New England

Hi guys!  These are our trip logs from our New England trip!

Saturday June 1^st

We left Bluffton around 5am to head east. We got some McDonalds first thing. We had a 10-hour trip to Yale University. I tried a Mountain Dew Kickstart for the first time, and I must say it’s WAY better than Monster. (that stuff gives me the jibblies.) We wanted to look around Yale campus since it was featured in Gilmore Girls. I kept saying things like “I wonder if this is where Rory sat outside to study, or if this is where the Yale Daily News is written,” etc. 
While we were there, we found that they were having the 5^th Yale Reunion on campus and encountered a couple spots where official reunion things were happening. I kept taking pictures of things and a couple videos just because the campus is so beautiful! The buildings are gorgeous stone – almost looking English or old Renaissance (minus massive tapestries). We both felt it would be really cool to study there because of the history of the place, but we also thought that current students would not appreciate it as much. Since we’ve been undergrads (or grads) we’ve been through the whole “kid lost in campus” feeling, and it would be fun in another life to study at Yale or some other Ivy League school.

After wandering around for an hour or so we stopped and had dinner at a little restaurant called Caseus, which was featured on the Food Network. Krysti had a mushroom tart and I had a sausage, both of these came with veggies. It was a cool restaurant that was walking distance from campus. Then we kept going another 3 hours or so to West Dennis Massachusetts and crashed there.

Sunday June 2^nd

We looked while eating yesterday for churches in the West Dennis area and we came across Eastham United Methodist Church. They are a small church but they basically ran the same way that Rockport does. They are more of a “singing church” as Greg describes, than we are since they use the responsive stanzas with full musical refrains in-between. Since we did that at Rockport during Easter-tide we were familiar with it. The people there are friendly and went out of their way to welcome us. We went to the 8am service and then got a little breakfast at the “Donut Hole” up the street from the church on route 6. She got a peach apricot shortbread square (which was delicious!) and I got something called a “Tom Bomb” with was basically a cinnamon donut in the shape of an oversized muffin.

The big idea for today was to eventually make our way up the arm of Cape Cod all the way to Provincetown, where the Pilgrims came ashore. The ulterior mission in this whole New England trip was to eat lobster too. So the first important thing on our itinerary was to go to the Cape Cod National Seashore visitors’ center, or at least one of them. This location featured the Nauset Swamp area, which had a couple walking trails. One of them was closed off due to the marsh flooding out a little onto the path. In the visitors’ center was a short film we watched about sailors and boats in the area.

For lunch, we planned to go to back a ways to Young’s Fish Market to buy lobster rolls. So far, they’re the least expensive we’ve come across, and they are yummy! We got them and took them to the shore to eat them looking out over the water. We returned to the arm of the Cape to keep going further north on Route 6. We stopped at several more trails to take pictures and video. A couple of them were marsh-like with suspended paths in flooded woods. It reminded me of the Everglades in Florida. There were several beaches we saw from a distance too. I took lots of pictures.

We got to Provincetown in the afternoon, and it is quite the colorful place. (That’s a pun.) It was very obvious that the place is unabashedly liberal with it seemed more gay/lesbian couples than straight couples. Aside from that and the prolific rainbow flags (and does anyone know why Human Rights advocates use Michigan colors for their flag?), it’s a very artsy area with lots of art galleries, boutiques and restaurants/eateries. We did have the possibility of doing a whale watching boat tour from Provincetown, but time did not allow. A nice breeze cooled the area throughout the evening as we walked the area. The special feature we went to that evening was the Pilgrim memorial tower and museum to commemorate the Pilgrims landing in Cape Cod. We looked first at some of the museum pieces, mostly dealing with boats. Then we went outside to CLIMB THE TOWER.

Now, I have no idea how high that thing is, but it takes a LONG time to climb it. The wraparound inside is more of a lot of ramps rather than stairs. It makes the going a lot longer, but a lot easier. (and a lot dizzier.) At the top you are supposed to be able to see Boston, but the horizon was rather foggy. Nonetheless the view was wonderful. You could see the shape of the Cape arm for a little ways. I timed how long it took to get down and it was around 5 minutes or so, about 3 times faster than going up, I’m sure. We kept looking around the museum and the town before heading back. For dinner, we went to Karoo, a South African cuisine restaurant. She got mussels and I got shrimp in peri-peri sauce, a kind of spicy tomato/herb sauce. We went back the hotel and were able to check email and keep things going there. Krysti set up a Facebook advertising campaign so we like to keep track of it to see what response it’s getting.

Monday June 3^rd

We had planned on the itinerary to explore “The Old King’s Highway,” route 6A on Cape Cod. It goes from up the arm of the Cape, but we started it at Orleans, MA and went west from there. It was persistently RAINY. It might’ve been sprinkling, spitting, showering or pouring but there was always some form of liquid precipitation. But we tried to not let it rain on our parade. We stopped at a beach to look at it for a minute and drove on westward. We had some stops planned on the route and I tried to find a couple places to stop off and look extra.

