Saturday: no specific plans, got up, did my coffee and reading and internets, got cleaned up. First breakfast at the Brass Key – self-serve buffet, including little individual spinach souffles, very nice. Lots of groups of boys chatting, although I sat alone. Then to the common room of my building to blog and do research for the day.
I decided to start with the Sand Dune Trail. Looked up where it was, looked like getting to it was walkable, although this trip is reminding me that sometimes I get very optimistic and don’t really pay attention to the scale of a map. Walked all the way to the east end of Commercial Street, way past the shops, and then past the galleries. Nice walk, beautiful homes, but a long walk. Ended up by a far-out hotel/motel (the Harbor). I was looking for “Snail Street”, but after some confusion, it looked like Snail Street had been renamed. Also, Snail Street was not walker-friendly. Walked up to the highway, the entrance to the dunes was right across. Carefully waited for traffic to ebb, went across.
The guidebooks had made it clear that the dune trail was not an easy hike, but nothing ventured, nothing gained. But, as I’ve mentioned, my knees have been acting up all trip and even stairs have been (mildly) problematic, with me needing to favor my right leg so my left knee just doesn’t suddenly decide “nope”. The sign at the entrance to the dune trail was like “abandon all hope”. “there are no services, no bathrooms, no shade, you should bring water, if you need help it may take quite a while for help to reach you, it’s a mile out and a mile back” and so on. OK…
But the very start of the dune trail was a steep climb up a rather large dune and it was tough. I did the whole hill and got to the top, but it took me forever, was quite scary and the only reason I didn’t give up right away is I’d taken so much effort to get out there. Got to the top, looked at the further trail, and realized it would be more of the same, there and back. (The hills themselves wouldn’t have been so bad except that it was sand, making everything three times as hard.) So I took some pictures, headed back down – which also could have been scary, but turned out to be not a big deal.
I’d passed the entrance to a ‘nature walk’ on Snail Street, so decided to do some of that instead – that was pretty and easy, no hills, no sand. And then decided I was done. I could have walked back to town, but I’d already done four or five miles by this point and it would have been another two miles of a route I’d already seen, so I went back to the Harbor Hotel, called a cab and had him bring me back to the center of town.
Next up was the Mayflower narrated bus tour. Tour left at 12:30, I had twenty minutes or so, so bought the ticket online and went to find a bathroom and a bottle of water. Missions accomplished, back to the Town Hall. When they checked us on, I wasn’t on the list – we went back and forth and I showed her my confirmation letter (complete with code, but she had no way to scan it) and text. Finally she let me and we decided I would be “incognito”. (Before we left, I got another email that said I’d been ‘rescheduled’. Really weird. I don’t know what happened there. Anyway, I got my tour.) The bus tour was fun – we went all the way down Commercial Street (the other way) and saw where the pilgrims had landed and the breakwater across to the far leg of the harbor, and all the houses that had actually been built on that far leg and then uprooted and barged over because that area became too dangerous – storms and so on. Into the nature-y part, north (which I’d seen when I went to the airport). Whole thing took 45 minutes and was nice and fun, although I didn’t get a lot of pictures. Well worth it.
Then lunch at Ross’s Grill. I was a little annoyed – they could have put me at a table facing the water, but clearly wanted to dump the singles at the bar (which, oddly, face the patrons away from the windows). But I had a lobster corn chowder and a chicken caesar wrap that were quite nice. This is also the mall that has the store called “Puppy Play” which seems to cater to both actual dogs and S&M enthusiasts. Huh.
Then went to the wharf to pick up tickets. First for whale watching (for this morning). Turns out the whale watches have been cancelled for the last few days because the seas are too rough, but the assumption is that they’ll happen today. (they’ll call/text if it’s cancelled) So that lined up, I then went to buy my ferry ticket to Boston for Monday morning.
Disaster, darlings! The 10:30 ferry was sold out! I’d know this might happen, but had done some checking and it seemed to me that I should be OK, especially since there was a 6:30 am ferry and I figured anyone trying to get to work in Boston on Monday morning would get that one. But that 6;30 ferry doesn’t happen any more, now that they’re out of season, and that’s why the 10:30 sold out. But there is the possibility of standby. So I’m not happy about the sitch, but here’s the plan A, B, C, worked out with the ticket lady’s info:
- It’s possible that between now and Monday, space will open up. So I will keep checking, definitely today when I get off the whale watch boat.
