Day 5: Lurching Toward Salem
Rain is keeping up. Makes me miss home, though my wife reports that at home it’s ridiculously warm out instead of rainy, so go figure.
Got breakfast in Hyde Park, after spending a half an hour wandering around trying to find Dottie’s. Turns out Dottie’s isn’t Dottie’s any more, and instead it’s The Hyde. Came in out of the rain and had some very good diner french toast and a much needed couple of cups of coffee.
Back to Joel’s place, to pack up and head out.
The plan: catch a 32 to Forest Hills, grab an Orange Line up to North Station, ride the commuter train to Salem where I’ll rendezvous with robocop is bleeding and banjo_is_the_pork a little before three and commence driving up to Portland, ME for tonights meetup.
The reality: I misinterpret Charlie rules and assume my transfer to the Orange is free instead of $0.45, and so try going through the gate with an empty card. Hit a kiosk, reload the card, head back through the gate, and watch the Orange Line pull away as I hit the stairs down. Tourist move, might as well be wearing a fannypack and Mickey Mouse ears.
MBTA.com gives me an alternate route via bus, switching at Wellington to the 110 and then the 445w. I’ll get to Salem an hour later, which means we’ll probably be late for the Portland meetup. Damn.
That said, I’m pretty happy with the MBTA trip planner. Transit trip-planning online is definitely one of my favorite bits of The Mundane Future — more Philip K. Dick than Isaac Asimov, definitely, but function over form is fine with me if it means I can get where I’m going with thirty seconds of typing.
And now I’m on the 445w, Salem-bound. I just barely caught this bus, waving it down as it began to roll away. Bit of poetic redemption, that.
After a couple of pretty big, loud, drinky meetups in Boston and NYC, I’m looking forward to taking it a bit easier in Portland tonight.