We had the Cape Cod Potato Chip factory to visit, which had a walking tour to go through. You could look through and watch the workers doing their thing. At the end you could grab a couple free small bags of chips, original flavor and a really yummy feta & rosemary flavor. We ate lunch at the Blue Plate diner, which had a lot of blue plates lining the ceiling. She had a bowl of clam chowder and I had a pastrami sandwich with fries. In brief conversation with our waitress, we found that massive downpours like what we had today are not very common. If anything, they might get a drizzle or light rain, then sunshine.

After lunch we continued on westward, eventually we got through to Sandwich, MA which had a few things we spent time to see. One was the Green Briar Nature Center & Jam Kitchen. We looked around and sampled some of the different jams, then we went outside and looked around their garden. After that we went to the Heritage Museum & Gardens, which had fun exhibits! Dan got excited and was texting back rapid-fire to Krysti about the concept car collection. These cars were never put into mass production since they were concept cars, but they sure looked cool! It was a car show before the Festival of Wheels back home. I took lots of pictures and some video. The gardens there were pretty, and there was a maze area with lots of vines mixed with Christmas lights, and lots of blossoming trees. By this point being outside trying to share our umbrella, we were both soaked in different spots by the time we were finished.

The last thing we did before heading back to the hotel was spend some time in the Sandwich Glass Museum. We started with a film/show about the starting of the Sandwich glass factory, then watched a live demonstration of glass blowing techniques. This I think was my favorite part of the day since I’ve always enjoyed watching glass making. The museum was larger than I expected and had hundreds of pieces, all different sizes and shapes, and including a couple dioramic portions. Tomorrow we plan to get up to Plymouth and eventually towards Boston.

Tuesday June 4^th

Today was a packed day: Plymouth to Boston! We started out to reach Plymouth and spent all morning into early afternoon there. We found free parking and first worked our way towards Plymouth Rock, where the Pilgrims landed. We later went to the Pilgrim Memorial Museum, which had a lot of large paintings inside, some artifacts and a nice 15-minute movie. A lot of focus was on Thanksgiving, and an interesting note we found was that Native Americans (or at least some of them) don’t celebrate it as such but more like a day of mourning or remembrance as the “beginning of the end” for them, so to speak. It was a really good display!

But the bigger find for us was the Middle Street School of Music!! We found this building that the business owners rented (they had SPACE!!) and we got to talk with them about how they do their business and run things and other considerations that we’ve been trying to figure out. They were a great resource to tap and just pick their brains and I guess find someone who’s doing the same thing we are, just in a different setting and circumstances. The gal we talked to said they used to do a lot of gigging first, then this opportunity to get a space and teach privately came up and they went for it. I got some pictures and video of their place while we were talking and sharing each other’s setup. She offered us a CD of hers that she recorded with some friends of hers (including a few tracks with a guy who sometimes plays with Aerosmith – not bad!), and we went back to our car and got our 5 Myles High CD we had in the car and offered to swap for it. We were just really stoked to have found these guys and talk about stuff for a little while – completely unexpected and very wonderful!

We continued in Plymouth looking up and down the street in all the different shops, and had lunch at a Thai restaurant (in honor of Cousin Darrel ^_^).  Krysti had Pad Thai (reallyyyy yummmyyyyyyy!!) and Phil had chicken and rice something. A couple stores were of special note for Krysti, and we purchased an antique bread box to keep our snacks in for the kitchen (we had been looking for one off and on and this one was in good condition and cheap!), and another store we got a white cat that we’ll keep with us thru the trip and take home with us.

Well, a white cat made of porcelain.

Both of these items were rather inexpensive considering the price of other items in the stores. The stores were really cool! Especially the store where we got the cat. It was a store of “Items of particular interest” or something like that, and everything in the store was really interesting, things we hadn’t seen before, and in good condition.

We then drove to Boston. The plan was to get a head start on our Boston bit, and we saw a few things, well, a TON of things… including the Boston Public Library, which was HUGE!!  It had corridors and was like a labyrinth and museum inside a library. – we also saw the courtyard area nearby which we deduced was nearby the Boston Marathon Bombing area or at least related to it, because there were memorials set up for the victims. We saw street musicians performing, and the bass player in it was REALLY good! They all were good. Krysti liked the keyboard they had, which had a “modulation wheel” so the guy could bend the pitch of the notes, wow!! That would be fun. We walked eastward through downtown and wandered through the Boston Commons, the public park, which was ginormous, and through towards the Boston Town Hall area. Lots of people and lots of commotion. Like a lot of other New England locations we’d been in, there was lots of “pride” throughout the city, including the churches.

We did find Christ Church where past presidents either attended or taught there. George Washington attended there New Year’s Eve 1775 during the Boston Siege, and Roosevelt taught Sunday School there I think, among other notable people being there. We went inside and perused the hymnbooks, and on our way out I noticed a poster describing them as a “progressive” church, meaning the enemy is making progress on them. They make claims such as “We recognize the faiths of other people and so what’s true for them is good and what’s true for us is good but it all leads to the realm where God exists” (didn’t even say Heaven?). It sure must be hard to hold Biblical convictions in this area. It’s all about not offending people and being accepting of everyone and making people feel good. However, nothing on that poster said anything about sin or need for salvation or necessarily Christ’s sacrifice. The gay flag flies alongside the American flag often around here.

