The destination for our epic roadtrip was Andy and Kristin's new home in Weymouth, Massachussets. We spent an enjoyable time just hanging out watching YouTube, getting splendidly fed by Andy, visiting a few lovely parks, and one weird museum.
Cushioning Boston's bottom on the southeast is the Blue Hills Reservation, a really big nature preserve in the middle of such a megalopolis.
We went for a walk around Houghton's Pond.
Some rocks floating in the sky.
Leaf-peeping season was just beginning but occasionally we passed an autumnal scene, enhanced in this case by overexposure.
Our guides silhouetted against the lake with the Great Blue Hill and it's historic Public Broadcasting transmission tower in the background. As any good guide should, Andy provided us with the interesting trivia that the tower's location was the source of WGBH's call letters.
On Sunday morning, we drove down to the Cape to visit the illustrator Edward Gorey's home in Yarmouth Port. I read somewhere that an apt contemporary comparison of his oeuvre was to Tim Burton. In the last room on the tour, there was a small desk with some art materials to keep children busy. Andy and Kristin were the only ones south of 60 in the place so it seemed like a safe place to set the little tripod.
When I found myself alone with everyone else two rooms away, I took the opportunity for another view from on top a stack of brochures for the charitable organizations Gorey had left his estate to. The titles to the PBS series Mystery were playing in a continuous loop which gave an appropriate sound track to my surreptitious tripod use.
I first encountered Gorey's work when I processed his compilation Amphigorey in the cataloging department at the UW-Stout Library. It was one of those books where you turn over the title page to check that the call number has been recorded correctly on the next page (go look at a library book) and end up guiltily reading the whole book to see what outrageous thing is going to come next. This tree outside the house was particularly Gorey looking.
Kristin is a major horror movie fan, and Sarah just mined Steven King's stories for one of her contributions to the Haunted Hump Day festival, so references to King's works came up a lot on this trip. Particularly the Overlook Hotel. Here, with random application of a shaky tripod, I turn the vaguely disturbing Edward Gorey House into a royal horror show.
We followed with lunch at Longfellow's, a charming Cape Cod pub. I felt it was necessary to have fried seafood.
We stopped on our return for views of the tidal flats of Cape Cod Bay.
Next, Pennsylvania, or not.
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