So I looked out this morning and the sun was gone, turned on some music to start my day, lost myself in a familiar song, closed my eyes and I slipped awaaaaa… no wait, that’s not right.

On second thought, that WAS how I started my first morning in Boston. Heh. After a hot shower and a quick breakfast at a restaurant next door, it was off to the Boston Commons to begin my walk on the Freedom Trail.

It's beginning to snow at the Boston Commons!

By this time it was already snowing, yet nothing so severe that it would ruin my morning (and the rest of my time here.) I took the T line again and got out at the foot of the famous park, taking a quick walk around to find a few hidden geocaches and then doubling back to start the Freedom Trail.

Seriously, they could have dressed up the beginning of the trail with a bit more fanfare than this.

After a few stops, I eventually found myself at King’s Chapel, and tried to get a shot off at an angle so I could capture the entire steeple of the huge church, when the camera slipped right out of my gloved hands and hit the pavement with a sickening crack.

Bostonians within a block of me all turned their heads in the direction of the girlie shriek they had just heard.

I quickly picked up the camera hoping it was shockproof enough to withstand the impact, but I could see the lens was already cracked. My beloved Canon had just taken what would be its last ever picture.

The last picture my Canon would ever take.

It had to happen RIGHT before getting to Granary Cemetery too, the site of many famous burials, including Samuel Adams, Paul Revere, John Hancock, and so many others. My only option was to use my camphone in the meantime, until I could get back to the parking garage to get my older, backup Olympus camera. Thank goodness I thought to take it with me, even though it was old, bulky and slow. Now it was all I had left to use while I was here.

Grave of Samuel Adams

After the cemetery I stopped by the old South Street House and decided to spend a few minutes there out of the cold and the snow. I’m glad I did too. The building was quiet and homey, so I took some time to sit down in one of the pews and relax, amazed that I was in the very same building where Samuel Adams gave the signal that launched the start of the Boston Tea Party.

Taking a breather inside a famous U.S. landmark.

After getting warmed up again, I decided to leave and visit the old State House before getting back to the garage. The state house was also a museum, which included a gallery of old photos in the basement chronicling Boston’s history. By this time the snow had now turned to hard rain, forcing me to conclude the Freedom Trail for the day. I got to the garage and got out my old camera, testing it to make sure everything still worked fine.

And of course the flash was broken.

Walking through history, even in the rain!

Good grief, this was turning out to be one camera killing trip. I grabbed it anyway and headed out again, running as fast as I could back to the hotel as the rain pelted me mercilessly. I spent the rest of the afternoon vegging out in my room, watching the rain outside and and deciding to order in so I could give my feet a rest. Which I might add is a mistake in Boston. Between the delivery charges and the gratuities and the absurd prices for beverages, I was paying close to $40 for a small dinner. What, does Boston have something against introverts who hate dining out? Yeesh.

By now the full brunt of the storm had descended on Boston, but I had lucked out, either due to being awesomely awesome, or being so hot that I kept the entire city warm, because it had never snowed more than an inch. New York had gotten walloped with over 15 inches of snow, but Boston received but a light dusting. The roads and sidewalks would still be free and clear for me to conclude the Freedom Trail and visit a few other sites for the rest of the week.

But for now, it was time to rest and enjoy my $40 dinner. Oh, and do some research online for a new camera.

Tags: boston, Boston Commons, burials, camera, canon, cemetery, church, freedom trail, geocaches, Granary Cemetery, graves, history, King's Chapel, museum, Old State House, photo, Photos, Samuel Adams, South Street House
Categories: Lincoln's Personal Log
 
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So yesterday I took a trip to Sleepy Hollow and Tarrytown for the day. Why you ask? Because I just like to do stupid, random crap for no particular reason at all. Plus I hear the babes like that sort of thing, so consider this my way of practicing.

