Over and out...nearly

So today Curly and Shiny separated from T'Other One ...some tears and sadness along the way but it has been a good holiday with great weather and lots to do. Better Half has been missed...particularly by T'Other One of course...but by  us all. Curly thinks there would have been more shopping opportunities if she had been here and someone else to act as interpreter between to ageing men with dodgy hearing, memories  and ability to concentrate! 🤣

Today we visited Walter Gropius's House which was truely lovely. Such attention to detail, lovely use of light and textiles too.

Travelled back  to Boston Airport....a short journey but doubled by hopeless signing back to car rental place...went through same tunnel more than once....in various directions!

Flight delayed by couple of hours.

Impressions:

Beautiful scenery...not enough lay-bys

Road speed signs change all the time.

Toilets flush really well..and cubicles  are huge

Coffee mostly truly dreadful...a real surprise...hardly ever a choice

People mostly very polite and friendly...but no anticipation they might bump into you on sidewalks

Eat early.. like in New Zealand ..9.00pm they stack chairs on tables

Some excellent food but some a bit so-so.

Bizarre tipping system...you pay with your card..then choose tip amount which they deduct later

Four way crossroads drive Shiny mad...First come is first to go

Poor...very wordy....signposting

So loud in talking and speak so fast

Comparing our visit a few years ago to New Zealand...would we want to live here...no. NZ..yes...if only it wasn't so far away!

We have a 2 hour delay to our flight but have access to wine!

It's been great travelling for a good long break, whilst UK gets washed away in our absence.

If you have been following our holiday...thank you for your interest.

Signing off

Curly

Fire...Fire ..Dust..

So the day got off to an interesting start when the fire alarm went off in our building. Workmen creating dust...however we went outside and were impressed that 2 fire engines turned up very quickly.  We have passed so many fire houses this holiday (with engines displayed proudly outside)...and fire hydrants almost by every house in Vermont!

We then mooched around the city and visited the state capitol building. Returned to our condo to do some packing then off to Design & Art Gallery. 

Final meal in local restaurant which was lovely but sad too.

We go our separate ways tomorrow...us flying home and T'Other One going on to New York, San Fransico and then Costa Rica for several weeks.

Last stop...

Our day started with Charlie our Airbnb host cooking breakfast again...this time blueberry pancakes...T'Other One was in seventh heaven and had 3! 

So we then had lovely 5 mile walk on coast of a nature reserve on Cape Cod.  Spectacular dark clouds in the skies made for wonderful photos  and we avoided the rain...which we soon found at the start of our drive. We called in at Mashpee to get a late lunch. This retail outlet has been built to look like a set of traditional village streets with apartments above the shops. A bit weird but certainly nicer than the usual malls. 

Then rather tedious stop start journey with lots of traffic lights to Providence RI. Enlivened by the conjunction of an ambulance, school bus (with strict rules of the road around it), and a fire engine pulling  out in front of us.

Arrived in Providence and found our space in dodgy looking parking lot, eventually navigated 3 lots of codes and two flights of stairs to get to our condominium. So scruffy on way up but probably best apartment we have had the whole trip. Great way to end.

Paddling...

My birthday today so a dip in the briney was called for...well feet anyway. Some lovely dunes and empty beaches on Cape Cod but also much more built up than we expected.  It must by dreadful in the summer season ..relatively quite at present. Falmouth busy in evenings and we had a nice meal but the noisy was too much for us to talk to each other! We measured 87 dB which would be ear damaging for workers if they are in that all the time. Excellent lobster bisque. 

This morning we travelled up to Wellfleet so I could collect some jewellery forwarded there by someone I have long admired on Instagram.

Cape Cod...

So we left our old fashioned traditional motel and travelled to Taunton MA for breakfast, in a fabulous traditional diner.

We then drove towards Cape  Cod and had a 'stumbilation' moment when we came across a railway bridge which lifts around 35 metres to clear a sea canal, its span across the canal is 180 metres. Apparently it still operates most days but just for the rubbish train, only takes 2.5 minutes to lift. Amazing but sadly we didn't see it operate. We then drove to Nobska lighthouse and beautiful sandy beaches.

Then to our Airbnb, a house in the woods, speparate from but attached to Charlie's house...a delightful 90 year old . House full of books, wooden furniture and delightful details.

We have just walked to the tiny beach snd harbour 20 mins away, so beautiful.

Houses...

As Shiny, in particular, is very keen on houses designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, we had planned in a visit to the Currier Museum of Art in Manchester (NH) who manage two of them almost next to each other. Very different in materials used though similarities in some styles. Much enjoyed by all three of us. We had a bit of a rushed journey to get there in time but made it with just time for a coffee...except the two servers in an empty cafe too 11 mins to deliver them Curly only got to drink half of hers so was somewhat grumpy! [Later in the day one of them gave us some free sodas].

The gallery itself we almost didn't look around but on doing so discovered many wonderful paintings and a stunning melting carpet (woven by traditional crafts people). An excellent day, though the last hour of the journey was busy with traffic and rather slow.

Portland...

This morning we walked from where we are staying around Back Bay into Portland. We were nearly trampled underfoot by a sponsored Alzheimer's event walking in the opposite direction! We decided (sweeping generalisation) that Americans have poor spatial awareness!

We spent part of the rest of the day browsing the shops and even  bought a couple of Christmas presents.

Then a couple of hours at lovely Museum of Art.

One unexpected feature of Boston, Portland and New England generally is the prevalence of cannabis. A proliferation of shops selling it, as frequent as  charity shops and nail bars in the UK. Pungent aroma on many streets.

Wonderful meal this evening at ore-booked David's restaurant, we even got proper espresso coffee after the meal and an Uber home.