- If not, I can show up on Monday at 9:00 when the ticket office opens and get on the waiting list.
- If I cannot get on the 10:30 ferry, then things get tougher, but still doable.
- I definitely have a ticket for the 3:00 ferry. Unfortunately my flight home is at 3:00.
- But it’s the Delta Shuttle, flies every hour until the 700 flight, then it’s every 90 minutes.
- So once I know I’m not on the 10:30, I’ll call Delta and see what I have to do to move my flight.
It’s really not a problem (other than logistically and possible financially) to have to take a later flight. It just means I’ll get home late and won’t really have time to settle or buy groceries or anything. And I need to roll out of bed and ‘go to work’ on Tuesday.
I guess the real disaster is if all these hurricanes make flying somehow problematic. If that happens, well, I can get the Acela and I’ll get home eventually.
Bummed out, I bought a sweatshirt (will need more layers for the whale watch) and some ice cream and sat on a bench glumly slurping my spoon. Then back to the room for chill-out.
I needed to figure out what to do in the evening, and looked at the events. I’d already seen Anita Cocktail, wasn’t that interested in the Schitt’s Creek parody, and finally landed on a George Michael tribute show. Normally, my reaction would have been ‘nah’, but I thought about it and went, well, actually, I like George Michael a lot, what I know of him, and it might be fun. So bought a ticket online.
The B&B has a wine-and-cheese thing every night at 5:00, so I went to that and got summoned over to a table by a gay couple, Joel and Donovan, from LA. We had a nice hour or so chatting. Eclectic guys – they’re both nurses (one retired, one moved into admin), former actors, and they each have interesting side projects – one composes, one does graphic novels such as “Journey to Gaytopia”. They invited me to join them after my show for dinner with another friend of theirs named Eric (oh, also Joel’s birthday is today, just like mine), but I thanked them while being vague enough that it was clear I was declining.
Back to the room for a bit, then off to the George Michael thing. First thing was drama as we lined up to be let in – some over-steroided bro was arguing loudly and doing the ‘he pushed me’ thing and we’re all watching the drama. Not clear what it was about, but that eventually got resolved and we got let in. Audience was almost all gay boys, but some pockets of female ladies here and there. I sat right in the middle in the second row.
The performer was Todd Alsup (someone I’d never heard of), and he wasn’t impersonating George Michael, rather just walking us through his life (with the help of video projections) and performing his songs with a lot of fun costume changes. It was hella entertaining. He made it clear from the beginning that he was queer and had gone through a lot of the same stuff GM had. His voice was great, he was hot as hell in those outfits (he had a GM beard, but not the hair), saaaxy dance moves, and of course some of those songs are wonderful. From time to time, he’d leave the stage and travel around the room, picking audience members to flirt with, dance with, and in one case, smooch. It was totally gay, but in a very different way from a drag show, and I was there for it. (I will say that one of the ‘points’ of this trip was to do things that I never would have done with Charles along, and this was definitely one of them.)
I thought it would break by 8:30, giving me time to find a restaurant (they all seem to close at 9:00), but it broke more like 8:50. So I hightailed it down to the Lobster Pot, but it was closed already. The Governor Bradford, across the street, was minutes from stopping serving, but I got in there just in time. This turned out to be the place where they do drag karaoke at 10:00, which I wanted to see but didn’t think I wanted to stay out that late. Luckily for me, they started early. It was a drag queen hosting, and one of the karaokers was a moustached man in a dress who did “Living on a Prayer” (maybe?), but otherwise it was just karaoke. There was a woman who did an excellent “Why Haven’t I heard from You?” (Reba McEntire), but there were also awful drunk women who completely butchered “Proud Mary” and Cher’s “Believe”. Painful. I finished my chicken sandwich (tasty!) and fries (hot!) and skedaddled for room relaxation and Drag Race. (Side note: I’m finishing season 10 and it turns out to be one of the ones where your favorite gets booted off early and you don’t like anyone remaining. Depressing.)
So… happy birthday to me! Whale watching, drag brunch (at the same place), proto-packing. And with luck, getting moved to that earlier ferry.
The Toast Point Page 