As part of our mini-vacation, we decided to shoot some pictures before heading home to little old Uxbridge.

One of the rare times when I didn’t have a camera with me. Using a cell phone shooting through glass at twilight. The view from the 33rd floor at 60 State Street is breathtaking. Even using a phone instead of a camera.

Boston has changed a lot since we lived there. We’ve been gone 16 years during which time nothing much happened in Uxbridge. A couple of restaurants closed. All but one reopened under new management. The Unitarian Church went out of business. CVS built a big store where the ice cream place used to be. The ice cream place moved to Whitinsville. Both local dry cleaners closed and Walmart built a super store in Whitinsville.

During this same period, Boston finished the Big Dig. They built new roads, tunnels and bridges. Completely redesigned the waterfront, turning what had a been a dark, dirty dumpy area into an attractive, accessible tourist magnet. Lots of young people were there. Singing, dancing, drinking and hanging out which seems to be what young people do when they get together.

The Beaver

There are easily a dozen new hotels, one of which we stayed in. Very modern. Comfortable. Accommodating. Friendly. From the outside, it looks like it’s built with Lego (it has to be one of the most unattractive pieces of architecture I’ve seen), but inside, it’s delightful. High ceilings. Bright and airy. Well-designed, spacious bathrooms and plenty of closet space. Good cable package and fast, free WiFi. Lots of cool high-tech stuff.

And they take dogs. We were among the few people who didn’t have a well-groomed, properly trained canine companion. Our dogs are neither well-groomed nor properly trained. I shudder to imagine taking any of them to a hotel.

We cabbed over to the wedding from the hotel. It is on the waterfront — as was the hotel — but it’s several miles north of the area in which we were staying. As we passed the edge of Charlestown Harbor, I saw a tall ship. I assumed it was the Constitution and suggested we go back the next day. Take some pictures.

The Eleanor

When we lived in Boston, we used to hike to Charlestown from Beacon Hill or Charles River Park. We were younger. I could hike up the hill to our apartment at full speed with 20 lbs of groceries in each hand. These days, I’d have to stop along the way and take a nap. On the sidewalk. Or call for an ambulance.

It turned out the ship was not the Constitution. It was The Beaver, a restored schooner that recreates one of the three Boston Tea Party (NO relation to right-wing “Tea Party”) ships. There are two ships, the second being the Eleanor. A third ship is being built. Originally, four ships sailed from England bearing tea. One sank. Three made it to Boston. Then, there was a tea party, a bit of shooting, a declaration, a revolution … and the rest, as they say, is history.

You can have tea on one of the ships. There’s a cute little “museum” which is really a gift shop and not any kind of museum.

Hi from Sam Adams. He helped start a revolution and is mostly famous for making beer. Perhaps justifiably so.

We took pictures. We stopped and had crab cakes for lunch. We came home. The dogs were very glad to see us. We were very glad to see them. But mostly, we were unbelievably glad to see our extremely comfortable bed. At our age? There really is no place like home.

Other than the pictures I took with our rarely used cell phone, all the other photos were taken with my Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ 200. It’s the camera I grab when I want to keep it simple.

CEE’S FUN FOTO CHALLENGE: ALL ABOUT CITIES (SKYLINES TO STREET PHOTOGRAPHY)

Categories: #American-history, #Photography, Boston, Cameras, Cee's Photo Challenge, Harbors, Humor

Tags: #Photography, Boston, Boston Harbor, Boston Tea Party, cameras, Cee's Fun Foto Challenge, cities, history, humor