Well anyways, we did also go also to Harvard University, took some pictures and video of that as well. Upon entering the Harvard Square (I guess the middle of overall campus), we weren’t wondrously impressed like we were at Yale. Everything there seemed really…. Predictable? It did actually look like Bluffton University, with spaced out red brick buildings connected by an interconnected system of sidewalks strewn on a massive yard of grass punctuated with tall trees. We saw one or two tour groups, and special attention was given to founder John Harvard’s statue. Apparently people have for some time rubbed his statue’s left shoe, so much so that it has been rubbed to a shiny golden color as countless people have posed next to him with their hand on his shoe. (Yes we did it too.) It wasn’t until we left the Square and went a little south of it and found a map that we realized the greater scope of the school. Harvard is built of various schools, like the school of Law and school of Engineering (like other large schools) which are rather separated into their own sections north of the main square. All the same, we both felt that Yale offers a greater aesthetic value than Harvard. Krysti remarked that Yale seemed like it was secluded and secretive, like they have the secrets of the world locked away in their castles, but Harvard was like “—meh. It’s a school.”  We did want to go into the Harvard Library, but it seemed that we needed a Harvard ID for entry access. Too bad. (That’s ok, the Boston Public Library was massive and awesome.)

Other things in today was we found an ice cream all-you-can-eat benefit event to raise money for something Boston Bombing related. That was a noticeable image throughout the city that we saw: Boston united in Americanism of freedom and solidarity. Lots of “Boston Strong” mottos spread throughout or related signage and events. Parking in Boston was interesting as we kinda ended up first wandering some residential areas before we figured out where to park. Harvard is a bit away from the Commons area, and to do the Library/Commons, we did the public parking. This operation was different that we’d done before and it made us a little nervous (well, she was REALLY nervous, I was just kinda nervous). It’s somewhat valet-style, and you leave them the car, they pack it in to the lot depending on projected time, and the keys stay in the car while you keep a valet ticket. We didn’t like the whole situation very much so we did as much as we could to feel secure about it before heading out. Everything was fine, it was just very different and overpriced.

For dinner we tried to go to the Lobster Shack which was featured on the Food Network, but we went in twice and they missed us both times. No employees noticed or acknowledged us. So they struck out. We did preview the Salem witch site, but we’ll probably get back to that tomorrow. We got Pizza Hut nearby. We walked a lot today and we are sore! I said we’ll need to take some Ibuprofen tomorrow to do the Freedom Walk in Boston.

Wednesday June 5^th

Today was a well travelled day! We started off after having some breakfast at the hotel, and drove to Salem, MA primarily to see witch-related historical attractions. We had previewed some things Tuesday like the Burial ground, so we got to see these things in full daylight. We started with the Salem Witch Museum, which had a diorama presentation that was a little on the creepy side. (Things narrated by booming old men are always creepy. I guess that’s kinda the point.) In the dark there was a glowing blood red circle in the middle of the floor with the Salem victims who were hanged inscribed around it. The presentation had scenes set aloft around the perimeter of the room. Eventually all parts of the walls were illuminated to continue the story.

The hysteria was caused by one thing and another, fueled both by fear of Satan and the victim’s fear for themselves. It may seem like a stupid episode to some, but the presentation helps to put you in their perspective. There was real fear there, and the Sunday ministers would preach about the Devil and other some such things. But to make it real to us, what do we fear? What sorts of things cause hysteria in the times of our lives? After the presentation the staff continued the tour with perceptions of witches, showing how witches transformed into their various forms over the centuries from trusted medicine woman who helped in childbirth and used natural herbs to aid illnesses to the Wicked Witch of the West with her black garb and green face and flying broomstick, stylized in this fashion to be used in storybooks as both fictionalized yet mentally frightening. Nowadays witches by technical terms refer more directly to Wicca, a nature-based religion claiming essentially Mother Earth as the divining power rather than subscribing directly to Satan, although there is also witchcraft as we know. The final thing they showed us was a comparison of recent hysterias from fear of the Japanese to the Red Scare to something about AIDS and then to Terrorism. Each of these problems was fueled by specific events/ideas (Pearl Harbor, McCarthy, AIDS, and 9/11), and these fears each had a scapegoat to take the blame. For instance, AIDS is blamed on homosexuality and terrorism is blamed on Islam. So perhaps it’s a subtle if not unintentional method of claiming that human reason is triumphant above all else - once we figure things out after the fact. Perhaps the greatest prevailing thought I had when it was all said and done is that God is more powerful than Satan. When we are faced with fear and we feel unsure as how to react, we need to keep faith in Christ and the hope of our salvation and eternity in Heaven. Now the circumstances of those poor people centuries ago – unexplainable behavior of young girls in trying circumstances, all exacerbated by Scriptural/religious understanding and fanatical fervor – all of that living in that time could make anyone question the existence of sanity. But the thought I had was this: what if the preachers had spent more time preaching on our hope in Christ for eternal salvation and had lavished love and prayer on the accused? If they had spent more time fearing God than fearing Satan, they may have remembered that Satan is not to be feared, and that God is a “mighty fortress, a bulwark never failing.”

