The Famous Four's 'Two weeks in New England' - Episode 1 - "It's so much more than a Tea Party in Boston"!

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First things first, let me apologise if you receive this blog unexpectedly by email, bit I'm afraid that I've not been able to work out yet how to amend the email list, so please just delete the blog if you can't be bothered (understandably) to read it, or alternatively, you may find it a very good cure for insomnia!

Now, it may surprise people to learn that one of my favourite songs of all time is the superb 'Weekend in New England' by Barry Manilow, a beautiful ballad, actually written by Randy Edelman. Well, forget 'weekend', the Kilbys and the Forbes are off on their next adventure, this time a two week tour of the USA, principally the joys (hopefully!) of New England in the Fall. Our last trip together was when we were nearly five thousand miles away from New England, in magical Alaska and believe it or not, that was four years ago and I haven't compiled a Travelblog blog since! And why is that, you may well ask? Well, I guess a little thing like a Global Pandemic has really got in the way, meaning that none of us were desperately excited about travelling abroad, even when we were actually allowed to do so. But, with life more or less back to normal now and all of us fully 'vaxed up', the Famous Four are, as 1970s blues/rock band Canned Heat once said, "On the Road Again"! And it is indeed the 'Famous Four' on this trip, with the Forbes's lovely daughter Sarah not joining Mandy, myself, Steve and Lily on this occasion and opting instead to stay with sister Row while we're away.

So what does our New England escapade entail? Well, we fly with BA from Heathrow on 9th September, direct to Boston, Massachusetts, somewhere Mandy has been to three times before, mainly on those legendary shopping trips in those halcyon days when there used to be well over two dollars to the pound and retail therapy in the States was a real bargain. After spending four nights in Boston, we pick up a rental car and head north into Maine, stopping overnight in the State capital, Portland. Then we continue north to Mount Desert Island, the largest island off the coast of Maine and home to the Acadia National Park. This will be the northern most point of our trip, being only 70 miles south of the Canadian border, but rather than crossing the border, we're turning left and heading west to our next State and the small town of Jackson, New Hampshire, nestled in the White Mountains. After, hopefully, taking in the autumn views and colours that the White Mountain area has to offer, we turn left again and head south to another small town, this one called Manchester in our next State, this time Vermont and another mountain range, the Green Mountains. Here again, we're hoping for classic New England views and colours, before we move further south to the Berkshires, (in the north west corner of Massachusetts and adjacent to the New York State border), for our final stop and a bit of rest and recuperation, until we drive back to Boston and our flight home on the 23rd September. If we include a day trip that we are planning from Boston to Martha's Vineyard, near Cape Cod this Tuesday, we will be racking up over twelve hundred miles across 4 States (and probably also flitting into a fifth), and hopefully seeing some amazing sights on the way. So, ready or not, here we go!

A summer of sorts has finally arrived in the UK as the Famous Four step into our taxi (courtesy of Wing Cars) bang on 10.00am for our journey to London Heathrow, Terminal 5 and our BA flight due to depart at 14.40. After a short delay, while the elderly grappled with the seatbelts in the back (!!), we were on our way. Being a Saturday morning, we were hoping that the traffic wouldn't be too bad, but it turned out that the motorways were apparently a bit clogged and Jeff (our excellent driver) who was using the Waze App for SatNav purposes, decided to take a slightly longer and circuitous route, but a route that was traffic free and we arrived at T5 by 11.20, which worked out absolutely fine because we couldn't actually use the bag drop until 11.40. So, after a short wait, we then had the usual battle with the bag drop technology, (actually managping to work it out all by ourselves - almost!!) and after the usual scrum through security and one of the most expensive snacks we have ever had at Pret a Manger in the duty free area (!), we reached Gate 64 and our departure point.

