A Trip Through New England

Saturday, May 25

This morning we decided that it didn't take many mornings like it to make up for a lot of very bad days. The weather was delightful and we went down to Mystic Seaport, on the Connecticut shore of the Long Island Sound. It is set up as kind of a living museum. There are several old ships, and lots of the land based shops that were necessary to support them. Each of the displays were active in the sense that there were demonstrations of how things worked in the 19th century – setting of sails on the ships, printing press demonstrations, etc. For a change, we got there just as it was opening up, so we neither had to wait nor had to fight big crowds (at least at the first), and we discovered what seems to be a rarity in New England, free parking. (They made up for that in the admission fee, but it was still a nice surprise.)

To make things even better, we discovered that Memorial Day Weekend is also the day that the local rotary club holds a Lobster Fest as a fund raiser. After touring the museum for a while, we put Lili in the car and enjoyed some good Lobster.

After we left Mystic Seaport for Roslindale (Boston) we started back into the anxiety routine. We were going to stay with my cousin Christine and her partner Jules, but they have three cats, and we knew that wouldn't work with Lili. We asked them if we could just put the camper into their driveway and camp there, but it turns out, they don't have a driveway. The suggested that we could just camp on the street in front of their house (if we could find a spot) or they might arrange things with a neighbor.

We got to their house about 4:00, knowing that they wouldn't be home until about 6:30, to discover that the street in front of their house is on a hill, so that wouldn't work. We thought that maybe we could put Lili into a boarding kennel for a couple of days, but this being Saturday afternoon of a holiday weekend, they were all closed to new customers for the weekend. We thought maybe we could just get a nearby motel (that accepted dogs), but Boston prices are outrageous. We found a nearby one in which we could get a room, but it would cost us $250 per night. Another, a Days Inn, quite a bit further away would still cost about $120 per night. Anyway, what worked out was that one of their neighbors a few houses away were out of town, and we camped in their driveway for a couple of nights. We still had a little issue of Lili being confined to the car a few houses away, but she didn't seem to mind too much, and we took her with us for as many activities as we could, including just sitting in the backyard visiting.

Saturday evening, then, when Christine and Jules got home, they brought some of their friends, recent immigrants from South Africa, and we had a delightful dinner and conversation with them. Of special not for the dinner was that Jules grilled a big bunch of vegetables. When traveling, one of the hardest things to do is to get good vegetables. Linda (who loves vegies of all kinds) was having significant "vegetable depravation," and even I (who is not a huge lover of vegies) was delighted to have some.

Sunday, May 26

Today we got to the Arnold Arboretum (I think that is the right name) and the top of Peter's Hill in the arboretum to see a view of the Boston business district, had a great breakfast out and we got to have another Bertuchi's (again, I am spelling things phonetically) pizza – one of the things we like about the Boston area. Best of all, however was just sitting and relaxing in the backyard, visiting with Chris and Jules.

Monday, May 27

This morning was time to leave Boston. We spent the morning up at Newburyport, a delightful, picturesque old town at the mouth of the Merrimac River. We intended to do a Volkswalk, but because of several situations conspiring against us, we wound up just wandering around a small part of the town. Among the things conspiring against us was the fact that it was Memorial Day. This was not bad, however, because it meant that there was an art festival as well as a craft festival on the street, and a short Memorial Day parade. It did, however, get pretty crowded, however, and we wound up carrying Lili a lot. This isn't conducive to spending a lot of time, both because she gets heavy (even if she is our dog) and she doesn't particularly like to be carried for very long. We did see some great old houses (including one in which it looked like as much effort was spent in making the garage attractive as is spent on many of the houses we have seen), and we all enjoyed the river front scenery.

As we got closer and closer to New England, we got more and more eager to start heading home. Some time ago, we decided to postpone our trip up to Bangor, Maine for another trip, and start heading west after seeing Newburyport. As a result, Newburyport is as far from home as we will get. At home, much of our time is spent at our church, affectionately know as "The Frog Pond Church." Here, at the farthest point from home, it was a great surprise to see the sign "Frog Pond Playground." It must be time to start back to the west.

We left Newburyport shortly after noon, and headed for Concord, New Hampshire, and some more of my cousins. We went to Nancee and Bruce's house to stay for a couple of nights, and then up to my aunt's cottage at Lake Winnipesaukee to see my Aunt Marion and cousin Herbert. This is an idyllic setting that I had never been to before. In addition to visiting with cousins that I hadn't seen since 1952, we had a couple of water demonstrations.

First we put paid to what we had read about the fact that dachshunds can't swim. Every body of water that we had approached, Lili has wanted to wade right in. Next to the dock at the cottage, Lili was wading on some rocks near the shore and slipped off. She immediately swam out to the end of the dock before turning around and heading for the shore. She seemed to enjoy that a great deal. Shortly after that, while we were laughing about it, Aunt Marion slipped off the inner end of the dock. Fortunately, she didn't hurt herself and only got wet up to her waist. Mostly, she was just embarrassed. In the evening, one of my other aunts, Ellie, stopped by and we visited her. In writing about it, I just realized that we enjoyed visiting with her so much that I forgot to get a picture of her.