July 2015: BOSTON, week 1

Okay, this trip to Boston was planned, saved, and pined for, for so long, it just has to have it's own post.  It was as epic as we had dared hope, and maybe even a bit more.  Lots of people were excited for our trip and asked us to post a lot, so a good number of these have already been on Facebook.  Disclaimer: this is obviously WAY too many photos for a blog post.   It's still only about half the photos I took.  (If, when) I ever go to print the blog book, I won't be able to put all of these in.  But that's okay, I already made a photo book for the girls from the trip.

A small idea of what it took to get ready... just preparing the animals to leave them for that long was insane.  Stryder's food had to be bagged into separate meals.  He had so much fun at his boarding camp that he burned through his food faster than we could have ever imagined.  Even though I even sent extra meals, he ran out way before we came home and they had to supplement him and he still lost weight.  

Because this trip cost a small fortune, we tried to save money where we could, including taking the 5 and 6am flights there and back.  We got the kids up at 3am to leave.  They were dressed and at the door well before it was time to go to the airport.  They were SO excited.  Remember, they passed up going to Disney World for this.  We told them they could go anywhere in the country for summer vacation.  They chose Boston.  They've been dreaming about it pretty much since we came home from our last time there 4 years ago.

David still has the embarrassing picture of Harriet and me sleeping on the plane, on his phone.  Maybe it will surface again someday.

 Landing in Boston was surreal.  So was driving out of the city towards Stow.  It was like you had a weird dream once and now you were going back.

The first night we got there, the kids wanted to drive past our old house.  

Harriet fell asleep, so she missed it?  Weirdo.  (we went back later)

THE TREES.  That is all.  

But, she woke up in time to enjoy some Erickson's Dairy ice cream.  

Now, THAT, we remember and miss.

After settling into the Doty's house for a night of much-needed sleep, we set out the next morning to drive to Cape Cod.  

Only, this time, our trip to the Cape wasn't to spend time in Hyannis with the Dotys (we tried to make that work out, but it just didn't this time.)  Having never been to Martha's Vineyard before, David and I had made a last minute reservation at this cool little inn in Oak Bluffs.  We parked the rental car, took the shuttle to the port, and got on the ferry.  The kids were beyond excited to be on the ocean heading to the island when we had only just been in ABQ the morning before.

(We took the ferry from a little town called Woods Hole across to that blue dot on the island.  I was looking up a restaurant or something on my maps and saw us at this location and had to take a screen shot.  It's right out of a story book!  Meanwhile, Melissa and her family were in Hawaii.  It was kind of nuts to think that we were both on islands in different oceans at the same time.)  

  We had no idea what we were doing, or even which town to stay in, but we felt kind of good about this one and did it.  The Dockside Inn in Oak Bluffs. It was so great, I want to go back!!!  Like soon!

I could not and still cannot get over the hydrangeas we saw on MV.  They were everywhere, the literal weeds of the island.  If there is a spot on Earth where hydrangeas apparently belong, this is it.  

We chose this room in the attic of the carriage house behind the inn.  The words quaint and charming just get so boring when you are in New England, but when you are on the Cape, or MV, they are downright insulting.  New words for this feeling please?

our view from the window

Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard have this famous store chain called "The Black Dog."  I had heard of it before when we lived there, but we had never been.  The kids got some great shirts and we got a cool bowl for Stryder.  It made us miss our black dogs.  The whole island made us miss our dogs.  Everyone AND their dog travel there!  Wish we could have had Stryder with us.  

So, we found this candy shop with giant gummy bears...

And, then, we raided the beach gear room in the carriage house.  This made things so nice.  Since we were (trying) to travel light, we didn't have a ton of gear with us besides swimming suits.  No worries - the inn had everything you could think of from boogie boards to beach chairs, umbrellas, coolers, sand castle building supplies, beach towels, and even gave us water bottles.  They also had this adorable sun room that was stocked with snacks and treats and drinks and ice-cream where we could go stock up whenever we wanted.  Wish we could have stayed there longer than 2 days.  

It was an incredible slice of heaven.

 And, it was a couple blocks to walk to the beach, just past the giant town common area with all of the huge houses owned by all the rich people.

 Good thing playing in the ocean is still free!  If you can get to it!

 For someone raised in the mountains and the desert and really not traveling a whole lot in my life, I have a healthy obsession with the beach.  Oh man, I seriously love being near the ocean and sitting on the sand and all the little shells and rocks and sea creatures.  I'm really not a huge fan of being on boats, but I like the idea of boats.  I could spend my summers here.

Every time I see this I think of that line from Parent Trap when Vicki says "oh great, what do you do for fun on Saturday night, go throw rocks in the lake?!"  But, seriously, when your husband is as good at skipping rocks as this guy is, it's pretty entertaining.  They spent hours finding the best rocks and perfecting their form.

And, I found this cool crab shell.

 And Grace was loving her new NASA rash guard.  Always rocking her nerd side.  She was so sad to replace her Boston Red Sox one.

Harriet is my true bathing beauty.  

So, then, we found the carousel.  It's super famous.  Oldest one in the country.  Spent a couple years on Coney Island in NY and then was shipped to MV in the 1800's.  

