Looks like the heat wave is finally breaking. It's also generally about 10 degrees cooler down here in Martha's Vineyard than it is up in Boston. So, here's my daily recap:
Left Boston at 9 AM this morning and made my way over to Quincy to go to the Adams National Historic Park. It's actually spread out over a couple different sites in the area, containing the birth places for both John Adams and John Quincy Adams (right next door to each other), and the "Old House", which passed through 4 generations of the Adams family, starting with John and Abigail. For only $5 (free if you have an interagency pass like I do), you get a trolley ride between each of the sites and tours of all 3 buildings. It takes about 2 hours and is a great deal. With the heat, however, the houses are quite warm - there is no central air conditioning in the historic houses, although they do have space air conditioners in most rooms, so it's not crazy stifling. The birth place houses have recreations of most of the artifacts in them, and they're not safe enough to go up to the second floors. So those are interesting enough, but, for me, the real draw is in the big house. Lots of original paintings, including ones of George and Martha Washington, and, of course, all the Adamses, lots of original furniture and books and artifacts. A very cool site. I definitely recommend checking it out.
I then drove down to Duxbury, where I was planning on going to the Winslow House, which is the house of some old lawyer, but it was closed due to the excessive heat. I instead went over to the Alden House, which was the house of a couple that came over on the Mayflower. The house stayed in the family for something like 3 centuries, so that's pretty impressive. No air conditioning at all in this house, but it wasn't awful. The house was pretty interesting. Old houses tend to become a little indistinguishable after a while. When I was growing up and my family road tripped, we used to go to Indian ruins. Now those really run together. Especially as a kid, I thought that every single pile of bricks looked exactly like the last pile of bricks. At least now with these houses I'm visiting, I have an eye to be able to notice variations between time periods, geographic regions, and the relative wealth of the owners. That's what makes all these houses interesting - the differences between them.
I then drove over to Plymouth and had some lunch at a local seafood place, the Lobster Hut, where I had fried oysters and lobster bisque. Yummy! I hit up one winery in town - more fruit wines up here. I'm looking forward to getting down to Virginia for some more standard wines.
After crossing down to Cape Cod, I hit up a glass blowing place. I missed out on being able to see the glass blowing take place - that ends at 4 PM, but I picked up a couple pieces. I then killed some time, folded my laundry that I washed in Boston but never bothered folding, and took a nap before heading the rest of the way down to the ferry. No problems at all getting on and off the ferry. I drove over to the bed & breakfast where I'm staying and got settled in.
I was listening to a Rick Steves podcast the other day where he was talking with Samantha Brown, another travel host and they were talking about their routines for settling in when they get to a hotel. Well, I'm not staying in a lot of hotels, but I do have a routine. It mostly involves technology. First thing I do is to adjust the temperature in the room as necessary, via air conditioner, thermostat, fan, or what have you. I then determine where all the outlets in the room are and which are available and closest to where I need them. I plug in and turn on my computer, and then determine the wireless situation. I connect my computer, iPad, and iPhone all to the wireless. Then I unmake the bed, discarding extraneous pillows, throws, and whatnot and untuck the sheets & blankets so that the bed is to my liking. I then unload my toiletry kit, and maybe unpack my overnight bag (or just live out of the bag for the duration of the stay). It is only at this point that I feel settled in.
Tonight, I got to FaceTime with some of my theatre buddies down in Austin. So great to see them! It's so weird not being involved in the show at all this summer. I hope to go back next year.
Looking forward to exploring Martha's Vineyard tomorrow!
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