My first stop was at a local park that offered a magnificent view of the Tappan Zee Bridge. They had an awesome boardwalk literally next to the Hudson River, making for a lovely and quiet morning walk. That is, it would have been a lovely walk had I not run into this:

Yep, that pretty much sums up my life.

I could have hopped the fence, but this was me we’re talking about. Anybody else, they’d do it, have a smoke and a beer on the boardwalk and be none the wiser. I do it, and 15 minutes later I’ll be calling Mommy in a state of panic because I’m only allowed to make one phone call.

Still, I managed to get some purdy shots off where I could:

The awesomest thing was finding a… cherry tree? I think that’s what it was, but it was a tree unlike any tree I had seen before:

Mmm, now to find a tree that grows the Reddit Whip.

Next stop: The cemetery! I hadn’t realized it, but Washington Irving was buried here after all. I got to see the Irving family plot, and his original grave too:

Dude, seriously, could you stop throwing change at me? I'm not a wishing well.

We chatted for a while, and Irvie provided some helpful tips to improve my writing. Try as I might though, I couldn’t get him to understand the concept of blogging. Ah well. I paid my respects and moved on, eventually discovering Andrew Carnegie’s grave:

Ironically, Carnegie's grave here is just a stone's throw away from Samuel Gomper's, the founder of the American Federation of Labor.

Not sure he liked the idea of a unionized worker prancing around on his grave though, so conversation was minimal at best.

I have to admit this was an interesting and pretty cemetery. Lots of picturesque views to be found here, but then of course, my hated arch-nemesis that is poison ivy just HAD to go and announce its presence much to my chagrin:

*Shudder* Good grief, they were EVERYWHERE, vines jetting out wherever I walked, like willowy arms stretching forth from the very bowels of hell itself, reaching out to pull me into its itchy darkness from whence there is no return.

I tried to put those thoughts behind me though, and drove around again until I came across Rockefeller’s grave, a mausoleum bigger than even the biggest house I’ve ever lived in:

Look at meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

This was actually William Rockefeller, the younger brother of John D. Rockefeller. He was supposed to be the nice one from what I heard. Still, this mausoleum was arguably the biggest one in the entire cemetery, roughly in the middle and on top of the highest hill, so that Willie can continue to lord over all, even in death. And… the mausoleum was locked too. Dweeb.

I moved on and eventually discovered even William Chrysler was interred here:

Would this be a bad time to tell you I drive a Hyundai?

I was nice enough to spare him the gory details of what’s been happening with his company lately, but I couldn’t resist telling him I drive a foreign SUV.

All in all a fascinating cemetery, with some humor here and there to boot:

Now there's an appropriate name.

Whoa... bad omen, dude.

I then moved on to another nearby park, offering even more magnificent views of the Hudson and some rare trees as well. While I was walking I happened to notice this one atop a hill, which stuck out like a sore thumb because it was the only white birch tree around:

Ok, yeah, so I'm white. You got a problem with that?

And what’s Sleepy Hollow without its trees too? This was another one of the rare specimens I’ve found, again a tree unlike any tree I had seen before:

You were awesome in Lord of the Rings by the way.

It provided an umbrella covering and almost felt like you were walking around in a room instead of around a tree. Really beautiful, the kind of scenery that made me wished for a minute that there had been a special girl right there with me to share a romantic moment with, and some side order of playing suck face too. Ah well.

Eventually I turned back and went into town, getting pizza, a coke (and this came in the traditional hourglass bottle too!) before moving on for a “quick” half mile hike into the woods.

Sometimes I wish I were hiking on a yellow brick road instead.

That actually wasn’t too bad.. until it started going up a steep incline. After gasping for breath and sweating even from my eyeballs, the ground finally leveled off for a bit. Then I saw some movement in the bushes and just about had a heart attack. Coyotes! The Headless Horseman! OMG ImgonnadieImgonnadieImgonnadie!!!!

