Day 3 - June 21st - Boston to Martha's Vineyard on Father's Day... It's always somethin

We all get up in no hurry – no alarms on vacation – just get up when you get up..  and I’m slower moving, but Patti, Dana and Amy head over to Dunkin Donuts for us and grab coffee for me and Sandy and breakfast for all of us.  Patti gets a lemon filled donut – she has a thing for lemon stuff, and she got me a glazed donut, but is careful to warn me not to get the donuts mixed up, the lemon one is all hers.  Whatever. like I would eat her lemon donut.  I totally wouldn’t – but it’s fun to make her think that I would.

I’m checking out my Instagram in the morning, and Alan Cumming is greeting me with a song while he’s standing by a creek bank.  It’s quite hypnotic, if you don’t follow him on Instagram, I would check it out.  From there Amy asks about the name of the movie that he was in where they adopted a gay teen…  I’m thinking…. I know it…  and I look it up as the conversation continues, Amy is telling a story, and I blurt out the answer, “Any Day Now”!  … Patti is like.. RUDE!  Oh… that’s the name of the movie.  Hehehe.. so now randomly we just say, “Any day now!” as other people are talking.  We sometimes think that we’re funny when we do silly stuff like that.

Hanging out before we leave.. 

Goodbye Boston!  (Our front door)

We’ve actually developed a few other things that we say now – Amy and Sandy are speech pathologists, so they have a thing with the proper pronunciation and enunciation of words, and they discuss a few interesting mispronunciations that have stuck with them.  Secretary pronounced as Sec-cut-tary.  And “obviously” as “OB-bus-ly” – that’s a fun one… OBbusly!

We’ve been lucky with the weather so far, these two days have been beautiful – but today it’s raining.  The girls braved the rain to go get our donuts, and we’re happy with our decision to Uber over to the rental car so we’re not trekking through the rain with our bags.   We clean up the apartment, strip the beds and request our Uber ride – it says that he’s 8 minutes away for like 10 minutes straight, so I’m not sure if it’s a glitch in service or if he’s just stuck in traffic or something, but we decide to go ahead and wait outside just in case.  Except that, oh yah, it’s raining…  well, we manage, we step back into the foyer, or if you’re smart like Patti and Amy you packed umbrellas. 

Waiting for Uber in the rain

Once again I try to chat up our driver – it’s going to work one of these days.  I ask him if he likes being an Uber driver, if he knows other Uber drivers and if they have like an Uber driver support group or something.. then I have to explain, like not like a “support group” like therapy, but like you know.. just to exchange tips or something. Sandy just laughs at my efforts – she’s like, none of these people understand enough English to understand what you’re talking about. He’s not very responsive at all – but then I notice that he has the Uber app as gps, but also has a back up GPS, like a Garmen.  He understands THAT question and says that yah, sometimes the service drops for the Uber app so he keep the Garmin as a back up just in case.  Yes!  Success, a real conversation for like 30 seconds.

He drops us off at the rental car place and he does the same thing as the other driver – he doesn’t send the transaction to my phone. It’s like when you check out of a store and you do all your stuff on the keypad, but you get that message “waiting on cashier” and they just have to hit a button so you can approve it?  That.  So he gets out to help with the bags and I lean over and hit the end transaction on his phone..   OBbussly.

When Amy and Sandy get out of the Uber car, there is a penny on the ground, one each under each of their doors where they got out.   It was so freakily and perfectly placed under each door, as if it was meant to be under their first step out of the car.  Maika is talking to us again and letting us know she’s watching out.

I had booked the rental car originally, but I ask Patti if she would drive so that I could get some blog done.  We did so much in our two days in Boston that it was CRAZY (as you may have read), and then with dial up speed of the internet service, it would have been so frustrating to try and post anything.  So she’s going to be the primary driver down to the ferry, and handle the rental car stuff.  While she’s doing that, I gather up our 7-day metro passes (that we used for 2 days) and go looking for people who might use them.  We all thought it was such a waste to leave those 5 days un-used, so I was really looking for homeless people, but really, anyone that would use them would be great.  Amy grabs someone as they walk past us and asks if they use the metro and would like a card.. one down.  I take the other 4 up the street and see a guy working at Hertz who seems to be on his smoke break.  I ask if he uses the metro and would want a 5 day unlimited pass – he doesn’t use it but someone who works there does and he’ll give it to them, they’ll really appreciate it.  He shakes my hand and thanks me like I gave him $100 – the power of random acts of kindness – I ask if he knows of where I can find other people that would use them, and he suggests the Starbucks just across the street, a lot of people go in there and might be some homeless people hanging out.  I get over there and I see a younger girl that seems to be homeless, or at least in need, and I ask her if she uses the metro and would like a 5 day pass – she’s so appreciative, I’m just glad I found someone who would actually use it, and I ask her if she has 3 other people who would use them.  She does, and I give her all 4 passes.  By this time Patti is done with the car business and I see that they’ve moved closer toward me – toward the garage to pick up the car.