 

--I spent a lot of time on that, didn’t i..?

Well anyways…. After we finished at the witch museum we wandered the town of Salem a bit. There was a helpful red line painted on the sidewalk to help guide you to relevant historical locations, which we looked at, but not too many. We visited the burial grounds again and got better pictures, found an antiques store to browse, and then went to get lunch. I wanted to try the Lobster Shanty again, hoping that the lunch crowd was considerably less than the later dinner crowd. It thankfully was, and we enjoyed a nice lunch outside under large orange umbrellas. I had a nice juicy “Red Eye Burger” which was a hamburger with white cheese and egg, and a hot sauce of some kind, and a side of tater tots. Yummy!! Krysti had Mac & Cheese with Lobster. We were both very satisfied. A very different experience from the night before. I’m glad we went back.

After lunch we left for Glouchester. We walked the streets and looked in various shops. One cool store was the record store which had lots of vinyl albums, CDs, and DVDs. The place was decked with posters of famous musicians. Krysti tried looking for a soundtrack to Les Mis, but they didn’t have one. There were several antique stores we went into. Once we were finished we walked back and stopped in an Italian café to get a lemon square. We strolled a brief stretch of seashore on the way back to the car. “Time in New England – took me away…. To long, rocky beaches - and you by the bay….” (Sorry, but it fits.)

After Glouchester, we went to… Rockport! (Massachusetts.) Rockport, MA was very cool! It was almost like a small piece of a European village because of how the streets were narrow and there were a couple side streets that angled off with more shops. It was rather similar to Provincetown in its shop section, just not as high key and packed with busy people, just a little quieter. Lots of art galleries, antiques stores and different novelty shops. We stopped in one antique store and found a lamp with a porcelain lady as the base. So now we have a cat, bread box, and lady-lamp. If this shopping keeps up we’re gonna run out of room, and we’re not even halfway done with vacation! Rockport is basically the farthest northeast into the sea as MA gets, so as we approached the end of the thoroughfare we were greeted by the Atlantic Ocean. We were tempted to buy Rockport, MA apparel but ultimately didn’t. (I took pictures instead. Almost as good as the real thing!)

Boston Museum of Fine Arts – that is an adventure. And considering the time we had, it was a challenge! We got there 6pm-ish – I’m SOOOO glad they have their own parking!! – and so that gave us about 3 ½ hours to conquer it. We got in for free, since Wednesdays after 6 is free night. So we saved $50, yay! It has 4 levels, the top and ground levels being the smallest and only in parts. It’s divided into different subjects: European, the Americas, the Ancient World, Africa/Asia, and Contemporary, plus a couple special exhibits, one being Samurai! Krysti’s favorite part was the “Blue & White” section, with a lot of things which were – well, blue & white. There were a lot of plates and ceramics/porcelain in different configurations. Some of them were arranged in complex hierarchies, and some were separate pieces arranged together to make a whole picture. It was very… artistic! It really was very cool.

My favorite was a little more broad, but I liked the European and American sections the best, and I think the American furniture parts made me go “Whoa.” the most. Many of them were insanely ornate and some of them were larger than I’d expect. It just made me do a little double-take. I found them more relatable to me than, for instance, stone artifacts and things like that. Not that I disliked anything though; it all was rather enrapturing! Perhaps the part we took most pictures off (no flash or video allowed) was the instrument room! There were more musical instruments on display than Mr. Sycks band room! (maybe.) There were many period instruments, most of which I’d never seen before but they were still recognizable as to what family they belonged to. When we first got to the room, there was a special concert there which you could sit in. We opted to wait and come back later since the room was pretty packed and we still had a lot of museum to see at that point. We got a LOT of pictures of the keyboards, including harpsichords, virginals, clavichords, square pianos, all period instruments. We’ll post those on the studio website/Facebook at some point to show our students.

We also did eat at the café in the middle of the building after finishing the 1^st level. We were pulling ourselves along at a rather consistent pace to finish the place off in time before closing! I did take time to ask one attendant in the Ancient World section (standing next to massive stone edifices) about how the museum décor is sometimes suited to the artifacts being shown. I asked if the museum gets many renovations to accommodate new exhibits/artifacts being swapped out. She told us that a lot of things are rather permanent, meaning that most things, once they’re in, they’re staying in. Some items can be rotated out for others, but the especially large things - they stay indefinitely. (I overheard one person’s remark in the artifact preservation/restoration room that “it’s exactly the way it was a year ago,” so that may be an indication of the static tendencies of the museum. That’s fine though, it’s all cool!) We did finish in time, though! Whew! We had a huge day, so we were rather beat.

