Adventurenet.net

Thursday August 15th, 2024 (Birthday)

Up super early in the morning to catch a flight to Boston.

We poked around about whether it would be better to take Amtrak or a plane and the plane won. It seems that if we had picked middle of the week dates that Amtrak would have been the pick, though.

Airports are annoying and I figure if a rail ride is under 4 hours I’d rather deal with train nonsense than plane nonsense.

So I snuck out very early to catch a bus to the airport.

Lauri left a nice note for me.

How thoughtful. 🥰

I love her.

(Don’t tell her, though. She’ll get a big head.)

Queens in the wee morning hours.

The bus was chill.

I really thought about taking an Uber or something since there was a long walk to get to the bus line that I needed, but $3 vs $20+ I went ahead and made the walk.

It was a good walk. I’m glad I didn’t spend the extra cash. That’s price difference is enough for a modest meal during the trip.

It’s a good bus.

Security here at LaGuardia Airport is slightly more chill. No need to take my laptop out of my backpack.

I did forget to take off my shoes and had to put those in the tub before going into the YMCA dance pose machine.

Oops. Airport security is annoying, but this one was less annoying than most. Very short line. I was through in about five minutes. I would grade this a C for a travel experience, but an A for an airport.

As for the flight, the airplane had an error code that needed to be cleared and approved before we could take off. After boarding the airplane we pulled towards the takeoff runway and sat parked for about 45 minutes.

But this was a short flight. Just over an hour. No biggie.

As I was trying to find the best way out of the Boston airport I heard over the intercom “Levi, please come to gate one. We have a personal item of yours.”

I lost my keys on a plane once, so I was happy that they had called me over the intercom for this one. I didn’t get that the last time.

I went through my pockets while trying to find the best way to get back through security and nothing seemed to be missing and so I flagged down a man who worked for Delta and he made a quick call about my lost item.

It was an air pod. I shoed the Delta man that I had mine in my case and he relayed the message back to the other team.

No one else’s name got called.

Whoever lost their air pods, I feel for you.

Now to figure out the transit situation here in Boston.

They don’t take credit cards so I can try the phone app, but it looks like I should have a Charlie card.

There is an unlimited pass for busses and trains for $10 for one day or $20 for seven days. I’m here for four, so I’ll get the seven day pass and try to pass the card to someone else when I’m leaving. (Spoiler, I forgot to give the card away and threw it in a recycle bin a week later).

Successful purchase. Off to Wonderland.

I mean “an Air BnB.”

Look at this delightful book store near the BnB!

The Air BnB host is the best. I arrive about two hours before my check in time because I am hoping that I can leave my big backpack behind and just tote around my day pack, but the host was kind enough to take care of my room right away.

I was able to check in early.

🎉

I made friends with their cat Klaus while waiting in the den, researching how I will spend my day.

Klaus is cool.

Until he’s not.

Mr. Stumpy Tail.

The room is ready! Let’s head upstairs and take a peek at where I will be spending the next three nights sleeping.

Puh-retty good.

Rooms on the second and third floor.

Both floors have a bathroom and laundry.

Second floor has a kitchen and the den as well.

Most of the national monuments are in Boston so I’ll start this trip in Salem for the northernmost one.

Tomorrow I’ll grab the ones in Boston this way Salem & Boston are knocked out on a thursday & a friday.

There’s something in Boston that’s not open on the weekends as well.

I can’t remember…

Speaking of forgetting things, I forgot to bring my national park passport book.

Hopefully the place in Salem has the stamp sticker things.

Also my phone battery charger isn’t working very well.

We plugged it in all night, but now it’s dead.

Not a great thing to happen at the beginning of the trip, but I’ll look into this more later. I just need to remember to be careful with my phone so that I don’t wear it down and have trouble finding my way back to the BnB.

I’ll move the charging cord into my day pack in case I do need to plug in for a bit.

I was hoping to write a postcard while waiting for my room, but I currently have no available slots on my postcrossing account to send another.

I’ll send Tony a card. I have one from L.A. that I’ve been saving for him. (He’s from California).

Off to Salem!

Check out this old building at the bus stop.

Train time. Let’s take a closer look at this phone charger.

Uh oh. It’s bulging.

That’s a sure sign that it’s going bad.

This is a problem for later today Levi.

I also don’t think my Charlie card scanned right when I got on the bus, but the driver told me to go ahead and take a seat.

I swear I bought the bus & train deal. I hope I didn’t spend $20 on a pass that doesn’t work.

For now, we Salem.

First sighting of a witch themed store.

Our first location is the home of the cancellation stamp: The Waite & Pierce Park Store.

It is a beautiful gift shop with many maritime delights like fancy compasses.

