New England

June 19 – July 2, 2023

Old Saybrook, connecticut

June 18 – 23, 2023

After staying the night in Delaware, we continued to our Alexandria Singers friend, Chris’ house in Old Saybrook. We spent a wonderful, relaxing four days there. Well, relaxing for me; Mays is working full time while I am taking a break this year. Still, it was nice to have the stress of moving behind us.

Chris has a lovely two-story cottage within an easy walk of the beach on Long Island Sound. The weather was on the cool side, which was a pleasant change from the heat of a Virginia summer!

Walking on the boardwalk

We had beautiful weather the whole week and I was so happy that our visit coincided with that of another good friend from the Singers, Kim, who had moved north from Virginia six months ago. She had never met Chris, but they quickly became friends, and we had a great evening enjoying beer and pizza.

While getting ice cream this happened…

We spent our last evening walking around the town and getting ice cream at a famous local ice cream shop. While we were waiting our turn we saw a little something to restore some faith in humanity.

We were in line behind a man and a young family of three: mother, father, and a girl no more than four. The man directly in front of us dropped his five-dollar bill which neatly slipped between two floorboards of the porch which couldn’t have been more than 1/2 inch apart. Everyone crowded around, exclaiming in shock. The toddler was very interested and bent over trying to see the bill now trapped under the porch. If that man had tried 100 times, he wouldn’t be able to do that again. What terrible luck! Of course, nobody’s fingers were small enough to reach through the crack, not even the toddler. The man was ready to give up and just let it go when the young mother told him to wait. She went to her car and brought back two small lawn flags that she used like chopsticks to fish the bill out within seconds. Everybody was clapping and laughing, happy that the money was retrieved. Then the man surprised everyone by promptly offering the five to the mother, who just as promptly refused it.

Boston, Massachusetts

June 23 – 25, 2023

Friday came and with it, another goodbye as we packed the car again and headed off to Boston, an easy two-hour drive. Driving in downtown Boston on a Friday afternoon was not so easy as I am not used to driving in large downtown cities, but we got through it without incident. We can call this an opportunity for growth, ha ha!

Our hotel was in a great location downtown within walking distance of the North End, Boston Common, and Chinatown and our window overlooked Faneuil Hall and the North, South, and Quincy Markets (huge warehouse-sized buildings. We went out to look for dinner and stumbled across the old tavern district. Being in Boston, we had to try the clam chowder and so stopped at the Union Oyster House. Established in 1826, it is the oldest continuously running restaurant and oyster bar in America.

Saturday it was threatening rain, so we toured the historic district on a Hop On/Hop Off tour bus. This is a wonderful way to get a overview of a new city. The bus pass is for a full day and allows you to get off to explore an area that the driver has just told you about and then board the next tour bus that comes along, which is pretty often, and then repeat this process as many or as few times as you wish for the whole day. Since it was pouring for most of our trip around Boston, we elected to stay dry, but were still able to see many historic sites as well as more modern ones from the protection of the bus. After the tour, it had finally cleared up, so we walked to the Old Statehouse, dating from 1713 and was the seat of the colonial government and site of the Boston Massacre in 1770. We had lunch across the street at the Faneuil Hall Marketplace, a collection of three long brick warehouses that housed many shops and food stalls. This market has been operating since 1826! We had clam chowder again, and I have to admit, it was much better than the Union Oyster House!

To help solve the problem caused by the unsightly freeway plowing right through the middle of downtown Boston, the city leaders made a hard but innovative decision to move it underground and turn the existing right-of-way into a series of parks called the Greenway. After 15 years of construction, the underground tunnel was completed in 2007 and the parks were open. Each of them has a different character and many feature original sculptures and other works of art.

After resting back at the hotel, we walked through the financial district to Chinatown. The choice of restaurants was overwhelming! We randomly chose Food Opera and it turned out to be fantastic! BBQ pork bao, shrimp dumplings and Orange Chicken! We’re finding ordering at restaurants challenging. I usually only eat half of a full entree, and then take the rest home. But now with moving around so much, we are trying to end the meal without leftovers, and with neither being hungry or overstuffed. As I said, it’s a challenge, but we’re getting better at it.

