Boston-Day Three

 

Day three we picked up our rental car and headed off on Mrs. Johnson's wild ride. I had great apprehension about driving in Boston. I had seen how crazily people zipped through town and did not want any part of it. I even asked the man at the rental car counter what was the "quickest way out of town". He showed me on the map and I had my handheld GPS and figured I was as prepared as ever, that is until I pulled out of the hotel onto a three lane street that seemed to be missing one crucial thing... lines! There were no lines dividing the lanes and everybody just drives willy nilly all over the place. I need structure!!! After a few seconds of freaking out about this I just joined in the chaos and we were off.
Once we got on the 93 it was a nice quiet drive down to Newport, Rhode Island. I loved how green everything was. Being from Southern California the only green we encounter is professionally landscaped and planned. Here everything was green and forested and just beautiful. Once we got to Newport we stopped at the visitor center to get a map of the mansions and buy our tickets for the home tours. We decided to tour two homes and chose the Breakers and Marble House. Both of which were summer "cottages" of the Vanderbilts. My favorite part of the Breakers was the fountain underneath that stairs that was lit to make it feel like an underwater grotto and also the balcony upstairs at the back of the home that they used as an outdoor living room. After the Breakers we took a break for lunch and drove at to Castle Hill Inn. The woman in line behind us at the rental car counter recommended we have lunch there. Castle Hill was beautiful. It's a large Inn right on the water with great little cottages facing the ocean that can be rented out for a mere $1,400 a night during peak season. Gulp! I guess I will never be staying in one of those lovely cottages, but it was nice to dream about relaxing on the deck in the Adirondack chairs. Thankfully, lunch was much more reasonably priced and even though it was raining out we had a nice view of the bay and delicious shrimp, lobster and corn chowder.
After lunch we drove around Ocean drive and I had to get out and brave the wind and rain so I could touch the Atlantic Ocean for the first time. I almost took a swim in the Atlantic when I stood on a slippery rock for Debbi to take my picture and almost fell off, TWICE. Thankfully, I made it back to the car relatively dry and we headed to Marble House for the next tour. Marble house is exactly as it sounds... made almost entirely of Marble. Apparently Alva Vanderbilt agreed to oversee the building of Marble house only if her husband agreed to gift it to her outright. He agreed and she divorced him three years after it was finished. She then married another man who lived down the street, moved to his home, and used Marble house for suffragists meetings and as an "extra closet".
I would have liked to have had time to tour all the homes and take our time, but maybe on another trip someday. After all Scott's cousin lives in Providence so we may have to find an excuse to visit.
On our drive back to Boston we decided, spur of the moment, to head over to Cambridge instead and have dinner near Harvard Square. It was still raining, but I was quite excited when we were pulling off the highway and I looked out to the window and saw the Weld Boathouse. It's just one of those things that I have always seen in photos and there it was right in front of me.
After much driving around in the rain and looking for a parking spot we finally parked the car and walked back over to Harvard Square. We had dinner at Mr. Bartley's Gourmet burgers where all the burgers are named after local and national celebrities and political figures and the walls are plastered with signs, posters and memorabilia. After dinner we walked around a bit while I texted/harassed Zachary about the fact that I was visiting his future college and shopped a bit in the Harvard bookstore before we were done for the day.

Boston-Day Two

 

On our second day in the city we headed out onto the Freedom Trail. Our guidebook said that we could complete the trail in about 4 hours, it took us nine. Of course we did stop at Omni Parker House for Boston cream pie martinis and then we had an excellent lunch in the north end followed by a stop at Mike's pastry so I guess nine hours was not so bad.
Some of the highlights from the Freedom Trail (besides the martinis) was Paul Revere's house, Old North Church and my personal favorite was standing on the spot where the first shot was fired that started the American Revolution and of course the canoli's from Mike's pastry. Scott was greatly disappointed that we did not go on board the USS Constitution, but it was at the end of the day and honestly "seen one old boat you've seen them all". We had a great plan to tell our husbands that we toured the ship, but when I talked to Scott that night I caved like a house of cards. We also met an adorable little girl named Isabel who had a prime lemonade stand location right next to Bunker hill on the Freedom Trail. Her mom said they were "gearing up for the busy season" so they were just giving away the lemonade. I think Isabel is going to make a killing with her lemonade stand this summer. Bunker hill was a nice place to end the day, just laying on the grass looking up at the monument and relaxing before we headed back into town for dinner.