 On a side note, I’ve noticed that I have weird and somewhat original dreams while I’m on vacation. I guess the new activity and the exhaustion gives me a real deep sleep and plenty of new stuff for my brain to play with. Even my brain is on vacation. Trippy.

Thursday June 6^th

This morning we didn’t jam pack as many things into one day as we have other days and we got a later start, sleeping in a little. We were able to get some studio work done – making calls and doing some email. We got breakfast at Dunkin Donuts (YUM! And they’re everywhere!)  and then went to the Container Store nearby to browse what they had. We purchased a small cord holder so as to keep our charge cords in our bedroom at home from splaying out all over the floor.

From there we drove back to Boston for another day in town. We started in Faneuil Hall area, where we’d been before, and got a better map than the one we had to help guide us. We’ve been getting lots of National park stamps in our passport thing. We had lunch from Quincy Market behind it – a food court type hall, Krysti had Indian chicken curry and I had a beef burrito. Good stuff. Thus filled, we went thru some kind of Italian village in Boston’s North End, saw Paul Revere’s house alongside one or two school class field trips, then walked on to Old North Church. It contains the two lanterns which brought alert to the British advance on
Lexington & Concord. The church has box pews with patron’s names on the sides. (So if you shoot back at someone staring you down with “I don’t see your name on it”, then you aren’t looking hard enough.) People could rent their pews or buy them and then decorate them as they liked. They also had stolen pirated angels that a pirate church-go-er gave to the church because he liked to see them.


We continued onto Copp’s Hill Burial Ground and walked around the graveyard.

Crossing the Charlestown bridge brings you into Charlestown, the biggest attractions there being the U.S.S. Constitution and the Bunker Hill memorial. The Constitution was cool to see even though we didn’t wait to go below decks with the next group – we just went to the top deck. Lots of ropes, cannons and more ropes. By the time we’d walked to Bunker Hill we were rather exhausted! We didn’t actually go over the memorial but took a few pictures instead. We walked back towards where we started to catch a couple other spots, the Boston Massacre site and the Old Corner Bookstore, (which is now a Chipotle) before going to the parking garage. We did toy with the thought of getting the all-you-can-eat ice cream deal that was nearby Faneuil Hall but opted against it.

We went to Legal Seafood for dinner, because we had seen it earlier. We got there and got our food ordered, but we found the overall experience less than satisfying. I ordered the garlic shrimp which was great and I shared it – it had pasta and the small tomatoes – but Krysti’s order came out not the way we expected. It was some kind of fried crab on Greek pasta. Perhaps the dish itself was fine by all standards, but even I tried the crab and I wasn’t sure what to make of it. It looked like a fried crab, but couldn’t find any meat really. Plus, our waitress seemed to have forgotten we were there and hardly paid attention to us or made sure things were alright or even fill our glasses with water again. To top it off, I also half-spilled (it remained mostly upright!) my water in a spattering motion across the table to her, so that didn’t help.

But anyways, we decided to wander the mall the restaurant was in and it was pretty big! We didn’t even do the lower level, but there was a lot of ground to cover. Much bigger than a mall like Lima or Toledo. It was cool. We were rather beat from all the expenditure of energy we had incurred over the day so we went back to the hotel to call it a night and relax. Tomorrow we plan to return to Salem to go to the Peabody Essex Museum (free on Friday) and then go to Manchester-by-the-Sea to see what they have there. If it is anything like Rockport, MA then it should be fun!

Friday June 7^th

Today was mostly different from the pace we’ve been taking. We first had breakfast at the hotel. I already knew from consulting Accuweather, but it was rainy all thru today. The only planned things we had for today was to go to Manchester-by-the-Sea and the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem. Machester-by-the-Sea (“MBTS” from henceforth) wasn’t anything particularly different from what we’d seen before in smalltown Massachusetts, and because it was raining consistently we weren’t terribly keen on getting out and exploring. We just drove around and said “OK that’s good.”

We drove back to Salem (which by this time, being the 3^rd time we were there, certain streets were beginning to get slightly familiar to us), and ended up parking in exactly the same spot we parked last time, in front of the Salem Witch Museum! This time we were going to the Peabody Essex Museum. We planned it for this day because of a special where you get Friday free. Apparently, it wasn’t. It was some weird deal where I guess different facilities get certain days off, and the PEM (also abbreviated from henceforth) wouldn’t have its free Friday till July. Oh well, we were planning on seeing it anyway so we paid up. It was a nice collection of mostly artifacts, with a Western helping of maritime related artifacts/paintings. There was also a lot of Eastern things as well. One thing Krysti took note of was a document and a small single piece with a Cross. It was labeled “Christianity in Japan,” and featured a document that said “turn in your brother and get $300 pieces of silver, turn in your father and get $500 pieces of silver.” (I don’t think that’s what Jesus meant by hating your father, mother, brother, etc. to follow Him.) Christianity was highly persecuted in Japan at the time that faith in Christ was rather akin to being a Christian in a Muslim country. If your family found out, you were either disowned and claimed as dead or they’d kill you themselves to “protect their honor.”

