Travelblog: The Great Nor'easter—Episode 3

My profounded apologies for the interruption in road trip coverage, dear friends.  As I rapidly discovered while I was on the road, it's hard to find the time to properly chronicle a vacation while one is STILL ON IT, therefore my posts ground to a halt. I also encountered issues with poor Internet connections at some of the hotels I stayed at, which made uploading my photos very slow or impossible at times.  I've been back home for over two weeks now, but a combination of fatigue, personal home projects and illness have prevented me from giving you the rest of the story, so over the next few days or so, I hope to finally catch up this whole sojourn, which by journey's end, made me feel like I'd just come off a concert tour. I can safely say, folks, that I'd make a lousy Rock star!

Now, where were we?...

GREAT SEAT, EH BUDDY?!?

Ah yes, I last left you at Fenway Park and the most enjoyable tour I took of it.  This photo was taken near the end of it in the Bob Uecker section as we got to sit in the ancient rock-hard original butt-buster wooden seats they have yet to replace that date back some 70-odd years.  Fenway is a trip within a trip, and I was glad to finally get to see it on the inside. Much to the chagrin of Red Sox Nation, however, their majestic tailspin at the end of season more or less began long about the time I set foot in Fenway Park, thus the Holland Curse was born...

PAVE PARADISE, PUT UP A PARKING LOT—LITERALLY!
You are looking at the site of the legendary Boston Garden.  Way to develop the site, there, Beantown!  As much as Boston likes to honor its rich history, this is the best y'all could come up with for the former home of the Bruins and Celtics?  True, there is a very cool Bobby Orr statue nearby just behind where I took this photo, but come on!  Center ice would've been about where the white trailer sits, only three stories higher, since the Gaaaaaden sat on top of a train station, as does the new joint nextdoor to the left.  I didn't have time to check out the New England Sports Museum housed inside the new arena, but it looks pretty cool.  Will catch it next time...

SIGN, SIGN, EVERYWHERE A SIGN
Here's something you don't get to see very often—the backside of the famed Citgo sign in Boston's Kenmore Square, two blocks from Fenway Park.  I never knew that Citgo actually stood for Cities Service, and one of their gas stations used to exist in the ground floor of the building the mighty sign resides on.  One of the cooler corporate logos of all-time, too.

DOWN IN THE TUNNEL TRYIN' TO MAKE IT PAY...
I love tunnels.  We don't have near enough of these here in the Midwest, which is one of the many reasons I love to travel back East because they're everywhere.  I made it a point while in Boston to check out the infamous Big Dig/Ted Williams Tunnel, and I was not disappointed.  What was only supposed to cost Mass. taxpayers $5 billion wound up costing them $17 billion, so I tried to chip in by paying the toll and riding through it--twice!  This tunnel actually comes in three parts under downtown Boston, with the third one being the coolest (eastbound, that is).  A mini-thrill ride for yours truly...

THANK YOU FOR SHOPPING AT BELICHICK'S
Last time I was in Foxboro, MA in 1994, it was just a bump in the road with an NFL stadium attached to it.  I think there was maybe a used car lot, a 7-Eleven and a podunk hotel along U.S. 1 back then, but it's a whole different world 17 years later, as they've managed to put the ugh in Foxboro(ugh) with the Gillette Stadium complex on the site where the original home of the New England Patriots, Schaefer/Sullivan/Foxboro Stadium once stood.  Don't get me wrong—the stadium itself is pretty cool, and one of the best in the NFL.  It's the ancillary (and unnecessary) pieces of the complex that made me throw up in my mouth a bit.

Pats owner Bob Kraft has seen fit to create a sports/entertainment/business/shopping mecca on the property (see diagram), and I found it all rather indigestible.  For my KC friends, the complex is very similar to the Legends clusterfuck by Kansas Speedway, complete with a shopping center, hotel, restaurants/bars (including the oversized and probably overpriced CBS Scene entertainment center), and even a breast health hospital.  The football/sports purist in me cringed at the sight of this garish site.  In a nutshell, any Pats fan (male or female) can stop off and grab that bustier and matching panties they've been so badly wanting at Victoria's Secret and/or get some fishing tackle at Bass Pro and get a mammogram at the hospital right on the way into the game!  What pissed me off most is from where I parked, I had to walk all the way AROUND the damn shopping center and overpriced hotel to get to the stadium for the soccer game I attended.  Oh, and the P-Men cater to the short-attention-span society as well--if you get too bored with the event you're attending, you can watch the Red Sox game on the big screen outside of CBS Scene.  While I do give the Patriots brownie points for their classy team Hall of Honor, I could do without the rest of this monument to corporate excess—it's just so un-football to me.

THERE ONCE WAS A FAUX GREEN MONSTER IN PAWTUCKET...

I thought this was kinda clever outside of McCoy Stadium in Pawtucket, RI, home of the Red Sox' triple-A farm team, the PawSox.  Gotta love where they put the Yankees in the standings...