The pilot of our Airbus A380 (economy seats, I hasten to add) proudly announced as we waited to depart, that our flight time would be a very fast six and a half hours and we should definitely arrive on time and possibly even early. He then added that he hoped he hadn't spoken too soon! Well, as it turned out, he had of course!! Apparently, there was a problem with the 'push back tractors' at T5 (perhaps they might have been loaned out to an episode of Clarkson's Farm, I suppose!) and after a lengthy wait for a tractor to arrive, we finally started taxiing off stand an hour or so late! I've blamed the pilot, but as it happens I really ought to shoulder some of the responsibility myself, seeing as I had actually tried to get ahead of myself with this blog and had already tapped into my IPad that 'the flight had left on time', before we had even boarded! Another clear example that you should never, ever tempt fate! Annoying as this delay was, a couple of early stiff drinks once on board (we're not driving on arrival!) and we were soon back in holiday mode, settling down to 'enjoy' our flight to Logan Airport, Boston, Massachusetts.

Credit where credit's due, the service on board was excellent, dinner was really rather good and the tub of ice cream mid-flight was delicious. However, the 'savoury chicken and tomato pastry' pre-landing was a little disappointing, but having only flown the likes of Ryanair in the last couple of years, the 'free' food, drinks and the seat-back entertainment screen were a real treat and before we knew it, we were landing in Boston only half an hour behind schedule.

We did, of course, have the joys of immigration to go through, although with the introduction of a much more detailed, digital ESTA form by the US, that we had to complete online a few weeks back we, thankfully, no longer had to complete the paper based immigration and customs forms that, on previous trips, always seemed to have the propensity to cause a problem on arrival. Maybe it was the registration sign of our aircraft that helped, (G-XLEF, perhaps spookily standing for 'Xtra Long ESTA Form', and although the immigration queue was long, we got to the border guard's desk in about 45 minutes and then simply sailed through, without any fuss whatsover. The Famous Four had arrived.

After a slight scare at baggage reclaim, when Mandy's case seemed to take forever to come through, we grabbed a cab and 15 minutes later we were in the first hotel of our stay, namely the Springhill Suites by Marriott at 400 Ocean Avenue, Revere Beach. When I was researching accommodation for this trip, Mandy (our Boston expert!), knew that downtown was the location of most of the sights that we wanted to see and, ideally, we wanted a hotel in that area; however it turned out that even the half way decent hotels in downtown Boston were going to be hellishly expensive. So, in casting our net a little wider, I came across the Springhill Suites on Booking.Com and whilst it is located well away from downtown, it is, conveniently, very close to the Wonderland subway station on the Blue Line, with only a 25 minute journey to all the action! It has the added attraction of being by the beach, with larger modern suites than the average downtown hotel room AND was considerably cheaper than downtown! First impressions on arrival were good and we were soon outside having a quick wander, followed by a drink and snack in a local bar (with good live music), but as it was dark and well past midnight on our body clocks, we decided to look forward to getting a better feel for the place in the morning and, instead, toddled off to bed.

So that's it; day one is over, we have arrived safely and the adventure is on! We expect that jet lag will see us up pretty early in the morning and our exploration of Boston will then start in earnest.

Before I finish, a Paul Kilby blog wouldn't be the same without a quiz question of some sort, so here goes and being a lover of Countdown, this one is a Countdown Conundrum, namely an anagram to solve linked to the trip itself and that anagram is:

STOP ONE TRAY TAB

and the clue is, 'Alex Harvey found this Sensational'.

Good luck!

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Photos

The New England Route
This is the planned route…..fingers crossed!

Gate 64
We’re really going!

A380 (G-XLEF)
Our carriage awaits!

Welcome to Boston
Good news, we landed in the right place!

Revere Beach
It’s a bit dark to see much, but the beach (and sea, of course) is right across the road from our hotel.

Comments

[Douglas]

Blog Day1
Easy one to get us all in the mood Paul...1976 banger. Looking forward to following progress...have a great trip!

[Paulkilby]

Thanks Doug. Hopefully you’ve got episode 2 now; it wasn’t quite so easy!! Ha ha. Best, Paul