I'm serious when I say I imagined riding those horses through the hand-painted scenes. 

The horses' manes and tails were made of real horse hair and the whole thing was hand painted.  

Yikes - I look a little rough around the edges.  But, honestly, I miss that about living in New England - that you seriously don't worry about hair and make-up and personal appearance, much more than dressing appropriately for the weather and having your hair tied out of your face.  It's so refreshing.  

This is another thing that I think is missing from our kids' lives:  simplicity.  

This carousel had this old game where you try to grab a ring each time you go around.  There's a dispenser on the inside and on the outside, so you can reach it from any horse.  If you get a brass ring, you get a free ride on the carousel. So simple.  No tickets or annoying plastic prizes or fanfare.  The kids said it was the most fun they had EVER had (ever?!) and they never got a brass ring either.  It was no big deal if you didn't win because, duh, the carousel, and you had already ridden it! I'm so over modern-day forms of fun.   

You collect your rings on a post on top of your horse and then take them to a bin after your ride.  

So simple.  So fun.

I think the best part of the entire trip to Boston was watching these two become best friends again. They truly had a good time together and loved being with each other as they found so many common things to do together that they both love (beach time, swimming, carousel, riding horses, going to favorite places...) When we are at home they go such different directions.  It was a true gift to have them doing things together and getting along.  

Does anything taste better than seafood eaten 50 yards from the ocean it was caught in? I think not.  Grace and her beloved bowl of clam chowdah.

We spent a day going through the gingerbread houses in Oak Bluffs and taking a trolley tour of the rest of the island.  The history of the gingerbread houses is fascinating.  If I ever win the lottery, I'm going to buy one.  You have to have a letter of recommendation from an ecclesiastical leader to live there though.  Good thing I still go to church.

This is the inside and outside of the tabernacle in the center of the houses.  Sign me up.  I'll go to church there.

Harriet wants this one.  It might be hard to convince David and Grace to live in the pink heart house though.

They have one house set up as a museum so you can see what they looked like when it was a true religious camp.  

ah, and the staircases in old houses - wicked

A harbor view from the trolley:

Had to take this pic.. because.. hahaha...
actually it is referring to this tiny little ferry that you have to take to get to the island of Chappaquiddick, only 527 feet away from Martha's Vineyard.  (Why don't they build a bridge?! so crazy! The line to get on Chappy causes quite a bit of traffic.  But, that's New England for you - doing things the same way they've been done since the pilgrims landed.)

Edgartown.  Now, you have to be a gazillionaire to spend more than 48 hours in Oak Bluffs.  You have to be one to spend more than 48 minutes in Edgartown (which is about how long we spent there.)  This is where presidents and celebrities buy houses and spend holidays.  This is where tourists run through the town to see the light house before the trolley leaves.  Again, the adjectives escape me.  Quaint and Charming got boring over in Oak Bluffs.  Here, it was just beyond neat and tidy and beautiful.  

(Did I MENTION the HYDRANGEAS?!  Oceans of them in every white-picket-fenced-yard!)

The path to the lighthouse:

Oh man, I miss Grace's wavy hair in humidity.  It's so beautiful.

Looking back at Edgartown from the top of the lighthouse.

Had to take this shot.  I love the signs they have for every New England town that say "entering" and the date they were established. 

One more goodbye at the beach before climbing on the ferry back to Cape Cod:

My favorite family picture this year

So, we're standing in line for the ferry, and I hear a familiar voice.  I think I know this woman, but what are the chances?  Then, I think I recognize her husband and son, but it's been so long... I let the moment pass.  We get settled on the ferry, and her husband, Art McDonald from our hometown in Stow, comes up to me and says "it can't possibly BE you, but are you Grace's mom? My wife thinks she recognized you."  Art was Grace's soccer coach when she was 3.  His son Andrew was one of Grace's school mates in Stow who used to write her the most adorable letters after we moved.  They live behind the Doty's house. We hadn't seen them or talked in 5 years. We spent a lovely ferry ride on the deck with them.  Grace and Andrew talked, like awkward tweens, all the way back.  It was kind of adorable that they matched too.  

RHODE ISLAND

It's crazy to think you can live somewhere and never explore the surrounding area.  But it happens so easily - it's because you think it will always be there, so you don't worry about it too much.  We had only been to Rhode Island to fly out of the Providence airport.  We never explored it.  But, after living in ABQ, one of my new friends here, Lori, had just spent several years in Rhode Island and was missing it terribly.  She begged me to go explore her favorite haunts and gave me some tips. So, we took a day and did it.  Such a great idea.  Once we got through the traffic in Newport... wow.  So many people going down for the weekend.  It took us an hour to drive a few blocks.

Brenton Point State Park

old rusted anchor

amazing ocean views and incredible little tide pools, full of miniature shells.  

Lori collects them, so I brought home a handful for her, and for me. It was hard to collect very many as most of them were still occupied with residents!

Then, there were the mansions... it was so crowded to get to the paths and streets to walk the cliff walk behind these famous mansions that we decided to give up and go home, but it would have been cool.  Guess we'll have to go back sometime.  All these places- you think you can finally check them off your list, and then all it does is make you want to go back.