There was an article in the New York Times today about the lobster industry on an island in Maine, and it reminded me that I had been meaning to close the loop on something.
While I was blogging about my trip to New England, I posted about the mind-blowing lobster roll I'd had in Bar Harbor, Maine, still the pinnacle of my lobster roll eating experience. I remembered it as a tiny little shack near the water, recommended to my family by our tour guide.
Well, I'm pretty sure I found it. It is The Lobster Claw, and the pictures on Yelp and others I searched out on Flickr look just like the place I remembered. And the four Yelp reviews are all five stars and sing the praises of the lobster roll.
So, if you're ever in Bar Harbor, look this place up. I'm avoiding the temptation to go there myself.
So I've also been meaning to post about my means of transportation to New York, since this blog seems to have morphed into mostly being about transit and travel.
I took Bolt Bus this time. Even with Amtrak fares on sale at $49 one way from Washington to New York, it was still half the cost of the train, so from a frugal standpoint, I figured it was worth trying.
Since taking the bus, I have concluded that if I can't afford to take the train, I can't afford to go.
Let me clarify about the bus — it's not that it was a bad bus experience. The seats were leather, it was significantly cleaner than the Metro buses I take to work most days, and there was free wifi, although I did not partake of it. But, in the end, it was still a bus experience.
After a few hours in the narrow, leather-but-wildly-uncomfortable seats, my back hurt, and I was feeling a little trapped. The more I think about it, the more I think that the best thing about taking the train (aside, perhaps, from the wider seats and ample legroom) is the ability you have to get up and walk around whenever you want. I really missed having the option to go for a lengthy train stroll, or sit in the cafe car for awhile instead of my regular seat.
On the way back, I missed the cafe car itself. I was running late in getting to the bus, so I didn't have time to pick up any food, or use the restroom. I rued both during the ride, probably the restroom bit more than the snack car. No restroom in a moving vehicle is great, but Amtrak restrooms, at least, have sinks and are relatively large and clean(er). All the bus had was a dispenser of Purell on the wall. I used it on my hands, but would have preferred a Purell bath after getting out of that thing.
The Bolt bus did have one advantage over the train in the free wifi. But you can buy a beer on the train. So I call that a draw. Train wins. That's how I'll be getting to New York next time.
My number one reason is the strange population of turtle people that seem to inhabit all of Manhattan. Anywhere I walked in Manhattan, I found myself dodging people meandering back and forth across the sidewalk, crawling along as they pecked away at their Blackberries, and stopping to gawk at anything and everything.
I know, I know, some of these people are tourists, and they can't help it. But I'm pretty good at picking out tourists after all this time near DC, and a lot of these people weren't tourists. They were just damned slow. I'm becoming increasingly convinced that New York is the city that never sleeps because it takes everyone so long to walk to their destinations, they need all 24 hours of the day.
My second reason is the lack of history the city has preserved. Cities I've really loved visiting, like London and Boston, have seemed to be able to grow larger and progress without bulldozing over all of their past. These historic buildings intermingled with the new gives a city a sense of place, a charm and a character that an endless string of skyscrapers will never impart.
I'd always thought of New York as the city that impossibly demolished the old Penn Station and replaced it with the hideous hole known as Penn Station today. So before this trip I made an effort to see if there were any historic areas left. I found a few — an old Dutch house in way, way, upper Manhattan that I didn't have time to see, and Fraunces Tavern, which I did.
Fraunces Tavern is a small museum, a restaurant, and part of a small, brick block of buildings cowering under the skyscrapers not far from Wall Street. It's also the place where George Washington gave his farewell speech at the close of the Revolutionary War, and the room where he spoke has been restored. Compared to other historic sites and museums I've visited, it wasn't very impressive, but I think the Fraunces Tavern deserves some props merely for continuing to exist, a historic holdout in lower Manhattan.
Fraunces Tavern
It's not the only holdout. I also stopped into Trinity Church, a more famous but equally historic landmark. I was surprised that the interior looked more like the English cathedrals I've visited than any other church on this continent I've visited, and was glad I went inside on this visit.
New York also seems to suffer from having too many things to do. I know one that's one of its qualities — there's something for everyone in the Big Apple. But it also results in analysis paralysis when you're trying to decide where to eat dinner, or grab drinks. How do you choose when there are 200 great options?
And, perhaps more importantly, by the time someone distills down those 200 great options into a guidebook, recommending a place, anyone with any sense has moved on to the next big thing, fleeing impending horde of tourists. The cool non-touristy neighborhood spots that you can shake out with enough Yelp skills in other cities are the places that became stopping points for tour busses long ago in New York.
