ON THE TRAIL - 2013

I have had many computer problems this past week. It appears, in hindsight that they were caused by a virus picked up through a motel WIFI  connection. On Saturday, when I was in Kittery, Maine my computer completely crashed. It did a total data “dump” and I got that infamous “BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH”!

That means I got a blue screen with a lot of words that basically said “you cannot fix this, contact a computer expert”.

OK, off to Best Buy, where I bought the computer and where I have had good Geek Squad service in the past. They booted up my laptop, told me it was very bad, and needed a lot of work. It would take 5-6 days. WHOA! I’m on the road, and I really cannot stay in Maine for that long, even though it’s a very nice place.

The BB Geek told me that for another $100, on top of the $200 for the fix, they could have it done by the end of the next day. Wow, I guess I have no choice, so do it.

I hung around being a tourist and enjoying Maine while they fixed it. I got it back at 7:15pm Sunday. It is missing a lot of settings, favorites, software, erc. I headed for Boston in the rain.

I as yet have no e-mail access, and I will spend untold hours getting things somewhat usable. I had planned on going through Boston on Sunday morning to avoid the well-known crazy traffic that would be happening on Monday morning. I got to Boston at about 9 pm in the dark and rain, weekend traffic and road construction. I made a quick decision…I will skip some of the city streets that follow the YT and just take US 20 west out of the area. I did, it was terrible, and I ended up in a rest area on I-90 sleeping in the back of the Kia. I am NOT HAPPY.

In a McDonalds right now somewhere near Worcester, Mass. More later.

DAY 7 – May 17 – MA to ME…Massachusetts to Maine

I was up at 6, went to the lobby that has bullet-proof glass to protect the desk clerk, found a coffee machine, filled my mug with some vile tasting instant coffee and ate two stale powdered sugar donuts. I am out of here!

Well, after one hour and twenty minutes I was able to drive twenty-five miles through downtown Boston during rush hour. Wow, these folks sure do not look out for anyone but themselves, and they drive even worse than those guys in Chicago. I am not in a good mood.

But, the bad coffee, bad donuts, bad drivers, and my bad attitude all sort of melted as I approached Gloucester Village Seaport, home port of the boats written about and shown in the movie titled “The Perfect Storm”. I wandered around town, stopped in a few places, and was overwhelmed by how friendly folks here are, and was stunned by the people who stop in the street and wave you to go ahead to let you turn left or pull out of a drive or side street. Wow, very polite, and Boston’s already just a bad memory.

I had arranged to meet up with a YT fan for a coffee and we had a pleasant conversation about the YT and the local area. I will follow up on that when I get home.

I then took back roads north along the coast, going through Rockport, a tourist version of a fishing village, and continued north through many small towns with lots of New England character.  When I crossed the state line into New Hampshire I noticed large crowds of shoppers everywhere because NH has no state sales tax, so MA folks go there for bargains…that “low prices” store and many others were packed. I reached Portsmouth, NH in short order and then crossed the Piscataqua River into Maine, found a decent motel in Kittery, and explored the area. This is a real fishing town and is also home to the Portsmouth Naval Station, home port to a lot of US Navy ships. I topped off the day with a “full clam dinner” at Bob’s Clam Hut, a local favorite since the 1950s. You order at an outside window, they give you a number and call it out when your order is ready. Find a place to sit down and eat more fried clams and sweet potato fries than you should and you are well-set. It was a very good way to top off my first week “on the road”.

Coming soon, The YT through Boston and westbound through Massachusetts and upstate New York.

