Random New England observations

The whirlwind tour is over, and I'm more or less coming back up to my normal, West Coast speed. Such as that is.

Last Thursday, I worked a full shift, came home, helped pack and regulate, loaded up the car, dropped the boys off at their grandparents', went to the airport and flew all night. Landing in Connecticut, we rented a car, drove all day, showered and changed, and went to my daughter's graduation ceremony at Middlebury, Vermont. We dined there, and went to bed maybe 10-ish (ET), after having been up since 3:30 the previous day. I'd had maybe 45-60 minutes' sleeep.

I don't know how Jack Bauer does it without psychotic episodes. Well, more psychotic episodes.

So then we took off touring a bunch of those postage-stamp little states back there, thanks to my wife's usual brilliant planning. We saw Plimouth Plantation, the Mayflower 2, the USS Constitution, and Old Sturbridge Village. We walked the Freedom Trail.

Then we got up 3:45am on Wednesday and flew home. Then I went back to work yesterday.

So, it was a full, whirlwind tour. I'll probably put up some pictures, eventually, somewhere. But for now, here are some Random Observations:

1. The weather wasn't nearly as unpleasant as I'd anticipated. We had some beautiful clouds and a bit of rain. The temperatures got up into the eighties. What made the difference (as anticipated) was the humidity, but it was far from miserable.
2. The most exhausting day was the Freedom Trail walk. On that same day, we walked (it seemed) every square inch of Boston, I climbed that 294-step obelisk at Bunker Hill, we toured two ships, and ended up with a delectable meal at Legal Sea Foods.
3. How to say it delicately? With all that heat and humidity, you end up quaffing gallons and gallons and... er... not processing much. It all gets used up and sweat out.
4. My image of New England was population and houses and pavement from border to border. Boy, was I wrong. There are miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles of beautiful, thick forests, on rolling hills, with very trouty-looking, fly-fishable streams and rivers, and lots of rocks and cliffs and outcroppings. Gorgeous. I would love to see it in the Fall.
5. The people we dealt with were all very nice.
6. There seemed to be a higher-than-usual percentage of grim, very masculine-looking women. Often in pairs. I said "Hm" to myself, and prayed for them, a lot.
7. Cracker Barrels are great restaurants. But they're better in the South.
8. Dunkin' Donuts everywhere. Wish we had them here. But the best cup I had was after we landed and got the car, and I'd been up for... hm... (doing math) about 29 hours with about 45-60 minutes' scattered sleep. Had a big, fresh cup, and my, it was wonderful.
9. We did get a Garmin Nuvi 670, and the ladies cristened our navigator "Claire." We were really glad for the purchase, again and again. Cool thing about having a GPS system is you can go off exploring freely, knowing that all you have to do when you're done is flick the GPS back on, and it'll get you where you need to go. However....
10. My least-favorite word for the whole trip came to be "Recalculating."
    

So another trip logged, tremendous credit to my amazing wife's amazing ability to put together the fullest, richest trips.

Excellent, once again, Valerie!

Oh, and I took just <800 pix. I'll put a few more up sometime, p'raps.