So those are my main reasons for not really liking New York. I won't even go into the subway, except to say that I was so relieved to descend down the escalator into Gallery Place's cavernous, CLEAN Metro station on my way back to Silver Spring.
Don't get me wrong, New York has a lot of redeeming qualities, and I'm sure I'll be back. It stands alone in variety and quality of options for theater, restaurants, nightlife, and shopping in this country, even with the aforementioned paralyzing bounty of choices. We walked across the Brooklyn Bridge and then had pizza at Grimaldi's Saturday, and checked out the High Line on Sunday, all quite fun. And there were bagels. BAGELS!
But if I could somehow swap its position with Boston, and have Beantown be within a 3-3 1/2 hour train ride of Washington instead, I'd do it in a heartbeat. Screw the bagels. The very thought of Boston that close makes my mouth water for a cannoli from Mike's.
Peering over the Declaration of Independence in the dim rotunda.
I went to see the Declaration of Independence yesterday.
I knew going in that going to the National Archives on July 3 would fall somewhere in between a poor idea and phenomenally stupid. And to be sure, the lines were long, but I'd been meaning to go for awhile, and I had the day off, and it seemed the thing to do.
I'm pretty sure I saw the Declaration before, as part of my eighth grade field trip to Washington DC. But I don't remember it, and I certainly didn't understand the importance of that one extremely faded piece of parchment in not only U.S. history, but the history of the whole world.
My history education up to and beyond that eighth grade year consisted of an endless stream of dates that I memorized, regurgitated for tests, and subsequently forgot. I thought history was boring, and like many of my classmates, I questioned why we needed to waste time on this stuff.
What I've come to realize in the last few years is that my history education failed me, in the most fundamental way possible. It failed me when it comes to facts, and it failed to instill that passion for history which had been lying dormant until popular culture roused it out.
Popular culture came in multiple forms, but two were key — the brilliant historical novels of Patrick O'Brian, and HBO's miniseries on John Adams. Fictional, and dramatized, respectively, these two things were the first real indication I saw that history was messy, and populated by real people, and seemingly impossible coincidences.
In the last year or two, I've learned that John Adams defended the British soldiers accused of the Boston Massacre, and won. I've learned that Adams and Thomas Jefferson concluded one of the most amazing correspondences in history by dying on the same day — the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. I've learned that our former Vice President killed our first Secretary of Treasury in a duel. I've learned that John Quincy Adams, after serving a term as President, and then being elected to numerous terms in the House of Representatives, defended the slaves from La Amistad.
Why weren't these a part of my history education? Why was I memorizing dates when there were such riches to learn about?
And why was I taught such a factually wrong version of some events? Up until I started reading history books, I was under the impression that the Revolutionary War went like this:
The British were really stupid, and wore red coats, and marched in straight lines across the country. We hid in the bushes and picked them off like snipers, and eventually they tired of this and gave up and went home.
Which is not remotely what happened. Yes, the Continental Army scored some amazing successes given that it was composed largely of militiamen with no professional soldiering experience. But the Revolutionary War was still a long, hard-fought (on both sides), bloody war, and the outcome was in doubt for many years. General George Washington had plenty of blunders in managing the war, particularly in the beginning.
And perhaps that's where my history education failed me most. I left school with the impression that the founding fathers were deities, far wiser than modern men, who knew exactly what they were doing when they drafted the documents that founded our country.
That couldn't be farther from the truth. They didn't have a grand, prophetic vision of a government that would see the country through the centuries. Once the fog of revolution had cleared, they devolved into party politics as vicious and bitter as any since. Republicans and Federalists disagreed vehemently on how to best govern the country, and hold the union together. They completely sidestepped the issue of slavery, holding up the reason — or excuse — of avoiding civil war, and left it to later generations to solve.
In short, these guys didn't know what they were doing any more than we do now. I find that kind of reassuring, personally.
And deities? Not at all. Each one of them was a real person, with both great virtues and great flaws. You could fill an entire library on the contradictions of Jefferson's character alone. But the fact that they're not perfect makes them far more interesting.
And the fact that they're real people doesn't make what they accomplished 233 years ago any less magnificent. This group of people — characters that grew larger and larger on the stage of history — signed their name to a document, committed treason, and launched democracy for the modern world.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Because I know that, now — because I understand those words — I care a lot more about that document. I understand what it means, and that's why I was willing to stand in line yesterday to see it.
If only I'd gotten that out of history class.
Signatures on a print of the Declaration. The signatures on the original are heavily faded. More pictures from the Archives.
