo is home to the east coast's largest jack-o-lantern spectacular.  all designed and hand cut by a single family, they are true works of art.  really, its beautiful. 












the night got finished off with a band concert of an artist that neither of us had really heard of, but ended up that both loved to dance too and wanted to add to our at home music librarys.  i love sharing music with jenn, i mean really love it with everybody, but i guess because we don't get to live near each other its nice to have something that i can listen to and remember that we shared it the same place. 

random aside, but to conclude, the night finished there...    

wicked ah-wesome, fun in bah-ston

in boston two days, for this part of the trip, i'm just gonna give it to you in a numbered sequential progression with story exaggerations after each highlight...cuz otherwise, i'm not sure how we'd all get through this.

I.     leave rhode island and arrive at the hilton in dedham, ma.  southwest side of boston to check
       in.
II.   drive towards the samual adams brewery in boston and find ourselves with 3pm tour tickets. 
       kill some time at the ula cafe with a snack and a card game of war
III.   sam adams tour guide jesse is in her first week; clever, personable, but still a little nervous. 
        she feeds us beer, we don't complain.  in our tasting are the boston ale, a speciality don
        tiburon, and the octoberfest.  plus we get a free little glass out of the deal.

4.     head the infamous 'quincy market'
        for some shopping...only to find
        that anouk's iphone has taken us
        the a corner market that is
        actually located in quincey;
        not THE quincey market.
V.    take ourselves into the city proper
        and treat ourselves to a mini
        walked red-line tour of the city's
        nightlife.  end up at the
        reproduction cheer's bar on
        beacon street.  make friends
        with pearse who recommends a
        couple of other stops while in
        town and some bars to help us get from place to place.
F.    head along a tapped line in route to a comedy show at the improv asylum.  in a section
       where they ask the crowd for place recommendations, we were able to get mianus on the
       floor.  however they kept referring to it as 'your anus', so it wasn't nearly as funny.
       laughable though still.

VII.  after the asylum and before bedtime there
        was the closing of a couple more bars...
        a lot of them with live music, which was
        fantasic.  and there was even a door guy
        at one of them that recognized the old man,
        cali native, folk singer named white buffalo
        from a shirt that doug was wearing. 
         talk about a small world.
8.     next day, being a saturday and daylight and
         not rainy, misty, east coast fall weather; we
         hit the town for some history.  made it to the
         granery cemetery where sam adams and john
         hancock are entombed.
IX.    hoped on the grey line trolley for a city tour
         with a guide and ended up getting a free ride
         to THE quincy market.  i guess that somehow
         we got on around stop number 6 and the
         guide just said to pay later.  when we got off
        at stop 1, the beginning and the end of the
        tour. he asked us if we wanted to finish
        [ by visiting stops 2-5 ].   we said nah, we were cool and dropped a tip in his basket. 
        he just let us know that if we want further rides to pay some guy in a booth. 
        otherwise, walk off and have a great day.  we can do that...
ten.  walked around THE market, which is basically one huge food stand.  the markets flanking
        it's sides are full of tourist collection items and a two story, bazillion christmas ornaments
        store.  they literally had a decoration for anything...even hannukah, which i didn't know
        had trees.  there was some cool colonial demonstrations of soldiers marching to drums;
        in wigs.
XI.   deciding that non of us need to get measured for a new bra at the victoria's secret
        promotional bus, we take ourselves west in search of the top of the hub skyline bar and
        and fenway park...the bleacher bar to be exact.  quite an amazing idea.  in the outfield,
        field level, is a huge metal gate that give patrons full view of the game [ if only a game
        were going on while we were there.  well, actually thankfully not.  because otherwise
        we probably wouldn't of been able to make it in the door. ]  the top of the hub was a bit
        of a let down.  not only because the bar and restuarant areas were full so there was not
        much of a chance for us to make ourselves at home.  and not only because to grab a beer
        would of been $10.  but also because, to find the dang-darn thing was a pain in the butt. 
         it's at the top of a hotel, which also happens to have a huge shopping area on the main
        floor.  we ended up at the back side of the food court, with locked doors where
        someone kindly let us in.  swaying back and forth through the crowds and round-a-bout
        placement of shops we finally find the elevators.  maybe we were just not amused,
        because we were cold.  but perhaps we were not amused because we had just
        observed the slow motion fall of a ninty + year old woman.  walking on the sidewalk,
        passing a gathering for some political cause, there just happened to be a small step were
        she was standing and as she moved closer to the street, she just crumbled to the ground. 
        but the sweet part of it to me was that her husband was immediately there to try to help. 
        unfortunately though, he didn't notice the step either, so down he goes!  they created
        quite a pile. 
aside: throughout the day, we were having quite a time trying to knock items off of doug's
         life list...going to a hockey game.  it had been in the possiblities since the beginning of
         planning, but nothing had been set in stone.  well, as the day finally awoke, we decided
         that yes.  yes indeed, we must go to the hockey game.  well unluckily for us, we didn't
         know how hard that would be to do the day of the game.  and it took until just hours
         before the puck drops for us [ meaning anouk, thanks again  :) ] to obtain tickets...

         but we did it!    



L.   hit up the paradise, fairly dive, bar for a pre-game drink and then next door to the B.U. vs U Mass game.  hockey fans are wicked awesome crazy!  got ourselves a couple of fights and found a player with the last name 'megan'.  so essentially, i could become a meghann megan...but i don't really think that i'm into that.    

13.  headed to beantown [ which did not get a rave review from our driving guide of the grey line ], but when you're hungry and it's near the car, you go for what's near.  after food we headed back to the hotel.

n.  the next morning was full of the delivering of goods:  taking anouk to the airport for her flight back to california and then doug to amtrak for is further adventures on the eastcoast with his family.  so sad to loose my travel buddies, but it left me with extra room to collect trinkets in my car!

6teen. i finished up my time in boston with a drive to visit a highschool friend tara at red bones in somerville.  that of course was after learning to drive the 'bah-ston' way...which includes the necessity of u-turns to get going your desired direction, needing to drive down a one way street for a block to make a turn, or just all the one way streets so that three rights make a left.  red bones was a cajun style lunch-in that served amazing fried okra.

next it was off to salem and some more time with jenn in providence.

notable massachusetts:

     1.  there are a lot of drive in movie theatres

     2.   'deaf child' signs.  posted in areas where there are deaf children living.  which i think is a great idea, but it was an interesting sign to see for the first time.

     3.   town names printed on signs placed on each bridge.  i guess so you know where you are in case you feel lost.

      4.  there are signs for town lines, not for the city limits.