boston montreal boston review post 2: gear

For this ride, miss_chance and I took ( more or less opposite approaches to our bikes )

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boston montreal boston review post 3: cameras

miss_chance and I took cameras on our trip, of course, since it was going to be so scenic. But we went a little overboard. We each took a point-and-shoot, and we also each had cameras in our phones, and there was at least one other device with a camera in it along for the ride for a total of I think five. Taking both point and shoots was silly, especially since mine isn't waterproof.

But what made bringing all of these cameras really silly was that none of them had any wide enough angle lenses available. The vistas, especially in Vermont, just don't fit in what you can have on a cell phone -- and the widest angle on the point and shoots was about the same. To really take art shots, we'd have needed much more serious equipment than we were carrying.

I haven't gone and looked at the phone shots to see if, exposure-wise, I'd have been happy with just that. The camera on the Droid is pretty decent for a cell phone camera, and I'm not going to be showing or probably even printing out any of my shots. As a reminder of the beauty we saw I imagine it will more than suffice. Even if I have to look at several shots next to each other on my screen.

boston montreal boston review post 4: welcome signs

Often state and province borders have signs at them welcoming you to whichever territory you are entering, and sending shots of them to Facebook is a fun way to keep people updated with your location. But while there were plenty of signs at the border, and we found New Hampshire to be very good about signs each of the several times we entered or left the state, we found no welcome signs anywhere for either Massachusetts or Vermont.

As miss_chance has noticed, it's not like Vermont needed a sign. Instead, immediately upon crossing the border, one is presented with a spectacular vista. What could any sign add to that? I hear that outdoor billboard advertising in illegal in Vermont, which makes utter sense as a way to protect the most valuable state asset.

Instead of a vista, we knew we were in Massachusetts when the quality of the pavement took a sudden lurch for the worse. Where Vermont, in aroraborealis' words, says "we don't need no stinkin' welcome signs", Massachusetts says "yeah fuck you, you're in Massachusetts".