Richmond has a facial recognition system at their security line, it's more than just giving your ID card and showing your boarding pass. The machine says it discards the photo as soon as the identity is verified. Hopefully that's true.
The flight to Charlotte was pretty smooth. One kid screaming a lot, but I have to remind myself it's ok. Because as a standby passenger, I'm thankful to get on. I have no right to complain about my seat location. On my flight, there were 27 passengers connecting to Orlando. I know that because the flight attendant said as much. So we had to wait for all of them to deplane first. The plane arrived in Charlotte 15 minutes early, so I would up with about 2 hours to kill. No issues making the flight to Hartford either.
So I landed, collected my bag, and walked outside to the rental car building. My Priceline reservation was with Alamo. I got my Toyota Corolla and drove north to Springfield, MA, my first time in that city. I hadn't eaten any solid food and I had been awake eight hours already. Since we don't have Wahlburger's in the region where I live, I had a chance to visit for the first time. I was the only customer in the restaurant on a Thursday at 11:15, which seems a little strange. I took down a double cheeseburger and sweet potato tots. I thought the burger was quite good, that government cheese has a pretty strong flavor. Being back in the north, I had to get used to once again ordering iced tea and asking for sweetener as opposed to half sweet and half unsweet like I do living south of the Mason Dixon line.
Then I made my trip to the Basketball Hall of Fame. Yes, it wasn't cheap, close to 30 bucks, but I had a great time. Very interactive with videos and all kinds of exhibits that talk about the progression of the game, the integration of the NBA, there's even an NBA Finals trophy you can hold. But the Hall is basically 3 levels that go in a circle above a basketball court so you can actually shoot around and dunk after you're done exploring. They even have a series of baskets that show the progression of the actual basket, from the initial peach baskets from the 1800s all the way to the modern graphite backboard and hoop. I could not believe how hard it was to sink a shot in the peach basket. With no backboard, every shot had to be perfect back then. And I will admit, I used to have a pretty good jump shot back in my high school and college days. But I have not shot a basketball in at least 15 years. And oh my God, my form was so off the mark. Eventually, I was able to sink consecutive 3's and I was done! But the other thing that was crazy was how tired I felt from the hard running. I mean I work out, I do cardio, but playing basketball is a whole different type of conditioning.
Then came the 2 and a half hour drive east on the Mass Pike. It was a nice ride, a lot of cheap tolls along the way. As I was driving east towards Boston and the North Shore, I actually did get a little emotional. As Miranda Lambert's "The House That Built Me" played through my speakers, I found myself identifying with that song. Felt like I was going back to a place of my youth when I was a different guy and maybe I wasn't so scarred, so jaded.
The traffic was a little rough once I got into the Boston area, but I worked my way back onto 95 and arrived at the Doubletree hotel in Danvers, MA, right near the merge of Rt 1 and 95. As it turned out, the hotel was packed because there were 8 weddings that weekend with guests staying at that hotel. I'm amazed I was able to book a room only 3 weeks prior!
I had a room on the 3rd floor, and it was very well maintained, very clean. The one thing I did not like was that my TV was not a smart TV. So I couldn't even play YouTube or music or anything like that through the device.
After unpacking and cleaning up a bit, I drive to Salem and it took 35 minutes to drive 9 miles. That's one thing about Boston, I hadn't driven there in many years and with so little room, there are a lot of one lane roads and traffic just builds and builds. I arrived at Finz, a seafood restaurant right near the water. My friend of 20-plus years, Andrea arrived and I was so happy to see her. Our conversation was really easy and if the distance wasn't a thing, I can't help but wonder what we could have become. But at this point in my life, I'm in my early 40's, my peak has passed, I can't afford to ruminate on that or it'll just eat away at me. Anyway for my meal, I had clam chowder and lemon butter sea scallops with roasted potatoes and veggies. Wonderful food.
We walked along the main drag and the Halloweeners were celebrating since their little holiday was a month out. A pizzeria/candlestick bowling caught our attention and we went inside. It was a little dive, only four lanes, one employee, an AC/DC pinball machine. We decided to play a little and we went for about an hour. I used to candlestick bowl a little bit in my college days, but it's been two decades. With the pins and small ball, it's a totally different art than typical bowling. Oh and we couldn't keep score. We were told that some kid threw a ball into the monitor and it took the whole system out. So we had to use pencil and paper. Scoring bowling is akin to staring into the human brain. After about 1 frame, we decided screw it, let's just bowl till we knock em down. It got so intense, I was sweating through my shirt and I even had bruising on the front of my right shoulder from my bowling form. Yeah, my shoulder was chaffing against my shirt seam!
Anyway, we headed back to the car and I even gave her a framed picture of us from 20 years ago. Of course, she thought she looked fat at the time and began to feel bad about it. So I tried to turn it around and told her if that's how she really felt, she can see how far she's come. Not sure it was my smoothest line, but I tried.
As we approached her ride, which was on the water, we stopped for a moment, just taking in the atmosphere. Cool night, boats on the water, some stars in the sky. I kissed her for the first time. She didn't expect it, and I didn't know if I was going to do it, but I did. She didn't hit me, so that's a plus. But she drove me back to my car and we said our goodbyes. But she called me as I was driving, saying she thought I might like some company. And we stayed on for about 25 minutes, we said good night as I pulled into the hotel parking lot.
I was in the mood for a drink, so I decided to stop in the hotel bar, and holy crap it was packed and loud. I guess everyone from the weddings decided to go in at the same time. I would say 60 or 70 people easily. I went with a Maine lunch beer for $9, a very well known beer from, I guess, Maine. It was not a cheap bar by any stretch. Couldn't get wine for less than 13, or a mixed drink for under 15. So after elbowing my way to the bar, I got my beer and took it back to the room. I think I played a little music to settle in. I would've watched some Ryder Cup highlights, but seeing the unmitigated disaster that the USA team was on Friday, I knew the competition was already over.
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