Autumn in Boston

I know it's been a month. Where have I been? Working, mostly. I'm sorry I haven't posted. I'll get to some car stuff, but the bus has sat mostly idle (poor Hapy) because I haven't been able to get the rims done, so he's sitting on that old fading rubber. I have made a little headway on the rims since The Other One post. For today, the Boston trip.

Chelsea
The family reunion consisted of around 70 relatives all on my father's mother's side. His mother was a first generation US-born, so we had a healthy representation from her homeland: Ireland. Most of the 70 family members stayed at the Residence Inn in Chelsea. Why it is called anything about the Logan Airport, I don't know. It cost $30 by taxi from the airport, so it isn't exactly next door.

Chelsea looks really close to downtown Boston, until you need to get there by anything other than a private car (or Uber). The 112 bus runs from Haymarket Square, but it does a scenic loop before stopping at the hotel. In the end, we used the bus to get into the city a bunch, but used the cabs to get home.

Near to the hotel is one of the largest supermarkets any of us (including my Texas sister) have ever seen. We nick-named the Market Basket "Massive Market" for that reason. It was handy for grabbing go salads for lunch before heading into Boston. We were disappointed to realize that Massachusetts (MA) is effectively a blue-state for we non-natives. No beer or wine sold anywhere except a liquor store or bar. Ye-ouch that hurt... though it also meant we spent more time at the hotel bar... with many of our relatives... drinking late... and being loud. Take that MA.

The Burren

The weekend kicked off with an evening starter in the reserved back room of The Burren (in Somerville). I don't remember much of this evening except that I started my exploration of Irish Whisky here. There were lots of introductions, and then we switched venues to the hotel bar where things got a little more blurry. Since I hadn't really gotten any sleep the night before, I'll blame that. I crashed around 1:AM local time.

Harbor Tour

Having grown up in the North East, I'd been to Boston a bunch of times. I've seen the Red Sox win at Fenway. I've walked the deck of the US Constitution. I've shopped Quincy Market. I hadn't, however, ever seen the city from the water, nor had a real tour guide explain the sights. Our leader, Frank, organized a group outing on a triple-deck boat getting a full tour of the Boston harbor. Much like the Duck Boats, these boats must seem annoying to the locals. For a true tourist, it was really fantastic. I learned more about how the harbor was formed, the history of the various islands and of the landmarks than in all the trips I'd taken as a youngster. It was fantastic.

BC Football... sort of

After the tour ended, my brothers, my dad and I hit the mass transit to try to get to a college football game. As I've said before, try to fit a sporting event into your trip. At the very least, you can have that as a highlight. Well, the T is very efficient moving through the city so long as it stays below ground. The Green Line hits the surface near Fenway and then seems to stop every 30 feet as it runs along the Charles before heading south on Commonwealth Ave towards Boston College. To be fair, my dad did forewarn us that it would be a long-ish train ride. He was totally right. By the time we got to the BC stop (end of the line), we were famished and the game was deep into the 2nd quarter. We hit Crazy Dough's Pizza for grinders and slices of pizza rather than quick-foot over to the game. Delicious, and they had the game on the radio.

All full and fired up for football, we crossed Commonwealth and made our way across campus to the football stadium. We could hear the bands, so we knew it was halftime when we got to the ticket booth. "$40 each," the guy says. We point out that the game is half over, and he says "no discounts". Sorry, BC, but you gotta do better than that. We walked out, deciding that watching half a game for $160 just didn't pencil out. Instead, my dad gave us a sorta-tour of the campus. He got his Masters there many years ago, so it was really more of a tour of "there used to be a field over there" and "I think that used to be..". Regardless, it was really great to just roam with my father and brothers for a sunny afternoon.

North End Italian

No trip to Boston is complete without grabbing a meal in the North End. The Italian food there is the high mark for all Italian food, IMHO. Yes, Chicago, I've had Italian food in your fine city. Not as good. Frank arranged to a final big event upstairs at Riccardo's Ristorante in classic multi-course style. So good. I can't remember all the dishes now, but the salad, the fish and the chicken parm still resonate. My brother, sister and I had tickets to see our old friend Al perform as part of a comedy show, so we had to split before the desserts and coffee were served. Sadness. Based on the meal, I'm sure it was amazing. You can see a liquor store next door in the picture here. I didn't put that together when I first saw it, but my brother and his wife saw it, and got a couple bottles of wine for later. Smart move.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Al Park

Full of food and dressed to impress, we headed west to Cambridge (I think) to catch a backroom comedy show with our old friend Al closing the event. The line-up was hit and miss, but Al described the forum as a place where comics try very new rough material, so sometimes it zings and sometimes, well, it doesn't. Al was absolutely hilarious. He was always funny. He could always take a room full of people at a party and make them laugh. As a comic, he takes a room full of people and makes them laugh over and over again. Within 15 seconds we had tears on our cheeks and within a minute we couldn't breathe. He admitted afterwards that he used some battle tested stuff. It was really fantastic.
After his show, we closed the bar down visiting and remembering when like you do when you haven't seen someone in a long time.
If you're local and you read this in time, Al is performing in Vancouver WA Nov5 at Kiggins Theater. Otherwise, he's performing around Seattle this week and next.
We got back to the hotel in time to see the blood moon and have a few drinks with the relatives.

