Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Hey, Beantown

I was stooping down to rinse a seashell in the ocean waters of Falmouth, at the southwestern tip of Cape Cod, and became struck with an awful sense of finality.  Eight weeks and two days prior, I woke up in my family's boat in Dana Point Harbor, splashed the Pacific for the last time in who knows how long and hit the road.  I had gone as far east as I could go and I was to sell my car - ending the road trip.

Trying to sell my car proved to be much more miserable than I had planned on.  Shopping it around Boston, I was never offered as much as half as my car's bluebook value, keeping money I needed out of reach.  On top of that, the camera I had bought for my road trip - which I had to send back to Sony's repair center who took the entirety of five weeks to repair it and send it back to Dana Point so it could be forwarded to me in Boston - came back to my hands more broken than I had sent it originally (and without the battery!).  Despite my shopping in D.C., Pittsburgh, Toronto, Montreal, and Boston, I couldn't find a wool-less coat that appealed to me, and I ended up having a lot more stuff in my car to manage than I realized.  All the while New York was drawing closer and the logistical stress was building in my stomach to the point I was sure I was going to vomit.

I solved all my problems by ignoring them.  I decided to keep my car for the time being - I found a great deal on a place to stash it in Long Island while I bummed around Brooklyn -, I went way over budget on an amazing coat, and I bought a micro 4/3rds camera that I have been coveting for some time now.  And all for much less than the price hit I'd have to swallow for trying to sell my car quickly.  Not ideal, but the stress was gone and my spirit had returned.

Boston:










I spent my last night in Massachusetts at a friend's condo in Provincetown, a small city at the very tip of Cape Cod, once a settlement for the pilgrims (an earlier attempt than Plymouth Rock even), and now a mostly gay resort town with an annual population of around 3,000 that quintuples during the Summer months.  It was a good time and it was nice to see some sand and trees before my drive to New York.

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