DAY 6 – May 16 – Cape Cod Area

I had originally planned on meeting up with a guy just north of Boston today to talk about the YT, but he called me and put it off until Friday morning. So, 1I was off to explore Cape Cod, that long hooked-finger-looking (and expensive) sand spit that curls out and up towards Boston. It wasn’t a bad drive but Rte. 6 is through the center of the Cape and there is no chance of seeing any water whatsoever! I finally took a side road into Chatham and found the harbor area and a park across from the old lighthouse. I parked and got out to look out at the ocean and various sand bars that are visible, when I spotted, way out there, a large number of big black things laying, swimming, or moving on the beach. My guess was that they were Elephant Seals, and after dropping a quarter into one of those pay-telescopes, I confirmed that they were indeed, and there were probably over 200 of them. Wow! I took a photo, but my little camera does not have enough lens power to show much more than a black line of something on the white sand. I continued along back roads for quite a ways up the ocean side of the cape and really enjoyed what scenery I could see when large private estates were not blocking my way. Hey, it’s Cape Cod, summer home of the rich & famous. I waved at the Kennedys when I drove past Hyannis Port, and kept going…I wasn’t invited for lunch. When I reached about the 2/3rds point, I cut back towards the mainland on the bay side. There are a lot of small towns all along the way and offer a lot of shopping and restaurants, and a small harbor full of boats. I did stop for a visit at the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History where I enjoyed the whale, shark, bird, and other wildlife displays. I especially liked the small aquarium area.

When I got back to the mainland, I went back through Plymouth, past the “Rock” and officially began following the route of the Yellowstone Trail towards Boston, through lots of towns but not very interesting. I covered about 30 miles before I cut off to another overpriced “budget” motel conveniently squeezed between a biker bar and a busy expressway and showing the wear and tear of 40 years of one-nighters. I am going to get some sleep and then get out of this big city / tourist / overpriced area for a while.

DAY 5 – May 15 – A Whale of a Time!

When I was at Wood’s Seafood yesterday, I asked about Captain John’s Whale Watching Tour, located right next to the restaurant. They highly recommended it, so I called and made a reservation for this morning on the 8:30 tour…the only one scheduled for the day.

I was up early at the hotel, had a bite to eat and coffee, and headed down to the dock. I found easy parking so I was at the boat by 8:15, with about 6 other folks…and waited around, and waited, and waited while maybe 50 more adults and kids slowly wandered down the dock. Finally, at 9:20 they let us board the boat, we cast off and we were headed twenty miles out into the Atlantic Ocean to the reef where the whales like to feed.

It took about an hour, but it was a beautiful, sunny and cool morning. It’s a great day for a boat ride. Then the Naturalist on board pointed out that the bow of the boat is called twelve o’clock, like a clock has 12 at top center. A short while later she announced on the PA “there’s a whale at two o’clock” and everybody rushed in front of me to that side of the boat. I saw a tiny bit of black whale hump. Every sighting was announced, and the naturalist kept up a running dialog of information. With all of their electronics gear, they are able to identify each whale by name…maybe the whales have a tracking device attached. I also saw a large number of porpoises swimming beside and across in front of the boat. Long story short(er), the naturalist told us on the trip back that we had “contact” with over 50 different whales, at least 15 Humpback, 16 or 17 Minke, and a few other assorted smaller whales. It was a lot of fun.

I could not get a good photo with everyone rushing to whatever rail was closest to that sighting, so I put my camera away and just enjoyed seeing so many whales so close…some within 25 feet of the boat as we quietly idled among them. We even saw a number of them “blow” the water out of their blow-hole (or whatever that’s called). After two hours, we returned to Plymouth, another one-hour ride. Nice day! It was well worth the $45.00 I paid.

DAY 4 – May 14 – To Plymouth Rock!

Left 8:45 am    Sunny with temps in the 50s. My GPS took me a long way through old city streets in Schenectady and Albany before I got to the I-90 bypass. It was a nice ride from there through some very pleasant parts of the Berkshires…they call them mountains…that are reminiscent of the hills and bluffs in western Wisconsin near the Mississippi River. It is very pretty country. Traffic increased as I neared Boston but my route took me around on I-495.

While cruising along, I suddenly saw a cloud of dust and a sudden movement ahead of me that came from a large boat (maybe a 24 foot offshore cruiser) and trailer that had disconnected from a big Ford dually pickup.