Once finished there, we decided to find a place to eat for lunch, and with Krysti’s Food Network app on the iPad we found a restaurant nearby (The app is fully loaded, it doesn’t require internet. How convenient!) called The Little Depot Diner. It was really cool! It was small, like a trailer or something. It was all train themed, including train-Americana display affixed around, a working train set that would chug around the ceiling on its track, and a train whistle the young gal would pull and shout “Order!” (not “all aboard.”) The waitress reminded me of a younger version of my students’ mom, just with facial features and mannerisms. The atmosphere was very cozy, very small-town familiar feeling. It felt like something out of a TV show or movie where you have regulars come in with backstories you have no clue about, but they’re all rambling about the latest news or just calling each other by first names and coming and going with such ease like they’ve done it a thousand times before. It’s fun to drop into someone else’s story for a bit!

Then we went back to the mall we had browsed before since it was still raining and decided to be a little more in detail with our browsing. Krysti purchased some camis from Forever XXI (we noticed when we got back to the hotel that they have printed on the bottom of the bag “John 3:16!” Who knew!) and she also got a little trim and styling at the hair salon! I took the opportunity to explore a couple stores on my own, especially Verizon and Brookstone. I always like Brookstone because they have cool items. Krysti gave me a heads-up that they have a massage chair in back, so I had to check it out. It’s a full-body setup that leans you back in a “zero-gravity” mode to make you feel like you’re floating in the air, and it first “measures” you to analyze how you’re sitting, how tall your back is, etc., to know a little better how to massage you. I did a 15-minute full body massage and it felt GOOD. If I had a few extra thousand to throw around I might be tempted to get one. It massages the whole body, even with channels to insert your arms and hands in, so they get a nice squeeze/kneading. I also got a new game from Gamestop, so I was happy and I’m set for quite a while. So after she got her trim & style we wandered the rest of the mall to make sure we saw everything, then we went over to Kohls, which was at a smaller mall a couple streets north of us.

At Kohls, Krysti had a 30% discount she’d gotten in the mail so this was the time to go for it. She found some good clearance items which was great, and I was in desperate need of new shoes to replace my tennis shoes and casual brown shoes. (those brown ones have served me well – I almost think I’ve had them since college??) We spent a good deal of time there, and after we checked out, we looked at the rest of that mall. I had scouted ahead to see what our food options were there. We decided to get some ice cream from the McDonalds in the food court rather than a full dinner because we still had leftover pizza from Dominoes a couple nights ago in our room fridge. (I had to dismantle the pizza box and re configure it to make it fit. Then I had to re-dismantle it to fit it into the microwave in the breakfast room.) We then just “chillaxed,” as she puts it, trying out our new outfits a little, watched TV and played with our stuff. Tomorrow we’re heading out early-ish to head up to Ogunquit, Maine. The rain won’t stop anytime soon as the forecast suggests, but we’ll see what happens. At least now I have new shoes to keep me dryer better!

Saturday June 8^th

Destination: Ogunquit, ME. Ogunquit is a nice town similar to other towns we’ve seen, but it’s fair to say we saw a lot more of it than we intended. The first thing we did upon arrival was park along Ogunquit beach, and we did some beach walking, which we hadn’t done yet. I opted for flip-flops, and we had layers and jackets because we expected (by forecast) that we would be seeing maybe a little rain but mostly clouds. We did have a lot of cloud cover at first, but it started breaking and the sun started warming us up. I shed my coat and zip-up layer and carried it with me, and Krysti tied her jacket around her. We knew that there was a foot bridge a little ways north on the beach, so we planned on taking that back into town and getting a snack from there.

That was a really long beach.

..aaand we missed the footbridge WAY back there behind us.

We ended up walking probably a solid hour down the beach, wandering thru private beaches and wandering “how far does this go??” We finally found what appeared to be a public access from the beach to the road. We were clear into a residential area and had to walk ALL the way back, adding another hour to our time. We did make it back to downtown, but my flip flops were painful! We had been planning on eating at the Bread & Roses café, but were so hungry we decided to save it for a snack later. We walked farther on and found the Wild Blueberry for lunch. Krysti had the Lobster Bisque, and I had the Lobster Roll. There was an older gentleman providing live piano music throughout. Krysti was thinking of her upcoming visit to Burgundy’s restaurant for dinner music, so we were analyzing the player’s piano style. He stayed in the key of C for a considerably long time, but shifted from one song to another rather subtly. He used a lot of shifting tempi, alternating thick chords and sparse voicing, and mixed rhythms, to name a few.

I wanted to walk back to the car to grab my tennis shoes (my new ones!) to help make further walking easier. When I got to the car, I realized that I was already very burned after 3 hours in the sun without sunscreen. Firstly, my feet are (were) extremely white so they’re very sensitive to sun. Second, the forecast beforehand was thinking there was still going to be leftover weather/fallout precipitation from tropical storm Andrea, and the forecast was very wrong, and we weren’t prepared for it as I didn’t have sunscreen with me. So I could tell when I put shoes on that the heat was pulsing from my feet already.

