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Boston, Massachusetts
I'm shipping off to find my wooden leg
I’m not sure exactly how many times I’ve been to Boston, but it’s far less than Washington DC or Philadelphia, and far less than I have been to Maine. Maybe in all these years I’ve been there (let’s just say) fifteen times. But even having been there (let’s just say) fifteen times, this was only the first time since my first visit that I bothered to visit the 50th floor of the Prudential Center, where a great view of the city and the river and the harbor has always been available for anyone who bothered to try.
Of the (let’s just say) fifteen times I have been to Boston, I have either driven, flown or, in this case, taken an Acela up from New York Penn, with pretty views along the Connecticut coast and speeds that are generally best to not think about. From South station, it’s only a ten (or maybe fifteen) minute walk to DS+R's best building, the ICA, a great little building housing a pretty good little art museum.
This is the (somewhat flimsy) reason that I felt the need to go up to Boston this time. A brand new (and crazy busy) addition to the MFA (Museum of Fine Arts) by (shockingly) not Renzo Piano but rather Lord Norman Foster. The addition has a fantastic central space followed by an odd gallery layout that most likely made sense to whoever was drawing it at the time.
This was probably (let’s just say) the fifteenth time I've been to Boston but it was the first time I bothered to go see the inside of McKim's spectacular (yes spectacular) library, despite having walked by it, I don’t know, let’s say ten out of those fifteen times.
I rode the T around the city, which connects to almost all the places I wanted to go. And on one of the cars (don’t ask me which one) it said:
The world we live in, is the world we, ourselves, have built
The words of the prophets are indeed written on the subway walls apparently.
It’s another year and another reason to find an excuse, any excuse, to head back to Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park in Maine. If I have really been to Boston (let’s just say) fifteen times, then I have probably been here twice that, and it’s now hard to imagine a year or two passing withouit another visit.
Even when the weather is not crystal clear, the fog from atop the summit of Cadillac Mountain can give you a glimpse into you a world all its own, where mountains become islands and the sea is covered by another sea of churning clouds.
This is the view from the summit of Champlain Mountain, Acadia National Park’s second highest mountain. For those interested in such things, we took the Beachcroft Path up Hugenot Head, then the steep West Face Trail up to the summit, then the long South Ridge Trail down past the Bowl to Sand Beach. My favorite (or more accurately, my second favorite) one way hike on the island.