When the tongue of the trailer hit the road, the whole works went up into the air, with the boat leaving the trailer, the trailer doing about a triple-flip in the air before smashing into the guardrail. The boat that had gone straight up and came straight down, hit the pavement and skidded until it stopped crossways in the middle of the Interstate. This happened in the time it took me to hit my brakes and swerve to my right without hitting anything and come almost to a stop. Luckily, traffic was light and the other cars behind me also slowed with no danger to me or others. We all slowly drove past the whole mess. That was too close!

Lesson: Make sure your hitch is locked on, use safety chains on the hitch, and tie the boat down to the trailer. The truck was all painted up and belonged to a Marina boat dealer. You would think they would know how to pull a trailer…I guess not!

Well, after that excitement, it was time for a bathroom break and gas stop.

I then continued on into Plymouth, Mass., home of the famous “ROCK”.

FYI: 1. that rock may not be the actual rock that those Pilgrims landed on and it supposedly came from about three miles from where it is now enshrined.

2. It is about the size of a coffee table, it would fit into the back of my Kia. I remember from grade school that the “Rock” was some really big landmark, it’s not really big, but it is a landmark.

3. One more thing…the Pilgrims actually first landed on Cape Cod, but decided to move across the bay to the site of present-day Plymouth after about six weeks. What’s up with the “first landing at Plymouth Rock” story?

Oh well. Plymouth is a thriving tourist town now and you can get fresh lobster in many of the multitude of restaurants in town.  And, you may be able to find a t-shirt or postcard for sale. {:>)

My lobster was live, dropped into a boiling kettle of water, and served whole. It’s kind of messy cracking the tail and claws open, but yummy. Very nice for a $14.99 full dinner…and I saw the boat bringing in the lobsters as it pulled up to the dock behind Wood’s Restaurant, where I ate. Thanks to John Ridge for the “must eat at this place” tip.

The only point of my visiting the “Rock” is that the motto of the Yellowstone Trail is: “A Good Road from Plymouth Rock to Puget Sound”.  That was a catchy way of saying coast-to-coast.

So, here I am. After I explore, in the next few days, a bit of Cape Cod, the sea coast areas south and north of Boston, and go on a whale watching boat cruise, I will be following the YT back towards home. I have many maps to use and verify, and to make notes or corrections on.

DAY 3 – May 13 –Schenectady - 6 States / 3 Days

I Left the motel at 6:15 am.

I have been in parts of Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York since Saturday.  Woke at 3 (couldn’t sleep), got up at 4, had some coffee, fought with e-mail problems.  Cloudy, windy, and cold with 40s temps and light rain showers.  I planned a visit to the Remington Arms Co. Museum & Factory in Ilion, NY …but that was a bust. My first shotgun was an old Remington Model 10 pump that I bought for $15 from a retired guy on my paper route who no longer hunted. I have owned at least one Remington gun and usually 3 or 4 since then. Their current website brags about their wonderful antique firearms museum, so I drove a long ways out of my way and wondered why there were no signs anywhere. After wandering around for a while, I came across a really big and very old and decrepit looking unmarked brick factory that must cover 20 or 30 square blocks right in the middle of town. It looks like it was built to make guns for the Civil War. After driving around three sides of it, I finally saw a small Remington sign. I could not find any Museum or visitors center so I finally pulled up to a truck entrance gate and asked the security guard where the heck the museum was…I jokingly told him “I drove 900 miles to visit the museum and I can’t find it”. He replied “you wasted the trip, the museum closed a couple years ago”!

I made Schenectady by 2:00 pm, found a motel and took a nap. McD’s for dinner. Another 300 miles today, about 900 total so far.

DAY 2 - May 12 - Toledo to Buffalo                                                                                           Left 8:45 am, 38 degrees…“An unseasonably cold air mass will continue to take hold across much of the Eastern part of the Nation.”

Up at 6:30, coffee, net, hotel breakfast of mini-muffins, left 8:45. Light rain at times, and cloudy. I had only brief views of Lake Erie while driving almost the entire length of it, until I got near Buffalo…where I could see that it was very windy with giant waves crashing over break walls there…I’ll bet no one was walleye fishing today. I checked into a motel that was so bad that I checked back out and went to a nearby one that was a little better. Convenience store turkey sandwiches for supper. Ah, the joys of travel!