Saturday 10 August 2013

Friday 9th to Saturday 10th August 2013

The last day.
We didn't have much planned other than being at the airport in time for the flight home.
The forecast was an 80% chance of thunderstorms so we made the decision to forego the beach in Cape Cod in favour of a tour of Providence.
It had started raining by the time we left the hotel. We hadn't hurried to leave but even so it was almost 10am before we did.
We took another tour of Ocean Ave, beautiful even in the rain, but too wet to risk the camera.
We turned towards Providence calling in at the Heritage Gallery in East Greenwich, run by three generations of one family, two painters and one glass artist. It transpired the glass artist was a fuser, who made wonderful landscapes as well as smaller coasters and jewellery.
The rain continued to pour down as we continued on to Providence, but got so bad it became dangerous on the road so we pulled off into a parking lot to wait it out.
After about half an hour it had commuted to light rain and we found somewhere for lunch, an Olive Garden restaurant.
Providence we saw, briefly, through the murk as one of the promised thunderstorms hit. There was no point traipsing round a city trying to sightsee and take photos in the pouring rain with thunder and lightening overhead. So we didn't.
We headed for the airport instead. We hit the traffic about 10 miles from the city and spent the next hour and a half crawling through it. The traffic going the opposite direction had even longer queues. We were helped by the express airport lane for HOV - high occupancy vehicles with two or more passengers; it saved us about half an hour.
As hoped our luggage was inside the allowed weight limit, glass and all, so after a meal and a lengthy wait we were on our way.
We'd changed into warmer clothing at Logan, just as well as it was 9 degrees and raining in Reykjavik.
Another hour and a half saw us on the plane to Heathrow.  
We enjoyed America and would like to go back, this time to the west coast. Some places reminded us of England, we felt right at home, others were very different.
I was glad Graeme was doing the driving, although I did drive for a (very) short time. The automatic helped!
Generally, we found the Americans polite, helpful and friendly. We never felt alienated or unsafe. We traveled on many different types of transport and I have come back wanting to know more of the history and geography of the places we visited, especially in New England.

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