tea parties and revolution

Trump supporters

On our way to Boston we stop in Rockport and stay with Cathryn and John, old friends of Laina and Keri.  They have a great old wooden house in this funky little fishing village.  The place gets busy with tourists in the summer but now it's autumn there's only a few visitors at weekends.  They show us around their town, take us for a great Italian meal and, the next day, take us to Salem, once a major port but now only remembered for its witch trials. The whole coast here is very pretty and we really enjoy the cycling when we head off south after saying goodbye to yet more super-kind hosts.

John and not-so-shy Cathryn

the light is getting better on clear days

Our plan is to stagger our stay through Boston.  We stop for a night with Warm Showers hosts Ellen and David on the north edge of the metropolis, in the leafy suburbs.  When David opens the door we are surprised to be greeted by an Englishman.  He came here years ago and stayed after landing a job at MIT, a place he hadn't heard of until he came here.  His background is engineering and he's accredited with the advent of the recumbent bicycle, not because he designed it, but because he set up a competition to find the fastest human-powered vehicle, and the recumbent was the winner.  His wife Ellen is a real hoot.  And whilst David has got too old for long-distance cycling, Ellen has recently completed one of the trans-American routes, coast to coast.  She kept a journal sketchbook which is so good we think she should publish it.

with David

Ellen off to church

Our next stop is Boston proper.  We ride through the environs of Harvard and join the other tourists milling around the campus before taking the riverbank into the city.  We are staying with Bob and Norma, although actually Norma is away on her own cycling tour up the Atlantic seaboard and so Bob hosts us in their wonderful old house.  The place is huge, big enough for one of their daughters to live in the lower two floors.  When I ask, Bob explains that the house would have been lived in by two blue-collar families: one owning the whole property and renting out a couple of floors to another family.

We have a great stay here.  Bob is a volunteer tour guide and generously offers to take us around the city centre for the "Revolutionary" tour, featuring the main players and significant locations.  He is very funny and really plays to his audience, emphasising the nasty British imperialists and the rebels who heroically began the revolution.  What's fascinating for us is the realisation that the system of government in the US was drawn up in direct relation to their experience under a despotic British ruler, who only wanted to profit financially and did nothing for the ordinary folk.  Ahh, and what an irony.  Trump's shadow looms large.

Norma and Bob

The city feels almost British - a sprawl of a place built with red brick in an organic, random way.  No grid here. We enjoy exploring, crossing the bay to visit another neighbourhood.  We are grateful to Bob and Norma for letting us stay longer in order to explore.  The Boston Museum of Fine Arts is so impressive we visit twice.   By the time we depart the temperatures have plummeted and our first night in the tent for a while turns out to be a sub-freezing night.

the tea party harbour