botanizing

Hotel view: Spokane, 14 May 2011

Providence taxis

It is a little before 5.00 a.m. when I walk out of the Renaissance Hotel in Providence.  The air is thickly humid, and the temperature is 80°.

A colleague from the professional meeting that I have been attending is also outside of the Renaissance to wait for a taxi.  A couple walks out of the hotel, and they too are looking for a taxi to the airport.  One taxi arrives.  The couple are quickly upset that the taxi doesn’t appear to be for them—the taxi driver has my name.  I think we should all crowd into the taxi and head promptly for the airport—instead, the taxi driver calls his dispatcher.  He paces back and forth beside the car, throwing up his arm as he complains to the dispatcher about the screw-up.  He’s on the phone for five minutes—and I would really like to be on the road to the airport.  When he finishes the phone call, the driver says he can take only one of us.  We must wait for two more taxis, and this driver won’t budge until the other two taxis arrive.  “They’re on the way,” he says, “be here in a few minutes.”  The couple grumbles.  My colleague and I roll our eyes at the absurdity of the situation.  The driver paces.

Soon, two additional taxis arrive.  The couple take one.  My colleague takes another, and I get in my taxi.  Off we all go to the airport, one taxi trailing the other down the freeway.

 

 

[The photo is the view from my room at the Renaissance Hotel in Providence.  This present tense essay actually refers to events that might have happened several weeks ago. ]

Biltmore

It is midnight.  We step from baggage claim into maritime air—moist and cool.  The disjunction of air travel—a modern oddity—wraps time in discomfort.  It had been brightly sunny and aridly hot when we left Washington about noon.  The hours of flight disappear in a miasma of immobility, in which muscles stiffen and the mind, racing impatience, searches the minutes for way stations. 

 We have arrived in Providence—at least at its airport.  As we wait for our bags, I read the numerous advertisements for medical and surgical supplies that are posted on the walls.  One almost wishes there was still whaling—if only to give businesses some regional color.  We could be anywhere, except that the t-shirts advertise Brown University.  

Pulling our bags behind us, we walk to the taxi stand, find a cab, and begin our next journey.  The driver has jazz on the radio.  We look out of the windows at the trees and then the nightlights of the industrial margin of the city.  A sense of the dark city begins to take shape, and we exit the freeway.  We are downtown at a stoplight when the driver first speaks:  “Been in Providence before?”

He is surprised when we say it is our first visit.  In the block that remains between the stoplight and the Biltmore Hotel, where we will spend the night, the driver says, “It’s an interesting city.  A lot to do.”  He points left and says, “The art museum is up there at the Rhode Island School of Design.  There’re wonderful restaurants.  On Federal Hill—there are good Italian restaurants.”  And we arrive at the Biltmore.  I am beginning to taste pasta.

*

I reserved our room at the last minute.  We had not planned an itinerary for Providence.  I have a professional meeting here, and we have come a few days early.  We will spend part of a day with art and then go to New York City.  I reserved a room at the Biltmore because it was close to the train station and convenient to art.  Despite its expense, the location will allow us to walk to our destinations tomorrow.

 At the reception desk, we are told that all of the rooms have filled so we will be put in a suite—better accommodation that we had reserved.   We take the elevator to the top, where we find the large space that we will occupy only for the night.  In the living room, we slump on the couch, which has rough edges that betray the superficial elegance of the lobby.  We eat cashews and make a plan for the next day.  It’s a plan that begins with sleeping until the last minute before we must rise to shower, dress, and check-out on East Coast time.

Day’s Inn, Rawlings, Wyoming