BRONXVILLE, New York to MARBLEHEAD, Massachusetts, July 12, 2005 — We get up pretty early. We shower, organize, pack, review our route with our friends. Off a little before nine. We make a little wrong turn leaving the neighborhood but will mostly navigate flawlessly after that to the Seagull Inn in Marblehead, MA. It is on 'the neck.' An almost island except it is connected by a hundred-year-old (I think) causeway.

We find the owners of the tiny (three suite) B&B and get checked in. The place is great. Everything you might need including, in our area, hundreds of books. The nicely landscaped garden is inviting.

Our buddy Bob Baker swings by and takes us a few blocks away to the Corinthian Yacht Club where he gets us set up with a guest membership. Then he drives us through Marblehead to orient us. The place is full of really old houses (early 1700's, even late 1600's). Bob points out places he's lived. Bob will show us his current abode, a small dusty place in a newer part of Marblehead a couple of times in these few days. He will regale us (in the sense of providing great enjoyment) with snippets of writing, clippings, annotated books and ideas. There isn't a way to give a sense of this to my readers short of sharing some of Bob's work and I can't do that directly although I do wish he had a WEB page I could link you to.

Back at the B&B, we change clothes. We go down to the Corinthian Yacht Club and have a drink on the deck overlooking the bay and the yachting set doing their thing as the sun sets. We have a reservation at a place called Pellino's in the town. We are hungry, made hungrier still by the cookout in progress on the CYC deck. We decide to go early to the restaurant.

There isn't much of a crowd at Pellino's and one won't develop. We have an energetic young waiter who seems to be a part of the ownership family. He recommends a good wine. We have grilled calamari with salad and beans and a pasta. They rock. I have a veal dish that is redolent of vermouth or something and is good, too.

After dinner we walk around the block and then take our sleepy heads back to the Seagull Inn. It's cool enough to sleep with an open window and no air conditioning tonight. Very pleasant.