Maine 2015 - Day 2 - Icons

6/28/15, “Icons”

New York, New York

I suppose that I need to go to Katz’s Deli for either lunch or dinner tomorrow.  When I decided to take this trip to Maine, which would mark the third year in a row that I have gone to Maine for the first weekend of the summer.  I see no reason why this will not be an ongoing annual tradition.  When I began to plan the trip, I literally had no idea what I wanted to see.  I just knew I wanted to be in Maine this weekend.  Probably at the top of my list was visiting my old friend.  I wound up planning the trip around visiting him.  Then I remembered that checklist I was trying to complete of the most iconic restaurant in each state.  Well, I knew that I could easily check off New Hampshire, Maine, and Massachusetts on this trip.  That became the focus of my trip.

One thing led to another and I put everything together Thursday night after I got back from the movies.  In other words, from the time I planned the trip to the time I left, I did nothing but sleep and work (and eat).  I did not chart out any itineraries or print any directions or anything.  I just found the three restaurants and came up with the order in which I needed to do everything, no schedule.  This is in complete contrast to the way I usually travel.  The restaurant in New Hampshire was part of an inn, the oldest inn in New Hampshire.  The restaurant in Maine was a lobster shack near Portland.  The restaurant in Massachusetts, the oldest restaurant in America, was in Boston.  Hmm, how did I put that all together?

I believe my reader has already witnessed most of the voyage, but I will recap.  I drove up to Augusta after work on Friday, saw the State House in the morning, met my friend in the afternoon, and went to the hotel in New Hampshire for dinner, and that was where I spent the night.  Today, I would jet back across, having lunch at the Lobster Shack, get my brochure in Saugus, visit my Aunt, have dinner at the Oyster House in Boston, drive back to New York, stop at Sleepy Hollow, drop my travelling companion off at a subway station in the Bronx, drop off the car at the rental station, and be back at my apartment by midnight, if all went well.  Of course, all did not get well, and I suppose some details are in order.

The thing about this list of “most iconic” restaurants is that it’s not the list of the restaurant that serves the best food.  It’s something more.  I knew going on, the goal wasn’t to find the best lobster in Maine, the best oysters in Massachusetts or the best steak in New Hampshire.  No, it had more to do with the atmosphere and the history.  Each restaurant succeeded there, more than making up for what they may have lacked in food quality, not that that the food was bad.  Last night’s dinner was delicious portions of meat, and the breakfast was even better.  High quality breakfast meats and eggs, including sausage that tasted better than any breakfast sausage I’d ever had, complimented a perfect blueberry pancake.  It was everything that breakfast should have been, and doubt it had changed in the past 200+ years.  Why bother changing it?  Bacon and eggs are the perfect breakfast foods.  Why mess with it?

We hit the road, heading straight across to Portland, where I would be getting lunch at the Lobster Shack on Cape Elizabeth.  It was touted as Maine’s best lobster roll.  Reader, if you have ever been to Maine, you should know that any place that claims or is claimed to have the state’s best lobster does not.  You know where you get the best lobster roll in the state?  The little roadside shack with no more than two people in front of you in line, where there are picnic tables out front and garbage tables in the back.  They serve the best ice cream in the state, too.  They don’t brag about having the best lobster rolls or the best ice cream in Maine.  Why not?  Because the shack 30 miles down the road also has the best lobster rolls in the state, and the shack 50 miles down the road also has the best ice cream in the state.  Why don’t they say they have the best?  Because the locals know where to find these shacks without checking a list put out by an internet magazine.  They just drive until they get hungry and stop at the next one, and it is always amazing.  That’s the way life should be.  An overcrowded and overpriced touristy spot does not have the best anything.  It is, however, the most iconic.

