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Thursday, July 24, 2003
Summer struck Boston with a vengeance a month or so ago, a long-awaited late-June assault of sunshine and perfect temps that made going to work nearly impossible. After a brutal winter and a gray, rainy spring, the sky seemingly opened up to us, and a difficult Wednesday morning decision had to be made. Head to the cube, or head to the shore? Ok, so the decision wasn't that difficult. A sanity day was in order, so I called in, we packed a couple beach bags, and headed northeast as fast as the mid-week traffic would allow.
First stop, Devereaux Beach in Marblehead. Cheap parking, lotsa space, not too crowded. Just perfect. Well, it would have been nice if the water wasn't arctic-cold, but the feeling in my feet came back eventually, so no big deal. Oceanside strolls, snack-bar treats, people watching, beach reading... all good things. We had an especially good time playing "Spot the Patriotic-patterned swimsuits" (as you'll see in the photo pages I just posted.)  Sufficiently sunned, we headed over to Salem and hit the gloriously tacky tourist trap known as the Salem Willows Amusement Park, a one-sided strip of videogame goodness, clam shacks, and indoor kiddie rides. The hum of the Salem Willows Arcade was too much to resist, so we went straight in and found a little oasis of 80s-style gaming goodness. A row of classic coin-ops and a dozen old-school pinballers was hidden away in the back corner. My first thought : "If they have Cyclone, I am going to totally. freak. out." As I got closer, I heard it calling to me ... "Ride the Ferris Wheel!", it said. And so I did, while Amie did time with Galaxian. Let's just say that many quarters were spent, and many bonus plays were won. Time travel never came so cheaply, and a pair of photobooth smiles never came so easily ...  As if the day couldn't get any better, we headed to the Salem waterfront for dinner. After a quick visit to the witchcraft museum (and a fairly lame witchtrial presentation), we asked around and discovered there was a free water taxi out to a floating restaurant in the middle of the harbor. Well, how could we say no to that? We got on board, motored between the many moorings, and before we knew it we were ordering at a bar on a mini-barge. "One Corona," I said. "Eight dollars," was the reply. Ahhhhhh... now I knew why the water taxi was free... you're trapped out here in the hot sun with mucho-expensivo summertime beers. But wait, what's this? The Corona is twenty four ounces? Ok, that makes more sense. Big honkin' beers. I'm not sure why everything there was super-sized, but I'm certainly not complaining. Back to the shore, back to the car, and back to Boston. It was hard to head home, but the return trip was made all the better when we passed by this place ...  A perfect exclamation point on a perfect getaway. My sunburn may have faded, but the feeling and the photos remain. A brand new top ten day.  |
 neil halstead live in cambridge, ma on november 14th, 2008 previously: joy formidable - boston 2011 recent posts on the 'nac...
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