What a Trip!

I haven’t posted anything for a while. It’s been another busy month! We recently returned from a trip to Iowa to see my husband’s family and have a late Christmas celebration. We had a great time–until the flight home when Nick suddenly came down with the flu and threw up non-stop from Minneapolis to Boston. We were those people you never want to sit by on the plane. FINALLY, the seemingly neverending three hour flight with a screaming baby and a puking husband was over. The momentary flicker of excitement from returning to land was quickly stomped out by two FAT suitcases, two carry-ons, a diaper bag, a stroller an infant car seat and base, one big baby, some more throw-up, a diaper change, getting on the wrong shuttle bus, shovelling a foot of snow off from the cold car, a ridiculously expensive parking fee, and finally, a long, slow, vomit-filled drive back to Cape Cod. Forty barf bags later, at 2:00 in the morning we arrived home–only to discover that I couldn’t get the car up the drive due to the ice. So, we hauled our two luggage bags, two carry-ons, diaper bag, car seat, stroller and baby up the hillside to finally collapse from exhaustion in the house. 

You need to take a vacation to realize how relaxing your day to day life really is.

A Frightful Adventure!

Well, I had a pretty good birthday weekend…thanks for asking! On Saturday we had our friends, Eddie and Jocelyn, over for “Margarita Night,” which was really fun, yummy, and loaded with sodium.

The next morning I woke up, bright and early, to plan out an activity for my birthday… since we still had no idea what to do with the day. I opened the computer and started googling like crazy. It was then that I remembered that we lived only two hours from, quite possibly, the spookiest Halloween-time destination in the country… Salem, Massachusetts, which was made famous by its tragic witch trials, held in 1692. Only days away from Halloween, this is considered Salem’s peak tourism season. When I visited their website I realized that there were TONS of things to do there! It sounded like a fun day. A BONUS… a steakhouse called the Hilltop Steakhouse that my parents saw on TV was located in the neighboring town of Saugus. We could hit it for dinner on the way home. I started packing the diaper bag right away. Nick set to work on his truck, replacing the master cylinder… that takes longer than it sounds.

By 11:00 or so we were already arguing, and finally ready to go. We set out on our journey to Salem with tons of printouts, including mapquest directions to get through Boston and about 20 pages of things to do when we arrived. Man, mapquest does NOT get Boston. I should have learned my lesson last time it got us totally lost, when trying to get to a job interview in Chelsea on time. This time it led us through Boston “the back way” where we encountered frequent intersections, a jammed up rotary, thugs and disabled vets with cardboard signs, bums with loaded shopping carts, random unexpected  turns and NO street signs to tell us where the heck we were.

Thank God Nick was driving. I was nearly reduced to tears, even in the passenger seat.

Finally we made it through the ghetto and seemed to be on the right track. It was pushing two o’clock and we still hadn’t eaten. We were saving our appetite to find a restaurant in the quiet, sleepy little historic town of Salem.

Hopefully they have a decent restaurant.

So, we made it to Salem about 20 minutes after getting out of the city. A sign stated “Salem” but it didn’t look like the town on the website. It still looked like a ghetto. At an intersection I glanced over at the row of dilapidated houses to see some greaseball in a wife beater sitting on his porch, smoking… a cigarette? This isn’t it, right?

We drove through about 10 more blocks, exactly like that. I was starting to get really depressed, and then, suddenly BAM…a quaint New Enlgand town with tree lined streets! We’re here!

Us and EVERYBODY else in New England.

I want to show some of the great photos I took of the town.

The Hawthorne Hotel

A REAL psychic

statue

 

Salem Witch Museum

tree lined street

Do you notice something that all of these photos have in common?

Yes, they’re all taken from the window of a moving vehicle! THAT, is because we could not find a parking spot anywhere in the town. If you are looking at the pictures and think you see a spot, relax. It is a tow zone for some reason or another. We looked everywhere. They did have public parking garages where you could park for $20.00.  They were beyond full, with cars even parked out in front of them. All shut down. I guess we should’ve arrived before two in the afternoon. But who could have ever imagined? After driving around for a half hour, searching on an empty stomach for some place to put the car, we said… screw it. Who cares about this stupid town anyway! And we left. Without ever parking. We decided to head for that steakhouse in Saugus. Remember? The one my parents saw on TV? I had a printout with directions from their website. It looks pretty easy!

Except I was navigating.

That’s where we went wrong from the beginning, according to Nick. A woman should never plan a trip. I got us so lost… we had no idea if we were even in the right town! When we finally thought figured out where we were, we were still lost. We ended up way south of the town we were supposed to be in. On our way back to Boston. Boston…sure! Screw that stupid steakhouse anyway. There’s plenty to see and do in Boston. So that’s where we went.

A Birthday in Boston

 

Nick and Collin

 

Me and Collin, again

Man, east coast living is really getting to me. There are so many people! As we were weaving through three lanes of traffic, in a TUNNEL, I was saying to Nick how much I miss the U.P. where the only thing you have to worry about when driving (excluding wintertime, when you are driving, white knuckled, in a huge blizzard) is the realistic possibility of being bored to death… falling asleep at the wheel on US-2 or the Seney Stretch.

 

The nicest thing about our incredibly exhausting journey was how excited we were to get home. The same home we couldn’t wait to get away from, earlier this morning. When we got home we settled in for a few beers, yet another game of Chess (which I lost… but need to note that I beat Eddie Salas on Margarita Night!) , and a movie–Bridge to Taribithia–that made me cry! All’s well that ends well, right?

Oh, check out some other really sweet gifts I got from friends:

gorgeous flowers from Jes

and

A new U.P. book from Sam

Thanks, everyone for, yet another, great birthday!