It had been raining all morning, and I knew it was the kind of rain that doesn’t stop anytime soon.  I smoked another Las Calaveras as we drove, listening to the soundtrack albums from Tangled, Hercules, and Mulan, and I was starving by the time we arrived.  Of course it was still raining, which meant that sitting outside was not advisable, and the inside was extremely crowded.  As soon as I set foot outside of the car, I could smell the ocean.  I ordered far more food than was necessary, but it was all delicious, and the interior seating area certainly lead to the iconic description.  I got a lobster roll, of course, along with fries, a clam cake, a Diet Coke, and a blueberry pie.  Maine at its most iconic.  It was good, but something called the best lobster roll in Maine should not just be good.  It should be great.  It was not great.  Breakfast was great.  The lobster rolls and ice cream I’ve had at roadside shacks were great.  This was just good.

After lunch, I lit up a VSG and got back on the road.  I had told my aunt I would be there at 4 PM.  We had gotten a late start, and my GPS was now showing an arrival time at Saugus Iron Works at 4 PM, which meant that I would not get to her place until close to 5 PM.  We hit traffic, and it was 4:30 PM by the time we arrived at Saugus.  Saugus Iron Works NHS has been my white whale, the last NPS in New England that I needed to hit.  It is only open during the summer season, as I learned the first time we (my parents and I) attempted to visit it.  My mother and I returned last summer, but they didn’t have any brochures.  They still didn’t have the brochures when I went to Maine last October.  I was half expecting them to still not have them.  They had them, and I went to stamp my brochure.  The stamp did not come out right.  Well, fortunately, they had plenty of brochures.  I got another one and stamped it right this time.  I took a few pictures and lit up a Cohiba before returning to the parking lot, announcing, “New England Complete, for real this time.”

It was close to 5 PM, and my aunt would only be able to host us until 6 PM.  I made a wrong turn, and it was 5:30 PM by the time I got to my aunt’s place.  My cousin, my favorite cousin, a girl I’ve loved for practically as long as I’ve known her, was not there, and I was quite disappointed, as I had not seen her since a year ago, during my last June Maine trip.  Fortunately, I’d be seeing her and most of the extended family at my brother’s wedding in five weeks.  With not much time to spare, my aunt and I got down to business, discussing the recent family feud.  I will not air my family’s dirty laundry in public, but, as always, she provided good insight.  I did not agree with the advice she was offering, but it was good insight.  She spoke in code at times to avoid keying in my travelling partner to the details, not that I minded if he knew, but my aunt and I are both smart enough that we had no trouble instantly catching each other’s hidden meanings and the concrete facts behind her abstractions.

During a recent trip, I wrote about how I consider myself a servant of truth, so it should be clear how much I hate being lied to.  It should be even clearer that, at the top of the list of lies I hate the most are lies that people tell me to spare my feelings.  I can handle the truth.  Don’t lie to me because you don’t want to hurt my feelings.  She instead tried to get me to see the nobility in someone lying to spare your feelings.  Bullshit.  Truth comes first.  My feelings are secondary to that.  I understand that not everyone feels that way.

We said our goodbyes, and then I went to McDonald’s, where my travelling companion got his dinner.  I had realized that my original plan for the return journey simply would not work, so I decided instead that we would go straight from Boston to the car rental place in North White Plains and take the train home directly from there.  I drove into Boston, again making a wrong turn, the GPS, as always, being so unclear in Boston.  I was starving when I got there, but I saw a familiar plaque.

Wait, this was a National Historic Landmark?  Just a year ago, my mother and I went on a quest to visit a large quantity of NHLs in Boston in one day.  We did it by neighborhood, and this was in one of the neighborhoods we hit, just a couple of blocks away from other NHLs we hit.  How did we not include this?  No matter, it was better this way, since now I could eat here, though we could have had lunch there during our quest last year.  This place, the Union Oyster House, touted itself as the oldest restaurant in America.  It did not advertise, “The best oysters in Boston,” though Daniel Webster used to eat massive quantities of oysters here.  I went inside and asked for a table.  I was told that the wait for a table was over an hour.  Seriously?  I started to walk out.  She said that if I wanted lighter fare I could eat downstairs.

