Bike USA: August 9-29, 2000 – Now what? Boston

Max’s stuff in black, Mark’s in brown.

Now what?

Ted
dining hall
uhaul
in Princeton with Ted and Bindiya

So we rented a U Haul and high tailed it to Princeton. We both have some time to visit friends on the East Coast before going back to the west. My brother misses Robin and Ushki. I miss San Francisco and friends. And yet, I’m only going back for maybe a week before I leave to Japan, China, East Malaysia, and finally Australia. I’m going to be doing more of this travelling craziness for the next few months! What am I thinking? Unfortunately I didn’t make my Green Tortoise reservation in time and I will not be riding the hippie bus for 16 days from Boston to San Francisco. Most likely I’ll be taking Amtrak, but now I can visit North Carolina.

All three of us piled into this U-haul, after doing a whole lot of phone calls finding out that most of the rental car places wouldn’t work for us due to a minimum age requirement (Max is 24) or the fact that they don’t do one-way rentals. When we finally found a rental place that would work, we discovered that it was about $100 more than a U-haul rental. The New Jersey Turnpike was a new experience for me. I thought the rest areas that have restaurants and gas were kinda funny, and I could’ve added about 3 items to my fast food firsts list.

We got to Princeton and spent a night with Ted, a high school friend. Ted makes awesome tacos al pastor. Princeton is the ice cream social capital of the world.

ducks
crazy ducks
Movie of the Infinite Hallway in MIT
Movie of the Infinite Hallway in MIT part 2
Freedom Trail
cannon
george
in Boston on the Freedom Trail
chris
Chris likes fruity drinks more than I do.

The next few days were just us hanging around Boston, Max with Nancy and me with Chris. At one point George catched a plane from Providence back to Reed. I went to hang out with Ben in Providence for a couple of days before taking Amtrak back home. Read Cryptonomicon on the train.

Movie of that chair piece in the Arthur Ganson MIT exhibit (might have to boost up your monitor brightness)
Redbones
Redbones bbq place – they have a bicycle valet.
virtual aquarium
virtual aquarium at Boston Science Museum
Movie of the lightning show at the Boston Science Museum
Dunkin Donuts
Dunkin Donuts with fellow Reedies: Tom, Stephanie, Claire, Mark, Chris, Ben
typical
Claire
Chris and his hat
at Claire’s after donuts

Right now it is time to sleep and read. STILL haven’t finished Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I just bought the Joy of Yiddish. Oy! Soon this meshuggener is coming home.

Amtrak sunset
Amtrak sunset
Movie of Mark’s train ride home

If there is one thing that people should learn from our trip, I believe that it is to take life a little slower, think about your actions, enjoy the world around you, and ensure that it lasts for others. Coming in at a close second, though, is some bicycle knowledge: 26 x 1.25 tires are NOT the same as 26 x 1-1/4 tires.

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