On Sunday, I took a morning walk around the North End while Mays got caught up on email. I visited Paul Rever’s house and saw the Old North Church up close. Remember the old poem, “One if by land, two if by sea”? This was that exact church where the signal was sent to warn the townspeople across the Charles River that the British were invading by sea, thus starting the American Revolution. My final stop was the Copps Hill Burying Ground, one of the oldest cemeteries in Boston, dating to the 18th century.

Portland, Maine

June 25 – 28, 2023

Later in the morning we checked out of the hotel and headed north to Maine, stopping for lunch in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. We picked a sports bar named The Goat intrigued by the name. They had excellent food, though goat was not on the menu.

We arrived in Portland in the early afternoon and checked into our Airbnb, which was in an old Victorian-era house in South Portland. We found out from the host that the house had a very interesting history, starting out as the home to the mayor of Preble (at that time, it was a separate town), and then later on it was converted to a brothel and still later a school. Now it is owned by the Airbnb host and his wife. They share the third floor with their three cats, who are very sociable with the guests. We have been missing Tribble so it was nice to get some kitty love.

That evening we drove 25 miles to the northeast and then south to Basin Point and had dinner at the Dolphin Marina. I did not know before visiting Maine, but apparently, besides lobster, the state is known for their blueberries. The Dolphin started out 60
years ago serving blueberry muffins and coffee to the local fishermen. They still serve the muffins along with every entrée. And because of this excellent location, we got awesome views of the sunset over the water.

Since we were in Maine, we of course had to have lobster. We found a lobster shack downtown and had a great dinner – a whole lobster and a lobster roll. The lobster is sweeter in Maine than in Virginia, though just as expensive. Also, during our time here, we walked the half mile from the Airbnb to Fort Preble, which is on the northeastern tip of South Portland and faces Casco Bay. It was built in 1808 during the Napoleonic Wars in case the war expanded from Europe to North America, and it was an active fort through all major wars until after World War II.

Waitsfield, Vermont

June 28 – July 1, 2023

Wednesday morning, we headed west to Vermont to visit Mays’ friends that he has known since college, Gail and Javade. The drive through New Hampshire was beautiful, but stressful due to passing through several severe thunderstorms with such heavy rain that I considered pulling off to wait for better visibility. However, drivers in New Hampshire seem fairly reasonable and with one or two exceptions who flew past me, all dropped their speed enough that it felt safe to continue.
During our stay in Vermont, Gail’s sister and brother-in-law, Laura and Daryl arrived on a visit from San Francisco. They are choristers too, and we had a great time sapping stories and getting to know each other.

Thursday morning we all went for a walk/hake on the next mountain over from the house – there was a nice park with a walking trail around the top and some lovely views. I say it was a walk/hike because it purely depended on whether you were used to mountain terrain. Mays and I were not – enough said. However, we took plenty of breaks to look at the scenery, which was well worth it! Coming back down was a bit of a challenge too since the path was very steep and a bit rocky.

Malone, New york

July 1 – 2, 2023

Our next destination was just a few hours away in the northern Adirondacks in New York. We visited my friend from the Alexandria Singers, Beth, and her husband Jeff for the weekend. Jeff plays in a local band named Route 30 when they are in New York for the summer, and we were lucky enough to come when they were having an outdoor concert at a nearby BBQ joint. There was an open field adjacent to the restaurant and there was a large white tent set up to protect the band from any weather. This was fortunate because it started raining about 5 minutes after we arrived! Jeff and his bandmate, Tom, played on while part of the audience ran to huddle under a wooden shelter to the side of the field and another dozen packed up and left. The light rain soon turned into a full-blown thunderstorm, and the group huddled in the wooden shelter soon joined the rest of us under the more spacious tent. The band played on and what started out as an outdoor concert turned into a fun and energetic 4th of July party.

This ended our tour of New England and we were on to Montréal!