The shock of seeing a Metro train, flayed, mangled, and resting on top of another train, really got to me yesterday. Mentally, I put myself on that train car. I often get on the first car at Silver Spring station, and while it would be rare for me to be going in that direction at that time on a weekday, I still couldn't help but think, that could have been me.
There was a period of time where my gut reaction was, maybe I shouldn't ride Metro. Maybe I should avoid the risk, so I'm not the one on the front car the next time this happens. But then I started doing the math. 12 passenger deaths in the history of Metro, in a system that carries 700,000 people on a normal weekday.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think they're acceptable. I think what happened yesterday was a horrible tragedy, made even more horrible by evidence that there were things WMATA might have been able to do to prevent it, or at least make an impact safer. I'm sad for all of the families whose loved ones didn't make it home, and for all those lives cut short on what should have been an ordinary trip. I hope that the systems that failed to cause this accident are discovered, and that we hold WMATA accountable for fixing them, including giving it the necessary funding.
But unlike a car, multiple systems had to fail in order for this to happen. Between the automatic system that runs the train, the collision-prevention system, the driver with the ability to hit the emergency brake, and the brakes themselves, we'll probably learn in the coming weeks that more than one of these things failed. When your tire blows out on the beltway during rush hour traffic, that's one fragile system failing, and suddenly you and everyone else around you is at risk.
It's been a difficult, sad month for Washington D.C. First the shooting at the Holocaust Museum, and now this shocking accident on our subway system. I wonder how these things will impact those thinking about visiting. I think back to the beautiful vibe that filled the city during Inauguration, and how much our visitors clearly enjoyed themselves, and I wonder what we will need to do to get that back.
The summer after I moved here, my parents brought my grandfather out to visit. He wanted to see the World War II memorial, and he did, but I think he got the most visible enjoyment out of riding the Metro.
I forget about that now, what a thrill it is to ride Metro.
I'm an Ohio native, and grew up firmly grounded in suburban car culture. When I moved here, I felt a downright emotional reaction — a tightening of the throat — at the site of those big vaulted stations, the angular silver trains whisking you underground to museums, monuments, neighborhoods.
I grew jaded, like most who live here do. I began to appreicate the transit system because it allowed me to use my car increasingly less. Metrorail and Metrobus became more about the freedom of moving around the metropolitan area without the anchor of a car. But every once and awhile, I still look up at the curve of the ceiling, and listen to the whine of the train coming into the station, and think, I am underground, and I am going somewhere.
Yesterday's accident rattled my comfort in doing that. It may have rattled some locals, and tourists, completely out of taking Metro. And that's a piece of this tragedy, too.
I hope we see reforms, so this never happens again. But I also hope we remember that it's still safer than the alternative, and I hope we can find a way back to a city where there's more thrill than fear in riding the subway.
As my trip wound down, I started thinking about what I had given up by going green and not using any planes or cars. Planes is easy — I don't feel like I gave up anything by taking the train, unless you count grief and aggravation.
Cars, however, is a bit of a different story. In Boston, I definitely didn't miss out on anything by not having a car. In fact, as is generally the case in big cities, it was more convenient to take the subway and walk to my destinations than having to worry about driving and parking in a strange place. I think you see more by walking, as well.
In my day trips to Salem and Portland, I also don't feel like I gave up much. Taking a cab into and out of town in Portland would have saved me some time, but that's about it. If I were making Portland more than a day trip, though (or wanted to go to the LL Bean outlet), a car would have been helpful. And a drive up to lovely Bar Harbor would have been quite nice — and perhaps allowed me to track down that shack with the mind-blowing lobster rolls. There might be bus or boat transportation options to Bar Harbor, though — I didn't really look into it.
It was probably in Mystic that I gave up the most by not having a car. There's enough to do within walking distance of the train station for a few days, but to spend any more time there — perhaps go to the beach, visit the submarine and other museums, or go to the local wineries — I would have needed a car. Even Abbott's Lobster in the Rough — which I walked to because I really, really wanted to go there — should have been a cab ride or perhaps, if possible, reached by water taxi. There are rental car companies in the Mystic area, including Enterprise, so I'm assuming you can arrange to be picked up at the train station and at least be green about getting to the town.
I do, however, feel like there are some things I gained by doing this all by public transit. There is, of course, that feeling of doing right by the environment. But there's also a sense of accomplishment in figuring out other cities' public transportation systems, even though both Boston's and Portland's were fairly easy. And there's a lack of stress in knowing that someone else is always responsible for getting you to your destination.