Because there are 5 of us, plus bags – we upgraded the size of the car, and we have a brand new Dodge Charger – like brand new, it has about 300 miles on it and it has new car smell.  Patti drives, I ride shot gun and navigate and blog a little .. Amy, Dana and Sandy squeeze into the back.  We have about a 90 minute ride down to the ferry, and we actually arranged to pick up the rental car 2 hours earlier than we had originally planned (because of the 11:00 check out time at the apt) – so we’re going to be really early to the 3:45 ferry.   Just means that we have plenty of time to stop and eat lunch on the way, and we have some time built in just in case something happens.  

With about 15 minutes left before we get to the ferry… something happens.  Amy from the back asks us to turn the music down, her voice is urgent, but when I turn it “down” she says, “off! Off! Turn it off!” – and we know something is wrong.  She’s having Dana count her pulse – she’s not feeling right… and she’s starting to go into a full panic.  Amy has a medical history of heart attack and stroke – what first happened on what we lovingly call “Stroke Tour” .. we were on a ya-ya trip to Key West and on day 2 Amy had a heart attack and stroke and spent the rest of the trip in the Miami hospital, only to meet up with us again at the airport.  That was not the way you want to spend your vacation.  So just yesterday Amy was joking that she had made it through day 2 of the vacation and wasn’t in a hospital yet.  Never do that.   Because now she’s having sharp pains and her blood pressure feels high, and just something is wrong.  I ask Siri where the nearest hospital is (8 minutes away) and we head in that direction.  As soon as we do, Amy starts rationalizing and reasoning, she feels fine now, she doesn’t have to go to a hospital, it’s probably just gas.  She doesn’t want to “ruin” another vacation by spending it in the hospital. Patti and I jokingly remind her that it wasn’t our vacation that was ruined, we had a great time.. SHE was the one in the hospital.  And we are GOING to the hospital to get it checked out!  We have plenty of time before the ferry and even if we miss the ferry, we’ll figure something out and we’ll even go tomorow if we have to.

We drop Amy and Sandy off at the Emergency Room door and we go to park the car.  By the time we get in, Amy is already being seen!  That’s fast service.  But I think when you present with a history of stroke and say that you’re worried about your blood pressure, they listen to you.  And it’s a tiny hospital – Falmouth Hospital.  I get a pic of the ER Entrance – not the first time we’ve had a hospital as part of our vacation. 

It's always somethin...  

We stop by the bathroom, and when we come out – she’s being released!  They checked her BP and they were ok with it, a little high, but not enough to keep her.  And with the location of the pains they think it could be a gall bladder attack.  So don’t eat at restaurants and stay away from greasy food… hard to do on vacation.  Amy tells us that there was some drama when she came in.  She had just asked for them to check her BP, and they didn’t even ask for her insurance card to do it.  Then she overhears an office manager type put up a little bit of a fuss about how they were supposed to get paid for services rendered when the staff doesn’t ask for their insurance information.  The doctor visibly calms herself before entering the room to talk to Amy – and she tells her that she should go to the Fire Department to get her BP checked next time, or any time.  They’ll do it for free and she won’t have to show any insurance.  Learned something new.