But no, it was a deer. Whoooooooooo…

It just kind of looked at me curiously, then started prancing around. I was too tired to prance along with it, so I just kept going. Then I saw more movement: a figure shaped much like a velociraptor from the movie Jurassic park. What the…

Then again… fast as lightning, circling around me. Ok dude, seriously, I’m not cool with this. Deer I can handle, but I, sir, am an urbanite, and my idea of the great outdoors involves nothing more than an outside table at Starbucks. I mean people do this for FUN? Really? Camping amongst poison ivy and deer ticks and coyotes and little baby raptors running around waiting to sink their teeth into me and eat my face off?

More movement, and then a strange gurgling sound. WHAT IS THAT!??!?

Then I finally recognized it: wild turkeys. Not baby raptors ready to gnaw my face off, just a few scared turkeys jutting around me.

Whooooooooooooooo… Breathe boy, breathe…

By this time it was starting to get dark, and even though I was dead tired from the half-mile hike, I suddenly found I had more than enough energy to run like a thief in the night back to the parking lot, convinced that after the deers and the turkeys, the coyotes would soon follow, and THAT was not something I wanted to see right now.

Day quickly became night as I arrived back at the parking lot, hugging my car like a long lost friend.

Well! That was fun! Let’s do that again, like say, never? Well maybe I will try it again, if I had certain… motivational incentive to do so…

Update: You can view the rest of the set from Sleepy Hollow at Flickr.

Tags: cemetery, death, deer, graves, hiking, park, poison ivy, sleepy hollow, tarrytown, tombstones, town, trail, trees, wild turkeys, willow
Categories: Lincoln's Personal Log
 
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I’ve had all week off from work due to finagling my time around and connecting Election Day and Veterans Day to my usual time off. One of the reasons October/November continues to be my favorite months.

But then of course, it rains. And rains, and rains, and rains, and rains, and rains… Man, I don’t think I’ve seen the sun since Monday. This dude is not pleased.

So instead, I opt to go to the movies, but this time I wanted to check out one that had closed captioning available. There was only one nearby that captioned a movie I wanted to see (2012), so I decided to check it out.

I knew I was in for another whirly day when my GPS wouldn’t accept the address I put in. Sigh. Instead I drove to the location and of COURSE on the way I run into a MASSIVE traffic jam. Cars upon cars upon cars upon cars, and always the guy in front of me drives too slow while the guy behind me drives too fast. By the time I had reached my destination I was gripping the wheel so hard my knuckles were white. I was about THISCLOSE to flipping my lid and playing real life bumper cars.

By the time I got there the movie was just about to start. Only problem is, I arrived in front of a gas station.

Where between heaven and hell WAS this movie theater? Google Maps says it’s supposed to be right here, and Google never lies, @&%^!

I drove some more, than drove back again. After about a few miles I see a small sign indicating a movie theater was nearby. Turns out Google Maps was about 5 miles off the mark. By the time I had finally gotten to the right spot the movie had already started 30 minutes ago.

Sigh. It was just as well, the theater looked packed, and if there was one thing I could not abide by, it was the obnoxious, ugly weekend crowd of skanky kids, tired looking parents and stupid teenage couples getting all up in my space as I try to enjoy what more than likely turns out to be a sucky movie.

Not really what I had in mind to cap off my last week off from work. Grrrr.

Ah well, I might be able to redeem myself yet if it stops raining tomorrow. I’ll be heading off to Sleepy Hollow then for some geocaching and cemetery exploring. Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig’s graves will be nearby too, so I might go see that as well. My coworker of course will wrinkle his nose at the thought of me going off to see a few Yankee ballplayers, but then again what else can you expect from a disgruntled Mets fan.

Pray I don’t get ticks or run into snakes or anything. I really, really hate bugs, and I really, REALLY hate snakes. Why can’t these people hide geocaches in like a Starbucks or something? Sheesh.

Tags: captioning, cemetery, crowd, geocache, geocaching, google maps, gps, movie, movie theater, theater, traffic, weekend
Categories: Lincoln's Personal Log
 
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