Six new staps have been added to the National Park passport book and the worker was kind enough to also share advice about which sites to see in the area.

List of cancellation stamps

• “The Friendship”
• Waite & Pierce
• Derby House
• Narbonne House
• Derby Light
• America’s First

Great news! The Custom House across the street is about to open!

Oh, and there’s ocean stuff happening behind the park store.

While walking to the Custom House an old lady sitting outside of a building waved and yelled “Hi!” to me. I waved and yelled “Hi!” back.

Here is the building (she would be just to the left if I had taken the picture with her in it).

I wonder what this place is? It has a sign.

How about that?

If there’s ever a “Home for aged dudes” I plan on sitting outside of it and yelling “Hi.” to folks as well before they see the sign.

That lady is a genius.

The Custom House.

This place is a port authority. Imports are inspected and taxed.

It is also the former worksite of author Nathaniel Hawthorne who wrote The Scarlet Letter.

Just cut off, on the right side of the above picture is a hydrometer used for measuring alcohol content. I just watched a video about these and I can see that they are still used today.

They have a giant metal safe that sits on top of a metal floor.

I am told that if they tried to move this to the side over the wooden floor, it would fall through.

Check out these old weight machines.

Did you know that to work here you had to provide your own desk?

It was a good job, though.

Hawthorne was appointed to the position by president Polk.

There is an eagle on top of the building.

The original is housed inside of the building, now.

Look into his eyes of America.

It is a nice building.

Behind building there is also an entrance to the basement where goods were stored in case where the taxes could not be paid.

Captains could pay for what they could and then sell a few wares and come back for the rest.

There is another separate shed in the back that houses more weight machines.

And of course a secret shuttered window entrance.

I wonder what’s back there?

No trespassing signs.

Makes sense.

Nex to the Derby House.

There’s def a witch group hanging out behind this place.

I can tell they’re witches.

They were sitting in a circle.

And they had piercings.

Witches, I tell you!

(No hate. Do your thing.)

2:00 pm

There is a ranger offering tours here.

During this tour I learned that privateers are basically legalized piracy. I had no idea.

This house is extra fancy.

For example, on the stairway each pole on the banister is unique.

I also learned that the Old Spice logo is the ship The Grand Turk which was built here.

Life of the rich and famous.

Not a patch of the original wallpaper used to replicate the design for the rest of the room.

Check out this original piece of clothing and fancy green fabric.

A delightful tour. I plan on sending Ranger Peter a nice thank you postcard.

2:25 pm Time to eat.

Mercy Tavern.

As I often do when I go out to eat, I explain that I do not eat pork or shellfish and I ask what the server suggests. Per usual, I follow this with “What do you eat here?”

Fish tacos is the sugestion.

I have never had fish tacos before.

In fact I can probably count the times I’ve eaten fish on my fingers.

I ordered a Hello Good to drink since I am not driving and an order of fish tacos.

This was a fantastic meal and I was able to rest my feet after wandering around the gift shop and touring two historical buildings.

I also may have drunk texted my pal Tony with a postcard.

Here is their bathroom graffiti.

There is a pier nearby that has something at the end, I’ll go check that out now and then figure out what to do next.

Back to the gift shop area!

Oh, they’re building something out here.

But then it started to rain.

I checked the radar and a storm is heading my way.

I did not get to see the thing at the end of this path. Maybe it’s a lighthouse?

Time to head back towards the train station. If I see a drug store, I’ll try to grab an umbrella.

There’s a nice shopping center here that has a CVS & a Walgreens.

At the Walgreens I bought a nice umbrella & a battery pack to charge my phone.

I also got to be a light fixture catching hero.

I admit it. That’s an exaggeration, but I did help someone.

A worker was cleaning a light fixture attached to a wall unit and accidentally dislodged it, so I ran over to hold it in place so that she could move it back into the latches that hold it to the wall.

Light saved.

It’s good that it rained when it did, forcing me to head back to the Air BnB.

I’m so tired thanks to starting the day at three ante meridiem.

Caught myself micro-napping on the train ride back to the Air BnB.

It was a good time to shut down for the day.

I didn’t bring enough charger cords.

I have a USB-C fast charger that I’m using on my phone, but I want to recharge the new battery pack as well.

This ended up working out because I instantly fell asleep when I hit the bed and then woke up around 10 pm and swapped devices on the cord.

Tomorrow the plan is to visit Boston as the Ether Dome is only open on weekdays.

On Saturday we’ll go to Providence, Rhode Island and Sunday is unplanned. We’ll see how we’re feeling as the day draws near.

This is a good start.

Thank you Salem.

Now to send a thank you postcard to Ranger Peter for the amazing Derby House tour.