A vacation amidst a nor’easter

My niece Alex said she was free the last weekend of September or two weekends in November for me to visit her in Boston. I chose September, anticipating warm, sunny days and needing just a light jacket at night. 

Instead Boston got a nor’easter, a cyclone named for strong northeasterly winds hitting the Atlantic coast. The storm arrived on Saturday and lasted until Monday. Staying upright in 50 miles-per-hour wind was hard. Trying to walk a few feet from a restaurant to an Uber car, I was pushed back by gusts that turned my umbrella inside out and broke off the handle. Pelting, cold rain soaked my clothes and shoes and chilled me to the bone.

My itinerary was done for. I’d finished the Freedom Trail before the storm hit, saving other walks to do with Alex on the weekend: the Charles River Esplanade, the harbor, and the neighborhoods between the Public Garden and her South End apartment. We couldn’t stroll in a tempest.

Of course I’m not the first person to have the weather uproot vacation plans. The usual advice is to find indoor activities. Even going out to get to an indoor activity was an ordeal.

Alex and I spent most of Saturday, the storm’s peak, sitting and talking. At some point it dawned on me that I was enjoying myself more than I had sightseeing the previous two days while she worked. Alex was my reason for going to Boston for the third time. The walks really didn’t matter, although doing them with Alex would have been fun.

I also thought that this was a lesson in go-with-the-flow traveling. A quarter century ago I wrote a book, Midwest Passage, about attempting to slow down on vacation and not be ruled by itineraries. The goal is still a work in progress.

I have three trips planned for the next year. After that I’ll evaluate my desire to travel. A bigger consideration than disrupted plans is that I can’t keep moving from morning until evening as I used to. 

No more must-sees are calling. Much of what people travel for, I have right at home. I don’t intend to stop taking advantage of the attractions of Chicago, where I can pace myself and make adjustments more easily. Plus, as a Chicago Greeter I have one of the best benefits of travel: meeting diverse people. People from all over the world come to us. 

But back to the Boston trip. Other observations:

• Riding the MBTA was a pleasure. The trains are clean. Every time I got on a crowded bus or train, someone offered me a seat. What isn’t that the case at home?

• Every tour I’ve ever had with a National Park Service ranger was excellent, and the one of the Freedom Trail was no exception. In just 75 minutes, the guide gave us a detailed history of pre-Revolution agitation in Boston. 

• On previous visits I hadn't learned about Boston's role in the antislavery movement. It was not only the cradle of the Revolution but also a hotbed of abolition. William Lloyd Garrison, publisher of The Liberator newspaper and cofounder of the American Anti-Slavery Society, was notable among the many Bostonians supporting the cause. 

• None of the tourist literature I saw mentioned three-decker homes, but noticing architecture comes automatically to a Chicagoan. Three-deckers are as much a signature feature of Boston as brick townhomes. A century or more old now, the wooden buildings with three identical stacked apartments gave working- and middle-class Bostonians a path to home ownership. A family lived in one apartment and rented out the other two.

• I saw dozens of people wearing Chicago Cubs shirts before the Cubs’ weekend series against the Red Sox in Boston. They must have seen Friday’s doubleheader but missed Saturday’s game, which was moved to St. Petersburg because of the nor’easter. I have company among Chicagoans disappointed by last weekend’s Boston weather.