Quincy Market, Durgin Park and JJ O'Donovan's
After getting so little sleep for two nights in a row, you'd think I would have slept in on Sunday. Nope. Free breakfast can wake the Dead. We learned that a few folks had tickets to the New England Patriots game and others were going to catch the Red Sox later. I guess I see where I get that thing from now; family traits are funny that way. Anyway, my sister had a flight out that afternoon, and my dad, brother and sis-in-law wanted to hit Quincy market. Not a shopper, I figured I could people watch so I jumped on the bus and hit the Market. Being an absolute gorgeous day, the market was bumping. I collected a few Boston Bruin things and after Yelp searches and some aimless wandering, we all headed into Durgin Park for dinner. My dad's mom, the relative we had in common with all the family we came to meet, worked at Durgin Park during WWII. So, in a way, it was the perfect final meal before we started heading back to our respective homes. The food was okay, I got a weird tasting beer that they traded out for a whisky, but the service was good. As we were walking out, we saw the name of the bar next door: JJ O'Donovan's Bar. In a weird kismet evening, of course after we stumbled upon the restaurant my grandmother used to work in, we'd find a bar with her last name on the door. I immediately bought my dad, my brothers and myself T-shirts. hahaha. so much for that not-a-shopper thing.

That's really it for the trip. I didn't get into getting to know the relatives. It was pretty amazing, on top of all the stuff I described above. We got to really visit with Katherine, our cousin who currently owns the family farm back in Ireland. She represents the current member of a family line of land-holders stretching back hundreds of years. Wild stuff. I, like everyone else who was there, hope we do this again in two years on the family farm like they did two years ago.

Mopping Shop and Eating Crow

Being Monday, today is all about updating what happened over the weekend.  I was able to test drive the bus,  take a run at the mountain, work on the cooling system some more and even watch a little football.

Mopping Shop
Well, as you may expect from the sub-heading here, the test drive got a little, uh.. wet.  Like my prior attempts to drive the bus, I had all the usual trappings.  Everything seems fine, and then its not.  I started him up, checking for leaks and for air bubbles in the overflow bottle.  Nada.  Then, I drove the bus down to the local 7-11 and picked up a celebratory beer.  Drove home.  By the time I got home, the engine was warmer, and the coolant started to leak.  I parked him in front of my place and like a nervous puppy, he formed a puddle underneath.  Drat.  I proceeded to mop the garage floor where he is usually parked and backed him in.  I slid a pan under the drip, went upstairs with my now-conciliatory beer and watched the Blazers beat the tar out of Denver on tv.

View of Mt. Jefferson
from the top of Magic Mile

Timberline Shines
I awoke to an alarm on Sunday morning, triggering a day playing in the snow.  I grabbed Boo, met my brother in Hollywood and made it to Timberline Lodge by 9:30.  We figured the resort would be less crowded on StuporBowl Sunday, but there were still quite a large number of folks there.  The weather was absolutely fantastic: sunny with a slight wind.  It was cold enough to stave-off the melting but warm enough so you didn't need lots of layers.  Perfect weather.  The snow was pretty packed, but there weren't many ruts and the groomers had churned enough to keep the top fresh.  Everything except the Palmer Ice Sheet was open, though the Magic Mile trails were pretty icy (making them fast and easy to catch edges).  Alpine, Thunder, Glade and Kruser were really good runs, with plenty of open space between folks.  The terrain parks were jammed, but I avoid those anyway.  We played until around 2 when we packed off back home.

Dinner of Crow
I dropped my brother and Boo off at their respective homes and hit the parts store for an o-ring.  I'd come to the conclusion that the leak was caused by an o-ring failure, not a human error.  I got home and my legs declared they were too tired to do anymore.  So, I snapped on the game.  Boo and I stopped for a quick bite at one of our regular spots (Mandarin Palace on the corner of Allen & Scholls Ferry), and I saw the 1st quarter there.  It seemed like it was a decent enough slow-start StuporBowl.  By the time I got home with my o-ring, got my snow stuff into the laundry and the game back on, it was nearly over.  Yes, that was an amazing finish to any football game, and it being the final game of the year makes it all the more impressive.  I watched the post-game interviews and swallowed my crow.  Maybe I'll try to watch the game next year.  It sure would be nice to see a West Coast team in there, though.

More Cooling Surgery
After the game, I took my new o-ring and swapped it into the bus.  This time, I did things a little differently.  First, the o-ring is a little oversized.  The stock part is metric, but all I could find was one in imperial sizes. So, rather than 3mm thick, it is 3.1mm.  Instead of 20mm inner diameter, it is 19.6mm.  You get my point. As a result, the o-ring was snug on the temperature sensor and snug in the flange.  Once the c-clip was back in place, I couldn't wiggle the sensor at all.  I contrast that with the ability to wiggle it enough to make it leak before, and I think I've found the leak source.
Second, I captured the coolant differently.  Rather than try to drain coolant, I caught all of it at the flange during the sensor removal.  Take a clean kitchen garbage bag and push the closed end down from the flange towards the ground.  Wrap the open end around the flange and remove the c-clip.  Pull the sensor and all the coolant goes into the bag.  Put the new o-ring on the sensor, install the sensor and pour the coolant back into the overflow bottle.  In my case, the coolant bottle didn't drain during the work, so I had to start the engine to circulate the air bubbles back into the bottle.  Then, I re-filled it from the bag.  Neat!  And no mess!

I'll test drive when I have some time this week.  Like every other time, it feels like I have it fixed.  We'll see. Maybe this time I actually found and fixed the problem.  Thanks for following along.  More next time..