I see on the gps map that right around the corner, and on the way to the ferry is a Seafood Sam’s – and you know I’m always on the look out for some seafood places.  We see as we enter they’ve won a Tripadvisor award – and that really catches Sandy’s eye because she’s big with Tripadvisor, she reviews every place she visits and checks reviews before she goes some place.  They have a pretty big menu, and fairly cheap lobster rolls, so most of us get those.  Sandy has to avoid that of course with her allergy and order the Haddock sandwich… but they give her the salmon instead.  It’s like a huge portion of salmon and it’s really well cooked, and also more expensive than the haddock, so she doesn’t mind so much that they got her order wrong.  I get the oysters.. but didn’t realize they were fried.  I’ll eat a fried one – they’re still good, but not exactly what I was expecting, and I get the lobster roll and try the “stuffed quohog” .. now I’m expecting this thing to BE stuffed.  Like a stuffed chicken breast or a stuffed filet..  but it comes out and it IS stuffing – it’s like bad, dry bread stuffing that I guess has some quohog in there.  Amy, having JUST come from the hospital is trying to eat a little better and she has the steamed veggies with her meal… she’s not happy about this.  They have buzzers shaped like lobster that light up and vibrate when your food is ready... Dana gets a little giddy when hers lights up - she gets this pic.. 

Dana waited for it to light up.... 

We are just about 10 minutes away from the ferry – our reservations are for 3:45 – and it’s now like 1:30.  We’re way early, but we head down anyway to see if we can get on an earlier ferry.  The direct us to a row that is the “just in case we have room” row – and we wait.  The next ferry is at 2:45, so we hang out in the waiting area with the other people lining up for the ferry.  Some people head in to shop or use the restroom, but we decide to stick with the car just in case.  Meanwhile, lots of people watching, and we have some NASTY kids with attitudes right behind us.  Kids that are just screaming at each other, kind of like the “she’s touching me” game, but very loud and 10 times worse because the entire parking area can hear it and there is no parental intervention.   In stark contrast there is another family of very well behaved children in the car next to them, and even they seem to be thinking, man chill out!

The line starts moving to load up the people have tickets for the 2:45 ferry, and we have hope.. our line is also moving – but the car right in front of us has no driver, they’ve gone shopping!  So we have to sit for bit, until the line next to us has gone down enough for us to be able to get over and around that car.  And we DO get on, we’re the second to the last car on – and we’re excited that we won’t have to wait.  But the last car to get on was the one with the ill behaved children.  And right in front of us, the well behaved children.  A study in contrasts.   I love a ferry ride, and we get out and wander around – Amy is always making new friends, and she befriends the family with the well behaved children and compliments them on their maturity.   We dock by 3:30 and head to the house! 

The house that we stay at is Amy’s cousin’s house – Amy comes to the island frequently and has all her life.  On occasion we’re lucky enough to get a week there with her and her cousin gives us a MUCH reduced price for the week.  We come in and start getting settled, and it’s becoming obvious that the house hasn’t been cleaned by the cleaning service yet.  The house gets rented out on a weekly basis to renters and Amy’s cousin lives in Jersey, so she hires a cleaning service to get the house ready for the nxt set of renters every week.   But the sofa bed is still pulled out, the beds upstairs don’t have clean linens – the kitchen and the refrigerator are dirty..  Amy calls her cousin and learns that she’s already paid the service, and the house has been empty for a week, so they’ve had plenty of time to get in there and get it ready. Both Amy and her cousin are very upset, and the cleaning service gets an earful, I’m sure.  We’re told that they’ll be there in 15 minutes.. and after 20 they still aren’t there.  Amy wanted to wait for them to come to be sure they heard how upset she was that they’ve had a week to clean and haven’t been to the house yet.  It makes everyone wonder what kind of job they’ve been doing to this point.  What if we were regular renters, how would this reflect on the landlord?

The front of the house - more house pics to come... 

They still haven’t come, despite assurances that they’ll be right there - we go ahead and leave and give them time to clean.  We suspect that they’re giving us plenty of time to get out before they come over so they can avoid us.  We were going to head to the grocery store once we got in, but we want to be gone for at least a couple of hours to give them a chance to clean, so we go shopping at the local Vineyard Haven shops instead.  Main street is just a couple of blocks away - it’s a Sunday, so not all of them are open – but we still find plenty to look at.