Well, wasn’t the downstairs the more iconic part?  It was.  I looked at the menu.  All the most iconic foods were on that menu.  Perfect.  I saw down at a table and looked at the menu.  I ordered a clam chowder, grilled oysters, and clams casino.  Again, it was good, not great.  However, it was about the atmosphere, and I was not disappointed.  After my meal, I hit up the gift shop.  I bought two beer glasses (one for myself, one for my friend, the only friend I regularly buy travel gifts for anymore, the friend I love the most), a keychain, and a replica of the restaurant.  Yes, they had a little ceramic model of the building.  Well, it’s an NHL, and a replica of an NHL is an automatic buy for me.

I then went outside, to take my pictures.  However, my phone was at 5%, and it needs to be at 6% to take a picture.  Charging it back up was a process.  Also, since this was an NHL, it means that it needs a cigar for an Official picture.  I wanted to just smoke one cigar for the whole drive, so I lit up my biggest cigar, a Canones, which I knew would last two hours or more.  I took my pictures, and we hit the road.  I was dead tired with about an hour left to the destination, and Sleepy Hollow no longer became advisable.  Again, no music.  It got to the point where I lost confidence in my driving abilities, that’s how I tired I was, so we stopped at the next rest station, even though we were only 45 minutes from our destination.  I got some coffee and a donut, and I rested my eyes before I gassed up and cleaned the car.  I didn’t light up another cigar, opting instead to air out the car for the last segment of the drive.

The train was at 11:59 PM, and we got there with more than half an hour to spare.  The train was late, but an express train came around 12:05 AM, getting us to Grand Central around 12:45 AM.  I was at my apartment before 1 AM, where I cracked open one of the blueberry beers I had bought in Maine, which is quite an interesting beer, lit up my Sunday Dunhill Nightcap, and proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close along with closing this trip.  It was a good trip, and it is one I am eager to repeat, though perhaps with a different travelling companion.  Next stop: Salt Lake City whence my mother and I will embark on our big summer trip to Grand Teton, Yellowstone, and Glacier National Parks before I explore the Canadian Prairie.

Maine 2015 - Day 1 - Old Friends

6/27/15, “Old Friends”

Hancock, New Hampshire

Here I am sitting outside at New Hampshire’s oldest inn.  It was established in 1789, the same year that George Washington became the first President of the United States, the same year the Constitution took effect.  Yesterday’s entry focused a lot on my political views and very little on my travels.  Today will be the opposite.  I made this trip to relax in Maine and to eat at three of New England’s most iconic restaurants, not to debate same-sex marriage.  However, sitting here at this historic inn, I cannot help but think how the Framers of the Constitution would have thought.

There was no debate on same-sex marriage in 1789.  Gays were considered evil or diseased or whatever.  However, I firmly believe that if John Hancock lived today, he would support same-sex marriage.  He would laud the decision of any state legislature that allowed same-sex marriages.  I do not, however, believe he would have allowed it as a right guaranteed by the Federal Constitution.  That said, there would have been rational debate on the issue.  If our framers were alive today and allowed to make a ruling, I'm inclined to believe that they would have overwhelming supported same-sex marriage as a legal right.  I'm inclined to believe that they would have dismissed the religious zealots who call homosexuality a sin.  I'm inclined to believe that they would have understood the science of today and made the right decision.

Times change, and views can change with it.  New facts come to light, the general views change, and society evolves.  People reexamine their beliefs and look at things in new ways.  If that was not the case, rational debate would not be the profitable activity it is.  My views on the issue have certainly changed over time.  They changed when I went to NYU and encountered gay men for the first time in my life.  They changed when I engaged in open discussions about sexuality.  They changed when I realized that homosexuality was not a joke to be made in a high school cafeteria.  They changed again when I fell in love with a lesbian, when I realized that, even if we could never date, she was the most wonderful person in the world, when I realized that she was someone I would do anything for.  They changed again yesterday morning when I read Kennedy’s Opinion.  People are entitled to make these changes, and John Hancock would think differently about these issues in 2015 than he would have in 1789.

