The last full day of my month-long vacation, for tomorrow I fly home to San Francisco. Today has seen the most beautiful weather of the whole trip. After almost a week of heat and humidity in Massachusetts, the weather broke during the night, and today was cooler, with scarcely any humidity, strong breezes and the most perfect cloudscape. It was almost a perfect day for photography, since everything looked gorgeous in this light. I say almost perfect only because the wind was so strong at times that it threatened to blow my camera tripod over.

After working out at one of Boston's two gay gyms, I decided to play tourist for the day and walk about the city. I started at Beacon Hill - here's the State House.

Beacon Hill is the most exclusive area of downtown Boston, with street after street of beautiful brownstones, red brick, cobbled brick sidewalks, and trees. With early fallen leaves blowing along the streets, and the heady rush of the wind in the trees, there was the feeling of Autumn.

I really enjoyed walking round the old streets near the old City Hall, near the harbor. It's probably one of the oldest sections of Boston, and the streeplan must have been designed by Picasso in his cubist days. You can see some of that in this photo, with layers of buildings, all at slightly different angles from each other. I also took a great photo of Old City Hall, but my camera memory card played up and swallowed it, unfortunately.

I then walked through Faneuil Hall on my way to the harbor. It's a large, madly popular arcade of restaurants and shops. It's somewhat like Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco, and it's beyond my comprehension why in two such fascinating cities the most popular tourist locations have nothing to do with the actual identity of their cities. In Boston, you have such history, but people would rather go to Abercromby and Fitch in Faneuil Hall. In San Francisco, there's endless beauty, but let's go buy a tiny brass model of a cable car at Fishermans Wharf. I hereby admit to being a snob.

The magnificent old Customs House, now a Marriott.

On the harbor front.

My back and neck were aching, though, probably from another awkward night sleeping on the uncomfortable bed in my Boston hotel. So I inquired at the posh hotel right in the harbor, the Boston Harbor Hotel (I think it's called) to see if I could get a massage. I was in luck, and was able to arrange, right then, a great half hour massage from a blind masseur from the Philipines. It was funny when his hand past over my feet and he reacted, with astonishment, to the size of them.

I just had time to take a cab over to the South End, which is both a historic district of brick row houses as well as Boston's gay ghetto (although very nice for a ghetto). I'd arranged to meet Larry, a photographer email pal who lives in nearby Framingham, and he'd suggested the bar in the Chandler Inn. Larry had his portfolio with him, which completely wowed me, since I'd not seen many of his photos before. One of his books in particular, a series of photos of a young Boston guy named Brian, was beautiful in every way; great compositions and color, beautiful prints, and a natural beauty in the model. He had one of those completely open faces which hasn't been stamped with its full identity yet, so you could read whatever you wanted into it, as he stared with beguiling eyes into the camera.

In the South End, Boston's gay neighborhood.

And that's it. My neck was so bad at this point, that I retired to my room to rest on a heating pad, which is where you find me right now as I write. I'd have dearly loved to stay outside in this beautiful late afternoon, and experience every daylight hour left here to me, but my body had other ideas. It's time to sign off after this month of vacationing and journalizing. It's been a good trip; maybe not as fascinating or varied as some of my other trips, but certainly one of the happier ones, with much better moods, despite the difficult moments, at times, with my family. I can't say that I'm looking forward to returning to work, but I will be very glad to sleep in my own bed again tomorrow night, and wake up to a stunning San Francisco sunrise from my balcony.