I grew up in the Akron area, and in suburban Ohio fashion, thought that if you wanted to get anywhere, the car was it. I never would have thought about traveling for a week and being able to see and do all of the things I did on this trip without using cars or planes.
And indeed, this is the sort of trip you can only make on the busy Northeast rail corridor. So here's hoping we see the national rail network expand quickly — I loved traveling this way.
I listen to some travel podcasts, which is how I learned how much Arthur Frommer (the guidebook guru that founded Frommers) hates user-generated content. His point is that unlike we users, guidebook writers are professionals, doing this for a living, and going to a lot more places than we do. So, for example, while we may stay in one or two hotels in a city, they check them all out.
But I think I have to disagree with Mr. Frommer on at least part of his argument. Granted, he's probably right about the hotel thing, but when it comes to restaurants and shops, I think user-generated content is as important, and as good as — if not better than — what you're going to get in a guidebook.
While one guidebook writer can maybe visit a restaurant once or twice, that's no substitute for reading the reviews of perhaps 20 or 30 people who've been there on different nights and ordered different things (and, often, posted pictures). And a wide range of people posting to Yelp can cover far more restaurants than one guidebook writer can, finding new places that the guidebook writer might not get into the book for years.
I like the Frommer's guides — they're easy to use and generally less stuffy than Fodor's. In fact, I started with a Frommer's Boston and a Frommer's New England when I was planning for this trip, and also skimmed a Lonely Planet and Fodor's guide from my local library.
Some of the things I did and really enjoyed were in the guidebooks. But some of my favorite places and most memorable experiences weren't — I found them on user-generated content sites:
Scup's in the Harbor — Yelp
Galleria Umberto — Yelp
Soakology — Tripadvisor
J's Oyster — Yelp (although I did see it was in the Lonely Planet guide later, so go Lonely Planet)
My trip to Portland would have been significantly less great without Soakology and J's Oyster. And unlike some of the places you'll find in a guidebook, these places weren't overrun with tourists.
I'm not saying we should throw out guidebooks. But I am saying that there's a lot of value in user-generated content, and you really need both to research a great trip.
And then a question I've been thinking about: now having ridden both the Acela and the Regional, is the Acela worth the extra cost?
That partially depends on how much saving the extra time — an hour and 15 minutes from Washington DC to Boston — is worth to you. But the Acela is worth more than the time you save, I think.
I didn't realize how much smoother it is than the Regional until I actually got on the Regional and felt it rocking and rolling. It seems to get up to higher speeds (the conductor announced we were running at 125 mph at one point on the way to Mystic) and therefore jostle around a lot more between Boston and New York than I've been used to between DC and New York.
On the Acela, you don't really feel the speed. It's quieter than the Regional, with one design flaw exception — the Acela's airline-style overhead luggage bins have actual closing doors with actual closing latches. I'm guessing these are in part to show a classier look than the Regional's open luggage racks, and in part to make sure luggage isn't flying as the train leans into turns. But they're NOISY, with a loud ka-thunk whenever one is closed.
The Acela's business-class (the lowest class offered) seats definitely offered substantially more legroom. But compared to airplane coach seats, the Regional's coach seats are wider and have much more legroom. And the Regional, even at its loudest, is still quieter than an airplane.
And indeed, as I rode home on the Regional yesterday, I was thinking about how it was bouncier and louder than the Acela, and wondering, once you've taken the Acela, how do you go back?
Oh yes, I remembered. The Regional still beats flying, hands down.
Well, I did it. No cars and no planes through an entire trip.
Even up to the end, there was always a chance I would have to cab it. Of the three trains going south from Mystic yesterday, I went for the latest one, the one that left at 7 p.m. and was due to arrive at Union Station at 1:30 a.m.
With Metro's late Friday and Saturday hours, that should have given me plenty of time to get home. But any major issues on Amtrak's or Metro's ends, or both, and I'd be taking a cab back to Silver Spring. And indeed, there was one moment where I thought I might be screwed.
I checked out of my hotel Friday morning and looked outside to see a downpour. My plans had been to go back over to Mystic Seaport for awhile (I bought a membership, which allows unlimited visits and other discounts, so I think it paid for itself), do a little shopping downtown, and then go back to the Captain Daniel Packer Inne.
Plans at least temporarily thwarted, I walked the short distance to Bartleby's Coffee Cafe to wait it out with a cappuccino and a close eye on weather.com. It was a cute little coffee shop, and obviously had a regular clientele. By 12:30 the rain was letting up, so then I headed over to Mystic Seaport. I wanted to grab a light lunch and check out the Seaman's Inne, the Seaport's restaurant.