This kind of rational debate is what was missing from this issue, and that was what so bothered me.  A fervent defense of same-sex marriage became the hottest issue on the liberal agenda, while condemnation of it became the backbone of the Christian Right.  Where was the middle ground?  Surely there were people who felt the middle ground and were too afraid to express that viewpoint without being attacked by both sides.  Not everyone can express their thoughts and feelings as eloquently as I.  Instead, they chose to remain silent, leading to a lack of debate, causing the issue to be decided by fiat instead of legislative reform.

It bothered me from the first federal court case where a district court ruled a Florida state law unconstitutional, and it bothered me as same-sex marriage became legalized in an additional 17 states in the same fashion.  It bothered me to such an extent that I could segregate my views on this lack of proper jurisprudence from my opinions on the merit of same-sex marriage.  It bothered me so much that I found myself opposed to same-sex marriage, hoping that the Supreme Court would overturn the federal court decisions that legalized same-sex marriage in 18 states.  That all changed when I read Kennedy’s Opinion.  How many other people changed their mind when they read his Opinion?  Too few I’m inclined to say because too few people examined this issue from a rational perspective, and that is a very unfortunate thing.

Alright, enough of this, and I have had a very interesting day of travel.  This is a Travelogue, and I will return my focus to my travels, but it is cold out here, and my laptop is dying, so I will head back inside before I continue.

Okay, I woke this morning slightly before 8 AM to a familiar chirp from my phone, indicating I had received a text message.  I knew who it was without having to look.  She is the only person who would text me before 8 AM on a Saturday and, more importantly, the only person whose texts I would answer before 8 AM on a Saturday.  The content of the discussion (the new Pixar movie) is not important.  What is important is that she is an old friend.  That is what the theme of this entry will be.  The thing about old friends is, friendships fade for a variety of reasons, but, when you reconnect with an old friend, it is like the lost years never happened.  Why does that happen?  Well, it’s quite simple, the friendship works now for all the reasons it worked before it faded away.

This particular friendship faded because of geography.  We reconnected over lunch nine months ago when we found ourselves in the city on the same day for the first time since we parted ways three years ago.  We instantly bonded at that lunch, and we have now been in constant communication, about our favorite movies, music, travels, whatever we find that bonds us.  It is a friendship that works.  That’s the key thing about any friendship, any relationship.  It doesn’t matter why it works.  It’s just important that it works.

One such text exchange we had yesterday was a few texts about the same-sex marriage ruling.  I had held off texting her about it, even though I was reading every word because, to be perfectly honest, I wasn’t sure how she felt about it.  I know she comes from a religious upbringing and has deeply set conservative political values.  I also knew that she has libertarian leanings, that she is one of the most compassionate people I know, and that I could not her imagine feeling hatred towards any group of people for who they are.

I got my answer in the form of an excited text with several rainbow emojis.  Oh, did I mention she’s also one of the biggest Harry Potter I know, that she practically worships J.K. Rowling?  I’m not sure if my reader is familiar with Rowling’s political views, but when it comes to equality and LGBTQ rights and same-sex marriage, there is no greater ally in the world than Rowling.  I began to wonder if perhaps my friend had once been opposed to same-sex marriage, only to be swayed by Rowling’s impassioned defense of it.

I began to wonder how many people Rowling had influenced, how many people Rowling had turned from prejudice to acceptance.  It’s probably a very large number, and, if my friend was in that group, it made me very happy.  I could be wrong.  She might have always been a supporter of same-sex marriage, but I guarantee there are plenty of people who have been swayed by Rowling.  In fact, I’d wager Rowling has changed more minds on the issue than anyone else in recent history.  Isn’t that a wonderful thing?  That a celebrity who is loved by her fans would use that to steer her fans away from prejudice and towards tolerance, acceptance, or even support.  It was a happy thought.

