Our Excellent East Coast Adventure – Part 2
Sidebar:
I neglected to send some of you the first installment of this Excellent Adventure. I had to rebuild the mailing list from memory as I’ve stopped using the Gmail account I was using back in 2019 for this purpose. My apologies.
Travelling “Light”
I’ve written on this subject a few times over the years. Travelling light might be a strange concept for me to try and articulate given all the technology that gets packed with us and brought on our trips. Between Barb and I, we have with us no fewer than 5 mobile devices including my laptop. I know, it’s a bit crazy.
But it’s my camera that has changed to address a long-standing issue I’ve had about travelling light. Photography, in some way, often ends up being a focal point for our trips, in many cases determining the actual places we go to and even the time of day. For example, Barb has gotten used to me saying over the years that I want to go to some place at dawn or dusk to get the best light for a photo.
For about 15 years, I’ve brought along my big camera on all our trips, usually, one of the various Nikon cameras I’ve owned which, along with the lenses, often weighed in over 1.5 Kg and even more with the large camera bag that it all got packed into. It was on the trip to Indian Wells earlier this year that I finally said enough’s enough and that I needed to find a solution to significantly reduce the weight on my shoulder from that heavy camera bag. There had to be a better way!
What ended up transpiring was a few months of watching dozens of hours of camera review videos on YouTube and in true fashion, documenting every possible feature including the weight of every possible new camera candidate. In the end, I ended up buying a new camera just about a month ago, the first new camera in about 6 years that was going to be the main one for these photos. My new Leica camera is now on the updated image at the top of my blog page and the most important part is that I’ve dropped a ton of weight on my shoulder with this much lighter camera and a much smaller camera bag.
The Vibe of the City
Over the past three days, we’ve been exploring the various neighbourhoods around Boston, mostly on foot. The weather has been really good so far, in the low to mid-20s and not hot or humid enough to make it uncomfortable. The humidity around here can get really bad during the summer and coming from Vancouver, it’s tough to get used to this has often dictated what time of year we travel, as much as where we go.
One of my main decisions to come to Boston, which has been on my list for decades, is to experience the combination of its history and unique culture. The photo at the top of this page was taken inside the Boston Public Library and the 2nd one was taken in the centuries-old neighbourhood of Beacon Hill, both photos were taken on the same day as we walked many kilometres around the city on Sunday.
We’ve also had a chance to experience a lot of the food in many parts of the city. The selfie photo at the top of the first posting from this trip was taken at a restaurant/bar called City Table, just a few blocks from our hotel. In fact, many of the places we’ve gone to including the library were just a few blocks from our hotel which supported us walking to many of these places. It wasn’t until Monday, our third day here, that we started using the subway to start exploring further and further away.
There’s a term that we’ve used when travelling to describe how we feel about a place known as the vibe of the city. Boston has a really good vibe, meaning that we’ve really connected with many of the places we’ve gone to and experienced the friendly people and a variety of local food and drink. It’s definitely become one of my favourite locations and now with direct flights here from Vancouver, much easier to get to.
Moving On
As I write this, it’s our last day in Boston and tomorrow we’ll pick up a rental car and leave the city. Our next destination is definitely not a big city and is also a place that I’ve wanted to go to for a long time. Overall, this trip won’t have a lot of driving, certainly thousands of kilometres less than if we did the driving trip to California as originally planned. But two of our destinations need a car to get to and it’s unavoidable. We also have a train ride planned for this trip which is very unusual for us outside of Europe.
I’ll be posting again in a few days.
I’ve now started to upload all of my photos from this trip on my photo website here.
Baden


One Comment
Pyrenne Tromans
Great Photos Baden. Looking forward to more.
Enjoy your next destination.