Boston-Day 1

 

Debbi and I arrived in Boston Monday afternoon. We took the subway to the back bay where our hotel, The Westin Copley, was located. It was an easy and cheap (1.70) train ride and the subway station let us off right near our hotel. We checked in, dropped off our luggage and headed over to the Prudential building to check out the views. Once we reached the 50th floor where the obsevation deck is we realized they charge $12. to go out on the observation deck. Being the smart frugal travelers that we are we opted to go up to the bar on the 52nd floor and spend that money on a couple of drinks while we took in the view. Then we headed over to Legal Sea Food for dinner to get us started on our fill of seafood for the week.
Tuesday, our first full day there, we started our day with the Duck Tour. I HIGHLY reccomend this to anyone visiting Boston. You ride on an amphibious vehicle (some of which are original WWII vehicles) and they drive you around Boston and into the Charles River. Our driver was hilarious and the 80 minute tour was tons of fun. It was also a great way to take in the sights and get an idea of what we really wanted to see when walking through the city.
After the tour we headed over to the Boston Public Library (of course) and spent some time walking through and just taking in the architecture. It's a beautiful building and the first public lending library in the U.S.
Then it was back on the train to head out to the JFK Library. We spent a couple of hours there and I actually learned many new things about JFK's life and his time in the White House. By the time we finished it was getting late so we headed back on the train to our hotel.
That night we went to Joe's American and had back bay Sangrias (EXCELLENT) and Lobster ravioli. We had an interesting conversation with our waiter who mentioned that he lived in CA for a year and everyone from CA is "dumb as rocks" and that he also had a group in from TX the previous week and they were also "dumb as rocks". Debbi and I still tipped him and I'm not sure why. Maybe we are dumb as rocks. LOL! That quote did give us great laughs the rest of our trip though. Whenever we were lost or not sure where we wanted to go, etc. One of us would accuse the other of being "dumb as rocks".
After dinner we were still not ready for the day to end so we walked down Commonwealth Ave to the Boston Public Gardens and saw the Swan Boats and also the bronze ducks from "Make Way for Ducklings" where we had to take our pictures sitting on the ducks. The public gardens were beautiful and I am in love with Commonwealth avenue. I picked out my home and everything. Now if only I were independently wealthy.

Deja vu

This week I booked my flight to Boston, AGAIN. I reserved my rental car, AGAIN. We have hotel reservations confirmed, AGAIN and this time I might actually get TO Boston. Cross your fingers and say a little prayer that there are no natural disasters, personal tragedies, etc. to cancel this trip. I'm still bitter over Hurricane Ike blowing into Houston and ruining the last trip. As Scott and I were discussing my trip he casually said, "hmmm, what kind of natural disaster could happen in the spring? Maybe the Big One (for those of you not from CA we are talking earthquakes) will hit". I just about clobbered him on the head. He should know better than to even say that out loud.
So come May 11th it is BOSTON OR BUST!!!!!!!

Making the most of a bad situation

Since I did not get to make the trip to Boston this week I tried not to have a pity party all week and just make the best of it. Scott was already off work for the week since he was going to play Mr. Mom and we did things together. Nothing exciting or that out of the ordinary, but it was really nice to spend relaxed and unrushed time with him. We had many lunches out while the kids were in school and we went to see Burn after reading (which I don't recommend). He even watched the chick flick, Made of Honor with me (I really liked that one). We went to Panera for breakfast one morning and had my favorite spinach artichoke souffles and then wandered through Barnes and Noble for hours. My niece and I went out for Mexican food, margaritas and pedicures one day too. It's these little luxuries that I rarely indulge in so it was a nice week.

I managed to polish off the first three of the Twilight series and I'm shocked to say I love the books. I have always had an aversion to vampires thanks to my brother, Skip, deciding I should watch a vampire horror flick with him when I was only 6. Thanks, Skip. So to my surprise Stephenie Meyer seems to have cured me of my phobia and sucked me into the world of werewolves and vampires. If you have not given Twilight a try I highly recommend it.
So tomorrow Scott goes back to work and I will try to catch up on things around the house before I go back to work Monday. SOMEDAY I am going to get to Boston especially after spending the past few weeks really researching what there is to do and see.

T -15 and counting....

only 15 more days until I leave for my trip to Boston with my best friend Debbi. I can hardly wait to see her and Boston. We planned this trip late last year and at that time it seemed like it was eons away. Now I've got to start to think about packing, what the weather will be like while I am there and what items I need to get before I go.

So far on the agenda is the duck tours, JFK presidential library, Freedom Trail, Newport R.I, Salem and Marblehead and anything else we can squeeze in.