After I finished getting ready this morning, we headed down for a disappointing breakfast spread at the Hampton Inn, lacking compared to what I am used to seeing when I stay at a Hampton Inn.  The coffee was good, though.  We finished getting ready and headed to the State House and Museum.  I was pleasantly surprised to find a gift shop, where I procured a flag pin and a couple of keychains, before we headed to the State House to take our pictures.

I then lit up a Four Kicks, and we made our way from Augusta to Norway where my old friend was awaiting our arrival.  It had been at least a year since I had seen him, and we instantly reconnected.  It is funny how many of my old friends I met through the autograph collecting.  The friend who texted me this morning, the friend we were visiting, my travelling companion, the guy I have been constantly messaging about Game of Thrones theories, all of them I met through autographing.  All of them, I formed a bond when we met, lost touch with for a while, and was easily able to reconnect for the same reasons we had a bond when we first met.

He was renting a house and old dairy farm, the combined size of which was approximately 10,000 times the size of my apartment.  His rent was less than mine.  He gave us the scenic tour, and it was like I literally stepped into a different era.  Rustic, that’s the best word to describe it.  It looked like such a peaceful place to live.  “The Way Life Should Be” is Maine’s motto.  I have always felt that way, possibly never more so than this afternoon.  We then headed to lunch to a new restaurant he wanted to try.  From his description, it seemed like a chic new Italian place, but it just had traditional American food, burgers, chicken tenders, steaks, etc.  The portions were big, and we couldn’t finish everything.

Afterwards, we headed across the street to the waterfront, where we sat in a gazebo and enjoyed the scenery.  I lit up an Hoyo de Monterrey, which I had been saving for this occasion.  After the cigar was done, we went to the ice cream shack, since no trip to Maine could be complete without blueberry ice cream.  We had gotten so lost enjoying each other’s company, discussing celebrities and autographs, that the time had gotten away from us.  It was now becoming a tight schedule to get to hotel by 8 PM for the last seating at the restaurant.

Having dinner at the restaurant was the main reason I had chosen this hotel.  There is a list of the most iconic restaurant in each state.  I am trying to dine at each of those 51 restaurants.  If it were not for that list, we would have been staying in Portland tonight, instead of driving three hours to New Hampshire.  We returned to the house, and my friend told me that his wife should be home by then.  It occurred to me I had never even seen a picture of her.  Apparently, she does not like him to post pictures of her on Facebook.  She was there when we arrived, but it was hello and goodbye, since we needed to head to the hotel with all due speed.

As we drove, my travelling companion said that he could never live here, that it was too boring.  It was ironic, since I was having the exact opposite thought, how wonderful it would be to live here.  This was, quite literally, the way life should be.  I was so exhausted from the heat that I couldn’t even think about a cigar.  It was a three-hour drive, and I only smoked one cigar the entire drive, a Cabaiguan.  We got to the hotel with time to spare, and this was very much the historic inn I imagined.  In fact, they didn’t even have a free table at the restaurant, so they told us we could get settled in and come down at 8:15 PM for dinner.

The restaurant was certainly iconic, even if the menu was not, but I did my best to order what I imagined would pass for colonial fare.  I got a charcuterie appetizer, along with a local beer, and beef and lamb for my main course, both of which were too fatty.  I was too hungry to care, and I imagined that meat in colonial times was just as fatty.  I got a dessert for later and then went upstairs.  I soon went outside, enjoying the summer New England atmosphere, along with the historic Colonial feel of the neighborhood.  I responded to the email chain I had started with my father and his friends about the same-sex marriage decision and lit up an Avo.  I then proceeded to write this entry.  After my cigar, I headed up to the room, where I finished the entry which I will now close, as it is close to midnight, and I have long day of driving ahead of me tomorrow.

