First Day Trip of the Year!

I have desperately.....desperately...needed to get out of town.  I chose Boston for my first day trip because I wanted to see the Public Gardens in full bloom, plus once it gets hot and humid, traipsing around the city is no fun at all.  

I took the 7:55 AM bus from Sagamore.  Here it comes!  It costs $33 round trip, but it's so worth it to have someone else do the driving.  Plus it can use the HOV lane and bypass the bumper to bumper commuter traffic.  I don't know how people do that every day.  You see the electronic signs that show how far/how long it is to the next major highway and I'm sorry but '5 miles/40 minutes' is just insane.

You can see how empty the HOV lane is compared to the traffic on 93 to the right.

The iconic 'Chinaman' tank in Dorchester.  I know that's not very 'PC' to refer to it that way but everyone in the region calls it The Chinaman.  It was painted by Corita in the 70s and the blue looks like a Chinese man with a long beard (he's facing left)

After I got off the bus at South Station, I first headed towards the Children's Museum so I could shoot the big milk bottle.  I think this is some kind of complex string art.  I don't know how they got it hung without tangling. 

Crossing over the water and looking at Atlantic Wharf.

Didn't even know there was a Tea Party museum over there.

Now I can check this one off the local bucket list.

Back over the bridge.

Saw some Patriots at the Tea Party Museum.

I love this mural.

South Station.

Then I walked through Downtown Crossing on my way to explore Beacon Hill, which was my old stomping ground at Emerson.  This orange sign is really faded now but it's been there since the 70s. It's one of the last remaining signs in this area, that I remember from when I lived there 30 years ago. I cannot believe it's been that long.

Now I am up on Beacon Hill and let me tell you, I could spend hours and hours exploring and shooting every nook and cranny up there.  It's sooooo picturesque.

Tons of these little 'hobbit doors' as I call them, that lead to basement apartments.

Love the brick work and architecture so much.

Louisburg Square is one of the most expensive places in the USA to live.

It's gorgeous.  I'm not sure I would want to live here....it's a little too cramped for my liking but I'm sure those buildings have spacious rooms.  Parking can't be very easy, although it is for residents only.

This is the other side of the square on Pinckney Street.

Looking up the hill on Pinckney Street.  The trees were amazing with all the white blossoms.

There are tons of these courtyards with lamp posts and that's what I love the best about Beacon Hill.

Two such court yards always stuck in my head from my Emerson days.  This is Primus Avenue. I always loved the gate, although back in the day it was usually open but it was locked now.

This is my absolute favourite one on the hill: Champney Place.  I was sooooo happy to see that it hadn't changed one bit since I last saw it in the mid-80s.

I don't know what this used to be but it's so unusual and somewhat out of place for an alley but someone has kept up with the white paint.

Stay tuned for more!

"Admiral! There Be Whales Here!"

A pod of right whales showed up in Cape Cod Bay late last week and hung around for quite a few days feeding and frolicking, much to the delight of the region's residents.  I was unable to get down to the beach till early yesterday morning, and I figured with my 'day late and a dollar short' luck, I'd be looking at water and nothing else.  They have been seen from Sagamore Beach up to South Plymouth, so I went to Sagamore.  While they weren't as close to shore as they were over the weekend, I did manage to get some spout pics that pleased me.  (BTW, the blog post title is a quote from Mr. Scott to Admiral Kirk in "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home").

I think that's a tail, not dorsal fin.

This tail appeared so fast that I barely had a chance to get off a shot.  Plus I was really far away and it was hard to tell what it was.  

Last one, as they all moved far out into the Bay.

Scusset breakwater as seen from Sagamore Beach.

Like I wasn't going to look for beach glass while I was there!  This was an amazing find.  It's a very unusual shade of blue.

Despite being about 8:15, it was very warm in the sun.  Winds were calm.

Nice piece of cobalt!

Sagamore Beach glass finds.

Killing Time at Boardwalk

Was in town earlier this week and had some time to kill between lunch with a dear friend and an appointment in Mashpee so I headed over to Boardwalk for a walk.  And I was also on a mission.

One of my best friends' mother asked me if I could find and shoot a pic of the board with her son's name on it.  Arthur was killed in an accident in the mid-80s and his older brother had this board done in the 90s.  

So I kept walking to the other side of the Boardwalk because I saw that a whole new dune was built to try and stop the rampant erosion.  That's the light coloured strip at the horizon.  

Not terribly warm out but nice to take a quick walk anyway.  So that's the new dune over there.  I hope it stays...they've replanted the beach grass too.

The stairs are still gone so I just stood on the platform at the other end and took this pic looking towards Old Harbour.

And towards the Canal.

Then I walked over to the marshes as the tide was between high and low.

New beach grass.

So as you can see, the poor Boardwalk has been knocked quite a bit off kilter in the storms.  It's walkable, but there are a lot of waves in it, and it shakes pretty bad too.

I just love this board.  It's a replacement since the snowstorms this year.  That's just a natural pattern in the wood.  Looks like trees.

Love the clouds.  Assuming that's an osprey nest.