We head into The Green Room – a place that has shoes and surf equipment and other types of apparel and equipment.  Last time we were here we all bought shoes there.  We always seem to buy something together on these trips.  Martha’s Vineyard was shoes and ankle bracelets, Key West was toe rings..  Amy find some shoes she likes right away (and gets them), Patti plays with the hats, Dana is looking at a lime green leather bag that I feel will be leaving with her before the week is out, and I find a water bottle.  It’s not just any water bottle – it’s metal and insulated like their metal water bottles (Patti, Dana and Amy all have matching metal water bottles that have the straws in them – they keep the water so insulated that the ice they put in at the beginning of the day is still ice at the end of the day); but I prefer a wide mouth because I like to drink my water, not suck it through a straw, and this is also my favorite color, tangerine – plus it’s a 32 oz bottle, I like the larger bottles because I drink a lot of water.  So it’s love, and I must have it.  I now understand that love between a girl and her water bottle. 

We head into this store across the street with tons of cute stuff to look at, we all split up and look at different things, and I run into Amy in a little nook of the store and she’s beside herself.  She’s found containers that have Maika’s name on them – the designer is “Maika” – then we realize that there are purses and handbags with that designer too!  She’s excited about being able to have a bag that she can have with her with a Maika label on it. The hardest decision is about which bag to get.. and how many.  While we’re looking, “Amy” comes on the sound system..(“Amy what you gonna do… “) and then Amy looks up and sees a plaque that says, “You are my Sunshine”, a song that she sang to Maika all the time growing up.. it’s a definite chills moment we’re having. The sales lady comes over to assist and Amy asks her how they pronounce the name of the designer… “My-kah”.. just like Maika’s name.  It’s just so rare to find anyone that spells it like that or uses that pronunciation with this spelling.  Amy ends up with a yellow coin purse and a large tote sized bag – but I have a feeling we may be back for more.  You can check them out at http://www.maikagoods.com 

Decisions, decisions... 

We’re getting hungry, and we decide to walk down to the Net Result – it’s a fresh fish market that also cooks it for you.  Nothing fancy, you order it from the fish counter and then eat it outside on picnic benches, it’s perfect and the no frills means that it’s much cheaper.  The special of the day is $10 lobster ($13 if you want it cooked with butter) – everything we found in Boston was at least $25 for the same sized lobster.  Peel and eat shrimp are only $6 for a whole mess of shrimp, and the oysters are just $1.75 each (market price in Boston was $16 for 6) – so we’re going to town on this stuff!  Sandy, of course still has her allergy, and she order the swordfish – which is the only thing that wasn’t great.  It was overcooked and dry, and we got there about 6:55, when they close at 7 – so returning it for something else wasn’t an option, but they were pretty rude about how they dealt with it unfortunately.  

Oysters to go... 

Permission to wear bibs?? yes please. 

We finally walk back up to the house and it’s much better – you can smell the clean (and I suspect that was intentional).  BUT, we eventually discover the power is off in half of the house!  (It actually took us a little too long to figure out that’s why the lights in the kitchen weren’t working… after we flipped every switch we could find multiple times).   We figure we must have thrown a breaker, or that the cleaning service did with their vacuums or something – Amy calls her cousin.  Amy and Sandy head down to the basement and try to throw all of the breakers, one by one – but nothing works.  Amy calls her cousin back and then decides to call Al – I think he’s also a cousin, and he’s really familiar with the idiosyncrasies of the house.

While Amy is dealing with that, we decide to take the car down to the grocery store that is open until 11.  It’s smaller than the one we usually go to, but that one closes at 7 and we’ve missed that boat.   We just want to get a few things for breakfast, some essentials to tide us over until we can get to the other store.  It turns out that it’s a cute little store with tons of organic stuff at a good prices – Sandy is reading labels and getting things that Amy can eat, low sodium, low fat, low flavor… but we’re glad that Sandy knows enough about what she can and can’t eat to help us all. 

This tiny store even has brown tomatoes

When we get back Amy has the house lights on!  Turns out that she flipped each breaker 3 times – up and down the basement stairs to see if it was on, and then finally he told her to “wiggle” some things, and it worked.  That doesn’t give me faith in this electrical system. But for now we have electricity.  The internet is a little slow – looks like we’re just going to be stuck with bad service for the week.

We have another Maika moment – Dana goes up to look for something in Amy’s room and she sees a penny on the dresser.  She asks Sandy if she put that there… nope.  So they send Amy up to look at what is on the dresser, and she freaks – not just because there is a penny there, but because it wasn’t there earlier.  Amy has already been in the room after the cleaning service came to check on the linens, etc – and there was no penny there.  Now? Shiny new penny sitting there waiting for her.  Pennies from heaven.