Maine 2015 - Day 0 - For the Children

6/26/15, “For the Children”

Augusta, Maine

I typically do not use this Travelogue to write about political issues, instead preferring to focus on philosophical themes that transcend the political issues of our day.  However, to ignore the events of today would be to ignore the very Zeitgeist.  In possibly its most significant ruling in years, the Supreme Court ruled this morning that State Legislatures cannot restrict marriage to being between a man and a woman.

I have worded that sentence in a very careful way, in contrast to the wording most news outlets have used.  Why?  Because, to me, that was the issue at hand.  The Tenth Amendment clearly states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”  The wording is unambiguous.  Nowhere in the constitution does it give the federal government any powers in marriage laws, nor does it prohibit the States from passing laws defining marriage, as they have for over 200 years.  Marriage is clearly in the realm of the States.  Right?

The obvious challenge to that is the Fourteenth Amendment.  The relevant passage goes, “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”  It is the equal protection clause that is at play.  Are same-sex couples being denied their equal right to marry?  Well, um, see, the thing is, couples don’t have rights.  Individuals have rights.  The question needs to be rephrased.  Are gays and lesbians being denied their right to marry?  No, of course not.  If laws were passed forbidding gays and lesbians from marrying, then it would be very different.

Okay, let’s ask a different question.  Are gays and lesbians being denied their right to marry the person they love?  Um, what right to marry the person you love?  I’m not sure that’s a right.  If an adult brother and sister were in love, they would not be legally allowed to marry.  Are they being denied their right to marry the person they love?  The same logic could be used to answer that question.  Is that the next step?  To allow adult incestuous couples to marry seems the next logical step, yes?  To be clear, I am not supporting the Rick Santorum argument, “If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything.   Whether it's polygamy, whether it's adultery, whether it's sodomy, all of those things, are antithetical to a healthy, stable, traditional family.”  I am arguing from the opposite direction.

Note that, at this point, I have very carefully avoided giving my opinion on any of this.  I am simply presenting the relevant arguments, as I see it.  See, the problem is, there is no debate on these issues.  On one side are the mostly conservative religious extremists who believe homosexuality is a sin and oppose gay marriage for that reason.  On the other side are the mostly liberal gay rights supporters who attempt to ostracize anyone who says anything that might be construed as slightly homophobic.  There is practically no middle ground, and there is no debate, just both sides ranting and raving.  Any policy issue, and same-sex marriage is absolutely a policy issue, needs to be debated in an open and constructive environment.  That debate has never happened on this issue, and with today’s ruling, the Supreme Court has prevented the possibility of debate on this issue.  Still haven’t given my opinion yet, intentionally so.

As I see it, there are actually three questions here.  The first, should same-sex couples get married?  The second, should same-sex couples have a legal right to get married?  The third, do same-sex couples have a constitutional right to get married?  (I am condensing language here, meaning “individuals in a same-sex relationship” where I write “same-sex couples.”)  Okay, so, the problem is, those are three very distinct questions, which people should answer differently.  Why, then, would almost everyone answer each of those three questions either all yes or all no.  Where are the people who say, “Same-sex marriage sickens me, it is a sin against god, but, unfortunately, the constitution says same-sex couples have the right to get married”?  Where are the people who say, “I’m gay, and I love my boyfriend, but I just can’t see anything in the constitution that says the State Legislatures can’t define marriage as between a man and a woman.”  You never hear those positions presented, and you don’t hear it because there really is no debate on the issue.  All you hear is the two sides shouting their answers to the first question, calling the other side sinners or bigots, and letting their answers to the second two questions being defined by their answer to the first question.

