Day Four: Shipping Up to Boston

Awoke, showered and left at 7:xx with David. The plan is for me to go straight to Boston, which he'll be back to by Monday from Maine.

Drove back up the South Fork, by ferry to and from Shelter Island, up the North Fork and onto the ferry back to Conneticut all in a sleepy daze. Coffee has done nothing for me. May need to hang myself off the back of the ferry and drag through the salt water to awaken.

Clearer and cooler today.

Haven't been able to find a hairtie since I lost one to the Atlantic. Where the hell did I put those?

The wind does a lot to awaken me. The weather here on the water in the summer is just about perfect, if you don't mind winds that could fling you off the boat.

There's some little kids at the table across from us. The youngest stares at me with the eyes of a cold blooded killer.

I intend to write something a little more detailed about that Spelling Bee musical we saw. Hopefully I'll remember when I'm more lucid.

For whatever reason, Canada Dry ginger ale has become my favored drink on this trip.

I understand why the U.N. colors are white and blue: they're two colors any people can see at least some of the year. Except the English.

The ferry has things resembling airplane seats in the top deck. I look at them with fear and loathing.

The father of the children is far more into the coloring book than they'll ever be.

I know why Family Circus is how it is now: it's something you can rely on. No matter what happens with the world, no matter how terrifyingly unreal current events are, no matter how alien technology becomes, you can rely on the Family Circus to deliver incomprehensibl, bland and surreal non-humor. We could be in the midst of an invasion by ravenous beasts of the unfathomable nether worlds, but even as they lie dying in the muck and blood there will be someone thinking "Well, at least Little Billy is still an insipid little twerp."

There's more large smokestacks out East than back in Portland. While this area was in the midst of the Industrial Revolution, our primary industries were still just logging and slavery.

New London is a neat town. There's a coastal fort here dating back probably to 17XX.

In the middle of the river we've picked up multiple strong WiFi signals from the marinas, but alas, they are not free to use.

I wonder how many New Hampshirites (Hampshireans? Hampshies?) have updated their license plates to read Live Free or Die Hard. Also, the license plates have the New of the name in a cursive font, like it's a recently released improvement upon the old Hampshire.

I'll be scratching sand out of my scalp for weeks.

We are stuck in the mother of all traffic jams. We've been in it since we left Groton, for around half an hour. It continues on out of sight.

The trucker beside us is blasting some sort of Cajun reggae-rap.

There's a Marines truck trailer beside us with a picture of a Marines saber on it, which you can see has been made in Germany

Got through the jam after an hour and forty-five minutes. Several dumpsters had fallen off the back of a truck and were blocking off two lanes. The fire department's canteen truck was there.

Blast - the only Tim Horton's in America are in Rhode Island. Is Rhose Island some part of Canada that fell off, drifted south and slotted into a convenient right angle on the East Coast? It would explain why it's called Rhode Island when it's not a damn island. And there aren't even any really significant islands in the state what the hell is going on here.

Providence is a very beautiful city. It feels like the closest thing an East Coast analogy of Portland.

The few pieces of Brutalist architecture in Providence are very out of place and very hideous.

We went to a sandwich shop called Geoff's, which David described as being 'old and funky even when he was there thirty years ago. It is, indeed, old and funky. It's on Benefit street, which is a wining little street with red brick sidewalks, late 19th century buildings and gas streetlamps. Geoff serves a variety of named sandwiches, such as the Godzilla, the Aristocrat, the Groucho, numerous Doonesbury themed ones and the Sloppy Ho. The owner (who just learned from his employee about square watermelons) and his employee are having a contest to see who makes better sandwiches, and told us to give the sandwiches a 1-10 rating next time we came in. Since I don't think I'll be back in Providence anytime soon (much to my dismay), I will find their contact info and email or phone in the number.

The sandwich is definitely a 9.5.

There seems to be a lot more roadkill (and more variety of it) here than in rural Oregon.

We return to Milton at 2:3X, and I get settled into David's duplex. There are two bus stops within a few blocks of it, and from there I can get to the Red Line and into Boston proper. It's a little more than an hour's journey.

The first stop will probably be the science museum, which sounds a lot like OMSI and was heartily recommended by Catherine.

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