I brought our Netflix movies with us in case we wanted to watch something – three movies, all with one word titles:   Wild, Pride, and Selma.  We watch “Pride” and it actually takes a few times to start it because the power KEEPS going out and they don’t have the breakers labeled well, so they have to flip each one of them every time to find the one that is out.  Half the house is on this one breaker, so if you do anything at all, it can trigger it – but the tv and dvd player aren’t on that breaker.  So that makes it even more frustrating that we have to power that off and restart everything (the TV even has to go through the channel search process) each time the other half of the house loses power.  The movie gets done about midnight - most of them get to bed about 12 – I’m a bit of a night owl as usual.   I play with the internet and finally get it going – we have full service (!) – and work on getting the blog from day 1 loaded up.  

The next week on the island will be a lot of the same… this is what we do here, shop, eat, sit on a beach, sit at the house..  so I plan to combine the next 3 days into one blog and get us all caught up!   

Boston: Day 2 Fenway to Faneuil and beyond

We get a lot packed into today!  

We are up and rolling fairly early for a vacation day. We follow the breakfast plan and head out to Dunkin Donuts - it's pre-shower for most of us, but post bra.. So they're lucky.  Dunkin Donuts is serious business in Boston, more ubiquitous than Starbucks over here, and as we learn when we go in, it's a much larger menu than we expected. It is BUSY - and lots of food items, eggs and meats on nearly every form of bread possible.. English muffin, bagel, flatbread, tortillas, Texas toast, you name it.. And of course there are donuts, and the best coffee (really).  There is a German lady running the show, keeping the line moving (who's next!? NEXT!!), and I apologize and explain that we're new.. She's very patient and lets us have time with the menu. And they fix your coffee for you - there are many options.. Cream, half and half, milk, skim milk..  And forget the sweetener options.. So I settle on milk and sugar – but she’s still in a hurry, because they’re busy, and I’m trying to figure out what I need to do, and the think German accent at a rushed pace just takes a little more squinting for me to understand.  We take all our stuff back with us and gather around the coffee table (fitting) for breakfast and discuss the plan of attack for the day.  Some get filled donuts - Patti has a pretty pitiful wrap.. It's the size of a little street taco.  

mmmmm...

So since Amy REALLY wanted to see Fenway, and truly, if you’re in Boston you really do need to see Fenway, we’re making that happen,  Won’t hurt to see it again, and when we were there last time we didn’t get to go up on the Green Monster because there was some kind of event up there.  So we map our route, but we keep in mind the warning from our airbnb host – stay away from the green line.  Well, Fenway sits right on the green line.. but there is a train change involved, which could be more waiting and delays and we want to get there as soon as possible because the tours are only until 5pm and they’re first come first serve – and I have visions of us getting there at 12, but then waiting for the 3:00 tour.  So we decide that we should Uber over to Fenway – it’s great because we can ask for a larger car that seats all of us, they come right away, you get to see the estimate of the fare…  so we’ll Uber to Fenway, do that first, and then catch the green line to the old part of town and walk the Freedom Trail and see the historic spots along the way.  Dana and I did some of that when we were here too, but it’s been a few years. We want to be able to get into the Old North Church, so we start at that far end of the trail, and then it comes back to the Park metro station with the red line.  But Dana also wants to check out the Marathon shop where all the pros shop – she’s become quite the race runner and this is what she geeks over.  Lord knows she’s let me geek over plenty of things – so we’re going to walk down there so she can buy an over priced jacket or something just because it’s from there (her words – no mockery) – and then we’ve found a nice seafood place just a block from there!  So we’ll do the shop, then head to the Atlantic Seafood Co for dinner.  I love a plan!

