Capitalizing on the good humor of Jack's friend the Garage Owner in Tilghman Island, we left Gertrude a little longer than we originally planned when we flew back to CA for the kid's graduations. Instead of flying back to Baltimore, we flew to Boston.. hey they both start with a 'B' right... and they're both on the East Coast!!! :-)
Anyways, we wanted to see all the famous and infamous places around the Boston area, NY City, Jersey and Rhode Island, and we thought that it wouldn't be advisable to drive Gertrude in these major cities and historic States. We were so right!
We have decided that the Easterners must know they're way around very well, cuz the signage in these States is, well.... not so good... I guess as the old adage goes: If you must need directions or a road sign, you don't belong here!!! :-( The confusion already started after we landed at the Boston Logan Airport at 1:30 in the morning. We couldn't find the Hilton Hotel even though the hotel was attached to the airport! Hey, we didn't even know which terminal we landed at, to get our bearings on the airport map!!! And, no... the map didn't show the usual "YOU ARE HERE" spot! Argh! After walking through a maze of sky bridges, we found the hotel...just to get lost to try to find the registration desk! No exaggeration. This should have been an omen of further confusions to come.
After a well deserved night's sleep, the hotel luckily had a shuttle to take us to the rental car agency. Good thing, cuz I really didn't want to roam around the airport again.
Anyways, we wanted to see all the famous and infamous places around the Boston area, NY City, Jersey and Rhode Island, and we thought that it wouldn't be advisable to drive Gertrude in these major cities and historic States. We were so right!
We have decided that the Easterners must know they're way around very well, cuz the signage in these States is, well.... not so good... I guess as the old adage goes: If you must need directions or a road sign, you don't belong here!!! :-( The confusion already started after we landed at the Boston Logan Airport at 1:30 in the morning. We couldn't find the Hilton Hotel even though the hotel was attached to the airport! Hey, we didn't even know which terminal we landed at, to get our bearings on the airport map!!! And, no... the map didn't show the usual "YOU ARE HERE" spot! Argh! After walking through a maze of sky bridges, we found the hotel...just to get lost to try to find the registration desk! No exaggeration. This should have been an omen of further confusions to come.
After a well deserved night's sleep, the hotel luckily had a shuttle to take us to the rental car agency. Good thing, cuz I really didn't want to roam around the airport again.
The Boston tunnels - deserving a special 'anxiety' mention
What an underground maze!!! Exiting the airport, we immediately found ourselves in the tunnels (yes, plural) of the city of Boston. No, it's not just tunnel in, tunnel out. It is tunnel in, and ... oh (expletive..expletive)... where the heck are all these cars and commercial trucks whizzing by coming from!! Oh, no... there are several tunnels merging and diverging and the signs.. where are they, aiiih.. they're not even lit.. no, no, no.. we have to go the the left, yikes we're in the wrong lane again! Which way??? Which way??? Oh, heck we're committed.... Let's just go to Salem and decompress with the witches.
No we didn't get any pics from these tunnels. Finding the correct direction toward Salem was challenging enough. All throughout this state we had to resort to at least 3 navigational tools to get somewhat near to our destination. Our Garmin GPS, our Android Notepad (so we can check with Google maps since miss GPS is usually wrong) AND our conventional paper map as we don't have any signals in the tunnels!!! Aiiiih And this with a little car, no less. Can you imagine the anxiety levels we both would have if we did this with Gertrude? Ay ya yai...
No we didn't get any pics from these tunnels. Finding the correct direction toward Salem was challenging enough. All throughout this state we had to resort to at least 3 navigational tools to get somewhat near to our destination. Our Garmin GPS, our Android Notepad (so we can check with Google maps since miss GPS is usually wrong) AND our conventional paper map as we don't have any signals in the tunnels!!! Aiiiih And this with a little car, no less. Can you imagine the anxiety levels we both would have if we did this with Gertrude? Ay ya yai...