Day 17: A Quincydence

Wednesday, October 21

In the morning we packed up and met our host briefly on the way out. She was a pleasant woman with a British accent. We were going to Quincy (pronounced Quinzy) for the day and decided we would drive there first then find breakfast. We ended up taking breakfast at McKays, which turned out to be right across the street from the birthplaces of John Adams and his son, John Quincy (also pronounced Quinzy) Adams, which we would be visiting later. Breakfast was not great and we dared not try the coffee. Sandra identified a place called Coffee Break, from which to procure coffee. Finding it was a challenge, even with the GPS and we had to park in a parking garage that was like something out of a post-apocalyptic movie - dark and corroding with big pot holes in the concrete, even though it was covered (how does that happen!?). We walked into the coffee place, and saw the girl behind the counter had a nose ring, which made it promising. However, the smell was overwhelmingly of pumpkin spice flavored coffee. The girl coughed into her hand and asked for our order. Without even consulting each other, Sandra and I instinctively knew that we would be ordering nothing. David bought a bottle of some soda-like substance and we bailed. After a stop at Starbucks (no, Starbucks does not count as good coffee, but at least you know what you're gonna get), we went to the National Park Service visitor service and bought tickets for the Adams family (not to be confused with the Addams Family) home tour. 

The view of JA's birthplace as seen from the yard of JQA's birthplace

JQA's birthplace as seen from the yard of JQA's birth place

At this point we were feeling a bit unimpressed with Quincy, at least with the parts we had seen. However, the tour was great. We boarded a trolley, which first took us to the birthplace houses across the street from McKay's. These are the original birthplace homes of President John Adams and President John Quincy Adams, set next-door to one another just a few feet apart in their original locations, and a few feet from what was the old coast road to Boston and Plymouth. What is a mixed residential and commercial neighborhood today was once farmland surrounding the two houses. A park service tour guide took us through the homes and gave us the family history. Most notably, she highlighted JQA's brilliance (despite being socially a bit rough). We reboarded the trolley and it took us to "Peace field." After John and Abigail Adams had spent a few years on duty in Europe, staying in palatial estates, Abigail could not return to her "saltbox" home (modest architectural style resembling a saltbox) and purchased a larger place for them to return to. Peace field was also surrounded by farmland and John considered himself foremost a farmer. This new house was passed down through four generations. A beautiful "fire proof" stone library was built to house JQA's book collection. The 4th generation had no children and the estate passed to nieces and nephews, who gave tours until the 1940's, when they turned the estate over to the park service with the stipulation that the family could continue to use the house for family reunions. 

Some kid on the tour trolley
(Photo: Sandra)

Peace field (Photo by Sandra)

The house in the back and the fireproof stone library to the left
(Photo by Sandra)

Even the ivy on the Airbnb was in fall colors

The trolley brought us back to the visitor center and after the usual visitor center shopping spree, we returned to the car and headed up to Boston. We found our accommodations, another Airbnb on Commonwealth ("Comm") Avenue at Gloucester, in an area called the Back Bay of Boston. This place was the best yet - as classy as the cottage in Duxbury, but much larger (two bedrooms, two baths and a great room with full kitchen) on the 3rd floor overlooking the street. We were greeted by our host, who was 38, looked 28, was a school math teacher, just gave birth to her first kid four weeks prior and lived in the next unit. She was really nice and said we could check out Sunday night, which solved the problem of where we were going to leave our bags Sunday before our flight out to Israel. 

Chillin' on Comm Av

Sandra had planned to drive to Lexington and Concord, then turn in the car, but it was late in the day, nearing rush hour, and traffic was already nightmarish. By the time we would have gotten there, it would have been nearly dark. I suggested we call Enterprise and ask to keep the car one more day so we could go there tomorrow. It was at this moment that the third domino of Day 8 collided into the fourth domino. Upon calling Enterprise, we discovered to our horror that when the Enterprise agent at Newark Airport had moved us into the larger car and redid all the paperwork, he erroneously indicated Newark to be the return site, not Logan airport in Boston! Sandra spent about half an hour on the phone with half a dozen people explaining our predicament (over and over to each new person she had to talk to), but all we could get from them was that we would have to pay an extra $1000 to drop the car at Logan! All this because we had thought to bring two large suit cases with us on the trip. It was stunning how no one at Enterprise could be made to understand that the mistake had been made by their agent and that we shouldn't be responsible for their mistake. Finally though, she got someone to agree to extend the rental for one day and allow us to return it at Logan for an additional $100. 

Boston is a terrible city for driving a car. The traffic is continuously jammed, every other street is under construction and there is nowhere to park. I was lucky enough to score a spot around the corner from the apartment with an electronic meter that only had to be fed until 8:00 PM. My plan was to wake up early and feed it again at 8:00 AM when the meter would be waking up for breakfast, but a parking enforcement officer told me they don't allow you to just keep feeding the meter - the car has to be moved to another street. So I found a parking lot in the Prudential Center a few blocks away where I could park overnight. The signage was unclear as to exactly how much I'd be paying for the privilege, but for sure it would be at least $40, which was a bit more than the $4 I would have had to pay had I been able to leave it on the street. I spoke with my brother on the phone the next night and when I told him we were in Boston, the first words out of his mouth were, don't try to have a car there!

The area we were in had tons of great restaurants and we walked to a sushi place. Then, on recommendation from our friend Vicky, we went to L.A. Burdick for hot chocolate, which was to die for (literally and figuratively), then back to the Airbnb for the night.