October 24, 2009 –  The Hancock Tower vanishes into the rainy mist that engulfed the Northeast today.
 Had a great day in Boston. Saw the quirky Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, ate great seafood, prowled Back Bay and the Fenway. Drove back today in downpours. Tomorrow, the sun is supposed to return for a few days. I lived in Boston once, and then Cambridge, and it was always a city I wanted to live in. Maria and I talked about whether we could live in a city now, and I don’t think we could. We are used to space, looking at beautiful things, and quiet.
  When we got to Boston, we found that President Obama was speaking at the hotel across the street, and the streets were swarming with police and Secret Service Agents, along with demonstrators, protesters, and annoyed pedestrians and workers trying to navigate barricaded and sealed off streets. I remember reading that Harry Truman used to walk around Washington every morning with his dog.
  It was nice to come back to the farm. It was nice to go away. Important, I think, to step out of your life once in awhile and look at it differently. I ended up feeling that cities are great places for me to visit, but that I probably would go a bit bonkers living in one. Maria agreed.
  Boston is close enough for us to visit regularly. We will.