Reader, have I made it clear at this point how I see the issue?  Now, what is my stance?  How do I answer those three questions?  The first two questions are easy.  I have two female friends who are romantically interested in women, coincidentally both have the same name.  One has a girlfriend, whom I recently had the pleasure of meeting.  How could I possibly say in good conscience that, if they decide they want to spend the rest of their lives together, that they shouldn’t get married?  To do so would be to say, “I don’t approve of your relationship,” which, in turn, means, “I don’t approve of you.”  The two friends I mentioned, I love them both very dearly, and I love them for who they are.  To say that I don’t approve of them would in turn mean that I don’t love them, and that is completely opposite to what I just said.  So, my answer to the first question is that same-sex couples, who choose to get married, should absolutely do so.  The second question is even easier.  I am a staunch libertarian.  I do not want the government telling people who they can and cannot marry.  In fact, I don’t want the government to have anything to do with marriage.  Marriage should be a private contract between two individuals, and it should not need to be sanctioned by the government.

Now, the third question is so much more complicated.  Do same-sex couples have a constitutional right to get married?  I have always favored a strict interpretation of the Constitution, and I think I have explained in the opening of this entry why a strict interpretation of the Constitution does not support a constitutional right for same-sex marriage.  This entry, as I have just written it, is exactly how I would have written it when I woke up this morning.  When the Supreme Court issued its Opinion this morning, I was not sure what to think.  My immediate reaction was that it was a great victory for gay rights at the expense of the destruction of our Constitution, but I knew that I had to read the whole Opinion before I could figure out what my opinion was.  As I read it, I was basically thinking to myself, “Alright, Kennedy, give me a reason why your interpretation of the Constitution is correct and mine is wrong.”  He did not.

However, he did one better.  He gave me a reason to favor a liberal interpretation of the Constitution.  “Without the recognition, stability, and predictability marriage offers, children suffer the stigma of knowing their families are somehow lesser,” he wrote.  “The laws at issue thus harm and humiliate the children of same-sex couples.”  Oh, crap.  I never thought about it that way.  How could we possibly tell a child that the reason his parents can’t get married is because a document written over 200 years ago does not prevent a State from defining marriage as being between a man and a women.  Tell that to a child with two moms.  Go ahead.  That was a serious thing.  Reader, if you are continuing to oppose same-sex marriage go explain to a child of a same-sex couple why his parents can’t get married.  No?  You don’t want to.  Or are you in the civil union camp?  Allow civil unions with equal rights as marriages?  Okay, go tell a child why parents are only allowed to have something called a “civil union,” but his friends’ parents have a “marriage.”  How is that not a stigma to the child?  So, what’s my opinion on all of this?  We must allow same sex-couples the legal right to get married.  Not, they should have the legal right.  They must have that right.  Why?  For the children.

Alright, why have a spent so much writing about same-sex marriage in a Travelogue.  Not because it is the defining issue of our time.  No, because it was the biggest news story of the day, so much so that it dominated all of my social media feeds today.  While I communicated privately with a few people about it, I carefully avoided posting anything about to social media, instead opting to save my thoughts for this entry.  I had to wake up early since I wanted to leave early.  I quickly packed and rushed to make it to work by 7:37 AM.  I went for my traditional pre-departure lunch at Hop Won, bought some cigars for the trip, and finished up at work, heading down to meet Pablo.  We got our tickets and took the train up to North White Plains.  I had reserved a full-size car, which is called by the car industry a mid-size, and it felt like the smallest car I had ever driven.

I put on Red and lit up my Nic Toro, which I hadn’t smoked in quite some time, maybe not in over two months, since this was the first time I have driven in over two months, I have realized.  Of course, we got stuck in traffic, and a trip to McDonald’s proved quite a detour.  All in all, we lost well over an hour, showing an arrival time past midnight.  After dinner, I switched to Taylor’s eponymous 2006 album and lit up an Aging Room, which also lasted into much of Fearless.  I smoked a Las Calaveras for Speak Now.

It was a long and boring drive, 11 PM by the time we got to the all-too-familiar border sign to Maine.  I rounded out the Taylor collection by listening to 1989 without a cigar, and I finished up the drive with an Avo, listening to the first half of Les Miz.  It was not long before we got to the hotel, checked in, got coffee, and headed upstairs, where I lit up a Prensado and proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close so that I can publish and get to sleep.