Beantown

Day 80, June 20, 2011, Beantown

0 miles, averaging mph

Route from Littleton to Boston, MA via train & Rocket

Best Moment – Our tour guide told us that if we were going to go to North Boston, we had to stop at Mike’s Pastries.  We did.  OMG!!  It is amazing.  There are two huge showcases with about 5 or 6 clerks behind each one.  They have every kind of pastry imaginable.  I got a rocky road brownie, and Neita chose tiramisu for later.  Mike’s has a distinctive box that they put the pastries in.  We probably had 4 people ask us where Mike’s was and another 3 jokingly try to get the box away from us.  Nearly every other person had a box from Mike’s.  Since the restaurant we ate at didn’t serve dessert, we went back for a limoncello cannoli. Neita, my dessert adverse wife, barely let me have my half of the cannoli.    

Worst Moment – We got back to Rocket just as it was really beginning to get dark  - really dark, and while it wasn’t too far, I had to drive it from the train station back to Ruby – about 3 miles.  I’m not familiar with the area and didn’t like the driving the scooter over every pothole and bump on the road in the fading light.  

It was a Chamber of Commerce day in Boston today.  The weather was glorious and the Bostonians were still feeling the glow of having won the Stanley Cup.  On the train into town, we met our next-door neighbors from the campground.  They are from PA and on their way to very northern Maine.  They’d been in Boston several times and suggested that we take the Duck Tour, saying it was one of the best. (For those who don’t know what a Duck Tour is, it is a tour in an amphibious tank, through the city then on the water. They are available in most cities that have major water around them.)

We did and got to see a lot of the city in a very short time.  Our, duck driver, as required, had all of the stupid jokes, corny puns, and silly one-liners.  Nevertheless, we saw a lot of the city in a short time and didn’t have to drive, bike or walk.  While it was good fun, I can’t say that it was the best Duck Tour.  I’ve not been on all that many, but I liked the one that we did in Seattle a couple of years ago better.

After the tour, we decided that we were going to have dinner at an Italian restaurant in North Boston.  Our tour guide indicated that there were over 100 Italian restaurants in the small area.  (He wasn’t kidding then - every other storefront was one for the entire 3 or 4 blocks of Hanover Street.)

En-route we walked through the Quincy Market Place and Faneuil Hall.  I wanted to see North Church which is in North Boston and where Paul Revere received the message that the “British are coming.”  (Everyone makes a point to set the story straight that the British couldn’t come by sea – they were coming up the river.) The church itself is very impressive.  We got there just as the docent was giving short talk on the history of the church.

Today was a great day!

If you would like to donate to my ride, my link for the Lance Armstrong Foundation is http://grassroots2011.livestrong.org/billsbigride197.  I really appreciate your support.