Over the Hill and Far Away……….

It was hot and sunny again for our last day in Boston so we decided to stay close to the air conditioning.
After checking out and leaving our luggage at the “bell station”, we took the covered walkway between our hotel and the Prudential Centre, which offers such a variety of shops and eateries that given sufficient funds it would probably never be necessary to leave the place. We did however venture briefly into the outside world. We browsed amongst the wonderful variety of vegetables on offer at the Farmer’s Market at Copley Square, bought sweets, shirts and tee-shirts and then made our way back inside.
We then took the elevator to the 50th floor of the Prudential Tower where the Skywalk Observatory offers spectacular views out over the Boston area.
It was then time to eat and we had our last meal in the USA at “Legal Sea Foods”. There was an explanation on the menu as to why it is called “Legal” seafoods, as opposed perhaps to “illicit” seafoods or “endangered species” seafoods, which seems to date back to the original general store at the turn of the last century. Frankly I was non the wiser having read the explanation but anyway happily devoured various denizens of the deep coated in batter and deep fried. Mark ate a particularly meaty form of crab that had been baked into a cake of some sort.
After dining we reclaimed our baggage, tipped the bell hops (largely as some small compensation for the crap uniforms they are forced to wear) and took a taxi to the airport. Check-in was very straight forward but we heard the all-too-familiar snap of rubber gloves as Homeland Security spotted Mark in the distance. Nevertheless we managed to get through all the checks eventually and the security staff did a very good job of hiding their distress at the fact that we were leaving the country.
The flight seemed to go quite quickly and the sun never quite completely disappeared throughout the journey. We got to Dublin just before 5am and it was already light. Seeing that the airport pub was just opening I did contemplate having a pint of Guinness, on the basis that I was still on Boston time and it was only midnight, but decided that this was casuistry of the most despicable kind and opted for abstinence instead.
We then had a short hop to Birmingham and home. I left Mark heading off to the local Harley-Davidson dealership. I assume he is going to buy a Heritage Soft-tail although I did notice that he also seemed to have a can of petrol and some matches in the boot of his car.
On the way home we talked about the high and low points of this trip and we both agreed that it had been a terrific experience even though it didn’t have the extremes of last year. We had still managed to have a great time visiting two countries, two Canadian provinces and three American states and seeing a lot of amazing sights. We have also eaten several times our body weight in seafood and handled two enormously heavy bikes without suffering hernias (although we both now walk like John Wayne).
Thanks to all of you who have followed this blog and I hope that you have enjoyed the ride as much as we have. Thanks very much to all of you who have posted your comments, which have been much appreciated (not least because it showed that someone was actually reading this stuff). There is vague talk of doing the Gulf Coast Highway on mobility scooters at some point and if this comes to fruition I’ll be sure to let you know. In the meantime, in the unlikely event of my going anywhere interesting I’ll post some details on here.
Until then, toodle pip and parp parp (as Mr Toad might say).

It was something of a relief today to wake up and not face the prospect of wrestling 835lb  of unforgiving metal down the highway.

We therefore gently eased ourselves into the day by extending our beauty regimes and watching some daytime TV. One thing I will miss about American TV is the frequent adverts for medication for a variety of alarming conditions, many of which I had never heard about before. They normally feature some grinning oldster who exhorts you to  “get your life back”, just as they have done, as a result of using whatever it is that is being advertised. Presumably as part of a legal requirement, the narrator of the advert then starts to rapidly list all the possible side effects of the medication, which is usually a chillingly long list of gruesome possibilities, finishing with something like “May cause a plague of boils and in some cases a horrible, painful  death – consult your doctor before using.”

Having had our fill of facial scrubs and daytime TV, we then set off to walk to the North End of Boston where some of the significant events of the Revolution took place and we visited various places of interest such as the Old South Meeting House, the site of the Boston Massacre, the Old North Church and a couple of burial grounds. The Old South Meeting House, we learned,  had all its pews chopped up for firewood and was used as a riding school by the British in the Revolutionary War – much, it would seem, to the annoyance of George Washington.

There were a lot of tour parties about, often being conducted by people in 18th Century costume or, curiously, dressed like Smokey the Bear. Eavesdropping on the commentaries we began to feel a little uncomfortable about our nationality at times and we, like our ancestors, eventually beat a retreat in search of more convivial surroundings.

We weren’t invited to any Tea Parties so at about 2pm we breakfasted on lobster rolls, fries and beers in a dingy bar we passed along the way. By that stage we were so hot and tired we’d have eaten in a public toilet if it had air-conditioning.  Thus refreshed we resumed our journey and crossed Boston Common and somehow managed to find ourselves in the “Cheers” bar again but we didn’t stop long there as it was packed out.

We got back to the hotel hot and tired where we cleaned up and rested for a while before setting out for round 2. Being up on the 16th floor we managed to get a spectacular view of a large thunder storm that passed over about 6pm. It didn’t last long though and by the time we went out at 7ish it was baking hot and humid again.

We ended our last full day in Boston, as we had started two weeks ago, at the Cheesecake Factory. However this time we were a bit more careful about the scale of the meal we took on. I had the salmon while Mark feasted on half a cow, he also had a side of spinach and now has so much iron in his system that he will have to avoid magnets for the next 24 hours. Once again we did not eat cheesecake.

We are flying back home about 6.30pm tomorrow and should be back in the UK on Wednesday morning. It won’t be possible to post the blog tomorrow as we’ll be travelling but I’ll aim to post an update on Wednesday and let you know how many times Mark gets strip-searched in the course of the journey.