We did continue on undeterred, and found the Marginal Way walking path. We incorrectly labeled the beach as Marginal Way, but that was just Ogunquit beach. Marginal Way is more of a stone walking path that hugs the rocky shore on its way down to Perkin’s Cove. The walk down was gorgeous with the waves crashing into the massive rocks that stretched for a couple hundred feet towards the sea. We entertained the thought of taking the trolley back into town, but we already were walking towards town again so we opted against. 

We did stop back at the Bread & Roses so Krysti could get an iced coffee and a chocolate peanut butter bar. Phil got “green monster” flavor ice cream (mint, chocolate fudge swirl & Oreo). We got back to the car and started to realize the extent of our sunburn. (we were both “red lobsters” ^_^.)

We ate at a restaurant on route 1 called the Maine Diner. This place has been graced by both Food Network’s Guy from “Diners, Drive-ins, & Dives,” and Mike & Frank from American Pickers, one of our favorite shows! I had a chicken cordon bleu wrap, Krysti had a warm lobster roll. There were lots of antique stores along route 1 but it was after 5 so most were already closed. We got to our hotel and relaxed early to try and get good sleep before church tomorrow.

Sunday, June 9^th

We went to church at Thornton Heights UMC, about 60 seconds from our hotel. They’re at the cusp of transition, with the pastor’s switch happening at the beginning of July. There was a lot of sentiments this Sunday for the pastor, including a new stole (sp?)for her that matched a new altar cloth they were dedicating today. There was also an annual “blessing of the wheels” which was probably similar to the “blessing of the pets” at Grandma & Grandpa Groman's church. There were bicycles, scooters, strollers and someone got clever and brought up their car keys, and other brought in a couple round kitchen utensils. The congregation here was friendly and welcoming like the other church last Sunday. They invited us to coffee/snack fellowship afterward, which we attended briefly before going on.

We drove up to Portland, ME and found Becky’s Diner for lunch, which Rachel Ray visited on a show (according to Krysti’s iPad app). I had a bacon cheeseburger and Krysti had eggs, toast & home fries. 










We walked along some of the Eastern Promenade Trail path along the sea and then eventually walked through downtown and found they had a massive party in the streets festival of sorts. LOTS of people. Kinda too much, really. But there was a lot of fun around, with vendors, bands and other small musician groups, and open doors to restaurants/bars and shops. We tried to navigate the large crowds as smoothly as possible until we got to thinner crowds. 

Eventually we turned back towards the shore towards the Victorian Mansion, which was our main visiting objective that day. It was a lovely house, and we had a very nice tour guide all to ourselves to show us the house. She guided is through the interior in much the same order as guests would have been guided through the house.

The amazing thing about houses like these is that everything is designed for a specific purpose, and everything follows a rather strict formula. Homes today may be very generic, adaptable and flexible in purpose – this home is deliberate in its design. You would be greeted by the house staff, brought to a waiting room, offered some wine/port, and you would basically sit and marvel at the room you were in, often complete with great portraits of your hosts. The design is exquisite and, again, deliberate – often a specific theme is focused on, like a floral theme or a food theme as in the dining room. The guests would be ushered to the dining room when the house owners were ready, and then you would retreat to the drawing room (short for withdrawing room). The furniture matched perfectly to the room and fit the décor precisely. When the house was sold/transferred to museum status, it was sold “lock, stock & barrel,” so all the furnishings were included and probably 90-95% of the materials were original in the mansion. We saw the 2^nd floor as well which had a few bedrooms, a water closet and a smoking room. Overall, the house was lovely and highly ornate.

We got back to our car – the “parking lot” we were in smelled like rotting garbage since we’d parked.. not entirely sure why but there were many cars there parked  and it was free. We drove to Wiscasset to share a lobster roll at Red’s Eats (another Food Network place). We didn’t stay and look in town but instead continued driving back towards our hotel in Brunswick. We picked up a pizza for a full dinner and relaxed watching tv. Tomorrow we leave early to head to Bar Harbor for the last 3 days of our vacation.

Monday, June 10^th

We had breakfast at the hotel before heading out. We had at least 3 hours and more of driving, as we planned to take highway 1 instead of the interstate. We drove thru a lot of nice-looking small towns but didn’t take time to explore them or we would have never gotten to bar harbor before dinner! We did have lunch at Wendy’s with some time left before getting to our destination.