It’s only my second time using Uber, and the first time I used it the driver had to take my phone and process the payment for me.. but the process is so easy, you just put in the address and destination and then any special needs (like a bigger car or black car for events) and request.  They tell you how long the driver will be, their name, what kind of car you’re looking for, and you can message them with any special instructions.  Our guy shows up and no problem – I sit in the front passenger seat again, and I just can’t help trying to talk them up.  He has an obvious accent… but I’m dumb and I ask, “Are you a native?” – not even sure why, I’m just being a little silly.. .and he doesn’t understand me, I repeat it in a different way – “Do you live here?”…and even I hear how dumb it was when you say it like that..  and he just laughs at me and does that gesture that says, “Um, I’m driving you around here – do you think I’m from out of town??” – so I laugh and I say that was a pretty dumb question, but ask “Is that the dumbest question anyone has ever asked you?” – he laughs again. No, it’s not.  But he’s not volunteering what was the dumbest thing.  It has to be REALLY dumb to beat that one.  We learn that he’s from the Dominican Republic and we talk about how much it rains there, and how much it’s also raining in St. Louis (beautiful weather in Boston, btw).  I just keep asking dumb things -  Are you a student?  He doesn’t understand.. a student?  You go to school in the area?  Laughs at me again – no, he has a son that is in school…. Ah… I’m dumb and he doesn’t want to chit chat.  Finally to his relief, we arrive at Fenway – and I try to pay him.  It should be as easy as hitting a button…but it’s not giving me a button and I’m going into payment info and all kinds of menus to try and pay him, because he’s like stopped a little bit in traffic, in an area right near Fenway where the police are monitoring for people not being where they’re supposed to be.  The other girls notice that the cops are coming toward us to get us to move, I’m still struggling with it – they decide to get out, and the driver and I actually do a u-turn and park along the other side of the road.. still won’t pay.  Then I glance up at his phone and it says “end ride” or something like that, and I remember that the first guy told me that it wouldn’t come up on my phone until he sent it as a completed ride.  I tell him he has to hit that button… aha!  Magic!!  We’re all good, and it only cost $17.  A similar ride from the airport in a taxi cost $40.

Amy and I have donned our Cardinal shirts for the occasion so we can properly represent here at Fenway – and it is very sad that we lost to them in 2004 (and again in 2013), they’re a good team to lose to .  They’re good fans with a good history – I’ve never had trouble with Red Sox fans at our stadium or theirs – and Patti and I were there for Game 4 of the 2004 series. We saw the nail in the coffin for the Cardinals, but we also saw the tears of the Red Sox fans, we saw history as they finally won and broke the curse of Babe Ruth.  Being in the stand for a game was a great vibe – and if I were an American League fan, Boston would be my team.  So while we wish we could have won – I’d much rather lose to Boston than SF.   We’re getting some reaction to our shirts, the guys that work security call out to us – one asks us about the FBI controversy.  Someone later asks about it too as we’re checking out, but kind of in a “welcome to the shame club” sort of way, he mentions that they’re dealing with Inflategate…  oh yah.

2004 banner -- UGH!

Yawkey Way!

We get our tickets – and we’re in for the 12:00 tour!  It’s 11:30 now, so we go check out the team store (where the tour starts – total ploy).  We look around for shirts – focusing on the Green Monster, not the team – and there some nice ones.  Dana loves Wally the mascot and even considers getting a Lego version of him (if only it weren’t $20). 

The time for the tour comes and there are a lot of us!  They split us into 2 groups and we head into the park.  The FIRST thing we see is an Anheuser Busch beer cart that actually says “St. Louis” on it.  It’s like a recreation of the carriage that the Clydesdale's pull – so weird that they have that in the park, there are surely other ways to market a beer cart.  

The park just has such a great vibe – the seats have that old feel.  We get to take a seat in them and get some great pics of the field with the Green Monster before heading up there!  I’m excited that we get to up!  On the way we pass a garden on the roof top, a new project by the team – and then up on top of the wall!  

Growing their own veggies! 

They have rotating ticket holders up there, no season tickets up there so that more people get a chance to sit up there, and they’re great seats, great view of the field!   We always seem to be the stranglers in the tour group, hanging back just a little too much – and there is a guy that is at the back of our tour group, like the caboose, just to corral us in and keep us moving.  We keep him busy.. 

I love this one of Amy sneaking in there!

Don't reach over - that first step is a DOOZIE!

The old ticket booths stopped being used in 1996 and they turned them into displays for their pennant and World Series wins – so of course 2004 has one..  there is a plaque by it that refers to the Cardinals as the October nemesis… We’ll take that.  

2004 World Series Champs.. 

October nemesis!

The next stop is the broadcast booth – I think I wouldn’t mind watching the game from there… in our pics you can see that there are people down on the field.  It was an event for the season ticket holders.  They got to be down there and they were taking BP.. pretty cool.   Once again the caboose has to chase us out of the booth, and then we head over to the Budweiser patio area.  