I ate in the pub, and at the Seaman's Inne it's a nice place for a respite from outside, although not as great a space as the DPI. More importantly, after realizing that I couldn't remember the last time I'd had a serving of non-coleslaw vegetables with any meal, I got a delicious spinach salad, loaded with spiced pecans, cranberries, apples and cheese. Yay, nutrition.
Seaman's Inne.
I wandered the Seaport for awhile, checking out a few things I'd missed, and went for a ride on the historic steamboat SS Sabino. It just goes up and back the Mystic River for half an hour, so it's not an extensive ride, but it is a good way to see things from the water and check out the Sabino's historic steam engine.
It was, unfortunately, overrun with kids — some well-behaved, some out of control. I understand increasingly why my mom is in such demand as a substitute teacher — she would have had the out of control ones in line, I'm sure.
I wandered my way back downtown, checking out shops as I went. In Mystic, there are a lot of eccentricities, nautical items, organic items, jewelry, clothing, and art, with the occasional oddity like an army navy store thrown in.
Then it was fish and chips time. I'm beginning to develop this theory that the closer you are to the water, the better fish and chips taste. At the Captain Daniel Packer Inne, they featured a huge piece of really fresh North Atlantic cod, fried to crispy, flavorful perfection. The fries were good but not great, and many were fish greasy because they'd put the fish on top of them. But I mostly judge fish and chips on the fish, and it was very, very good.
I collected my bag from my hotel, and walked the few blocks back to the train station. I'd noticed when I came in that Mystic's train station was small, but it really sank in as I was waiting there, and, for a time, was the only person there. There's an Amtrak ticket machine in the station, but the station closes at 4 p.m., so Amtrak had mailed me my ticket in advance.
The tiny Mystic train station.
This is the only time I've taken a train where there's no announcment, and no one from Amtrak to direct traffic. Not that there was really traffic to direct — just myself and one other woman who came by later were waiting to take the train. At 7 p.m., an electronic voice announced, "Train approaching, stay behind the yellow line," in a continuous loop. I was already familiar with this, as it had happened three times previously, for two Acelas headed in opposite directions, and a regional train headed to Boston (not all of the regional trains stop in Mystic).
The woman and I gathered up our luggage and headed up the ramp to the train. Far more people got off than on — what looked like a mix of businesspeople coming back from Boston, locals coming back from trips, and vacationers headed in, perhaps for a weekend. One of the Amtrak people on the train helped us up the steps — no high-level platform here — and we were on the train and rolling.
I sat in the quiet car by accident at first, as it was the closest to where we got on. But all I was planning to do was edit photos and listen to my iPod, so I decided to try it out, and really liked it. It was very quiet except for some cell phone and other chatter when people got on in New York. The cafe car is available, too, if you need to make or take a cell phone call.
When I went to the cafe car, I did make a rookie mistake by forgetting to take my little seat ticket with me. This is the one thing Amtrak does not and should explain better — they put it overhead on the luggage rack by your seat and mark it with where you're getting off. And you're supposed to take it with you if you go somewhere like the cafe car as proof that they've already taken your ticket. The conductors also use it as they walk through the train to know who they should inform (or wake up) about upcoming stops.
As we rolled along, there were periodic points where we kept moving, but the overhead lights and outlet power would go off and then back on in the train. I had my laptop plugged in with a surge protector, so it wasn't a big deal, just kind of weird. It even felt a little classic, like we were part of a bygone era, as we rolled in to New York city, slipping dark and quiet through the night with the city lights off in the distance.
And then the train stopped, and the power was out for good. They announced that, as we could see, we didn't have power, but that the engineer thought he knew what the problem was, and it could be fixed in a few minutes. They'd make another announcement if it wasn't a few-minutes-fixable type thing.
Bullshit, I thought. I've flown enough times to know that things that cannot be fixed in a few minutes. We were going to be stranded on those tracks for hours. Or they'd tow us in somehow, as we were blocking the approach to Penn Station, and you probably can't do that for long. We'd have to switch trains, or get a new power car. I would have to take a cab home from Union Station — failure at the very end of my trip.
The lights came back on. They announced things were fixed. We started moving again.
Okay, apparently they really can fix things in a few minutes. The lights didn't turn off for the rest of the ride in to DC.
By about midnight, I was too tired to do anything else on my laptop. I dozed on and off all the way in to DC, got off the train, and headed for the Metro and home.
Today, I'm uploading lots of pictures. Everything from Sunday in Salem and Quincy is up at Flickr now.