We arrived at Acadia national park (not “Arcadia.” No “r”.)  The Visitor’s Center had a nice video segment of a full-length movie about the park. We drove the scenic loop drive around, taking some stops for pictures and video along the way. A few special noted stops were Sandy Point beach, which was a stretch of sand beach rather rare in the park, and then “Thunder Hole”, which is a particular setup of rocks in which the water can flow into it, building concussive waves which trap the air into a pocket and create a water explosion which, when forceful enough, can thoroughly drench nearby onlookers much like a Cedar Point water ride. We eventually drove up to Cadillac Mountain, the tallest peak on the east coast. You can see for a good distance up there, so I tried to make sure I got pictures and video. Your ears popped considerably on the way up and down. There is a hiking trail to get up there, but we didn’t have 6 hours to spare going up then back down. A lot other of what we saw was rocky shores which the waves crashed into and wooded paths we walked through. We explored several outcroppings of salmon-colored rocks and even found a few (freezing cold) crystal-clear pools of various sea life in its own little world in the rocky formations.

After exploring what we could of the park, we drove back out to backtrack a little to our hotel. It’s a nice hotel! The folks at the front desk said this was newly renovated, and we’re the second people to stay in our room! It has that new building smell when you come into it, and Krysti made special note that the toilet is the cleanest/newest toilet she has ever used. (who is it that says “cleanliness is next to Godliness?”) Krysti also loves the Blueberry flavored coffee in the front desk area. She’s had 2 cups already! (well, one of them wasn’t completely full.)

We drove into Bar Harbor downtown and walked around before having dinner. The town is very nice with a big downtown area loaded with shops and restaurants! We looked in several stores and got a couple items. One of those is for the cats, although we won’t tell them when we get back. It’s a little basket with green and pink patterns on it and a lid. The idea is that Whitney might see it and decide she wants to fit inside it and curl up for her nap. So we will let her claim it as her own if she wants it. (that’s the secret to buying pet items, don’t let them know it’s for them. The pets should claim all items for their own without human prompting. Besides, items deliberately made for cats, in my experience, are doomed to failure.)

We had dinner at the Route 66 restaurant on Cottage Street. The entrance was so awesome! It was set back a ways from the street, all decked out with a little roadway leading up to it and lighted signs. We got inside and the place was positively sprawling with 50’s memorabilia and route 66-type items, including car parts, posters, pictures of film stars and music icons (Elvis, Marilyn Monroe, etc.), with doo-wop and surfer rock permeating the tall, ornately decorated dining room. The restaurant used to lie in a different location but that was destroyed somehow. The owner bought an old church property and moved “the best parts” of it there. I could tell it used to be a church before firstly because of the tall, thin stained-glass windows and secondly because the white walls & ceiling look like those at Cairo UMC. The inside of the restaurant was just so fun to look at, with signs, props, neon, lights, everything you’d expect in a 50’s restaurant and more. I had the “Blue Moon” hamburger, which was essentially a bacon cheeseburger with blue cheese sprinkled in it. Add some lettuce ketchup & mayo and you have a delicious sandwich. Krysti had the nachos baked with a variety of peppers and veggies. She got a box to go and then we realized much after the fact that we left the box on the table. Oops.

We drove back to the hotel, upon which Krysti commenced a lengthy stretch of office work (emailing, mostly) to ensure the summer session with be as ready as possible when we return. Oh why, oh why, can’t people just follow our system? If they had returned their summer form by May 22 like we asked and emailed and explained and reminded at recitals, it would have saved probably 3-4 hours of work. Seriously!!!!!!!!!!!!! Okay. We have two days left out here on the east coast! Hopefully it doesn’t rain too badly like they’re expecting.

Tuesday, June 11^th

We had breakfast at the hotel, and we are very happy we’re using this as our last stop. Good hotel, nice amenities, and good breakfast!

We had already visited Acadia National Park and Bar Harbor, which is mostly the east side of Mount Desert Island, so today we spent time driving around the west side of the island. It was still raining pretty thoroughly, from mist to light steady rain. We walked a trail partway, we drove to what looked like a dock for the U.S. Coast Guard (which earlier during the trip we learned was first called the United States Lifesaving Service). We stopped at the lighthouse which is the southernmost part of the island facing out into the Atlantic. Mostly we drove around to the little villages on the west side before coming back to Bar Harbor for lunch at China Joy! Since I had stuffed myself at breakfast, I actually couldn’t finish my lunch, so I got a box and it’s sitting in the room fridge right now. (I’m gonna have to heat it up tomorrow before we check out. Chinese for breakfast--??)

We came back to the hotel and relaxed, watching TV. We’ve basically accomplished what we intended to do for this trip, and we looked at visiting a little further past the island to the Schoodic National Scenic Byway area. We yesterday decided to do dinner in Bar Harbor at Gayln for their early bird dinner specials, and I got a whole boiled lobster. This was my first time really having a full lobster for dinner, so having those lobster rolls earlier in the trip helped my recognize what’s lobster meat and what isn’t. We shared that then stopped at the market in town to get small cups of ice cream to take back to the room! We ate ice cream and watched more TV – our favorite channels are History, TLC, and Food Network.

Tonight’s our last night at the hotel, so tomorrow we check out, do our last exploring and then start heading back home in the evening. We decided during planning that it would be good to get a head start going home, and find a place to sleep on the way home. We’re looking forward to a wedding to play for this upcoming weekend and the Festival of Wheels we’ll catch part of.