View from the booth

There is one red seat in the whole stadium and that’s where Ted Williams hit the longest homerun ever to be hit in Fenway.  The seat doesn’t cost anymore than any of the green seats – I think that’s pretty cool.  But if you were in that seat, I’d bet that you’d be bugged all game with people trying to get pics of it, or in it…  We learn that the team wears “Boston” on the fronts of their jerseys when they’re away, but “Red Sox” on the front when they’re home – but in honor of the Boston Marathon bombing, to be Boston Strong they wore “Boston” on the front for the first time at a home game.

The tour lasted a little over an hour – so by the time we hit the streets it’s going on 1:30.  Even though the Sox are out of town, Fenway is still a happening place to be, and lots of staff are around to direct and help people out – I have to say that we recently volunteered at Busch Stadium and we dealt with some very grumpy people at nearly every aspect of the park.  But here at Fenway we had nothing but lovely interactions with fans and with staff.  Someone even approached us and said they had previous interactions with St. Louis fans and they were just such nice people, and we told him our story of the 2004 series and having nothing but nice things to say about the fans then and now – it was a little mutual respect.  Won’t see anything like that with Dodger or Giant fans… and let’s not even talk about those unruly Cub fans.  

One of the nice staff people directs us to the dreaded green line – and we do walk a little bit to get there, but it isn’t crazy.  Once we get down in the station and see the map, we notice that Fenway has it’s own stop, but there is obviously also a lot of construction on the line, so we figure that stop must be closed and thus the mess.  As we’re waiting for the train we get announcements that buses will be replacing the route between North (our stop) and another stop..  grrrr… avoid the Green line… but then I look at the map, and those stops are after our stop, so, yay!   We’re looking for the train with North as the terminal stop – and we find one, the announcement over the intercom even says that the last stop is North.. for one announcement, and then as we get going, they say the last stop is Park – two stops too early.  I get a little crabby because of the lies.  LIES!  You tell us North and then switch us up.. but they’re just taking the train out of service, there won’t be any tricky bus transfers or anything.  We just have to get off the train and then wait for the next one to arrive to take us to North. 

We started at the corner at the top

The map continues

There is only a fairly short walk from the metro to where we’re picking up the Freedom Trail – it’s nice because the trail is literally a trail, it’s embedded red brick that we follow, and total the trail is 2.5 miles.  Seems like it should be a lot longer when you look at a map, it covers most of downtown Boston.   We decide not to go across the bridge and see Ironside or Bunker Hill, but we really like looking at old cemeteries, so our first stop is the Copp’s Hill cemetery – the most important word in that title is HILL. It’s at the top of a hill, a big hill, and you go up hill, and then when you turn the corner… it’s like.. oh look, there’s more hill. But we make it and start exploring.  It’s the second oldest cemetery in Boston (the first is also on the trail) and there is some interesting Black history associated with it.  Prince Hall is buried there - an anti-slavery activist, Revolutionary War soldier, and founder of the black Masonic Order.  There were more than 1,000 free blacks and slaves were buried at Copp's Hill, but now there are very few grave markers left because of vandalism, weather, or because many of the markers were made of wood and just didn’t last.  But there was one marker left of a “free Negro woman” – Margaret Colley – and we decided that we had to find her.  The map has this large green area with an arrow, it’s very vague about where it is, and the markers are all very hard to read because the stones are so weathered.  We look.. come back and consult the map and on our second attempt we find her!  She’s one of the stones that has fallen over behind another stone.  It seems that there should be more of an attempt to preserve the stones that are left, especially those of such historical significance and that you’ve chosen to mark on your map.  Just seems odd that in this time we’ve let things further deteriorate.   Anyway, it was a fun quest and I’m glad we found her, we felt accomplished.

Margaret Colley's stone - hard to read

One if by land... 

We head down the hill to the Old North Church – this is the “one if by land, two if by sea” church – It’s really cool inside, and I think like some other old churches I’ve seen, they have partitioned pews.  It’s like box seats at the ball game, they had a functional purpose, to keep the patrons warm.  You could add a coal burning foot warmer to your box and because of the walls it would keep the whole box warm. The boxes also showed how important you were – you had to buy your pew box, pay to pray – and the closer to the front, the more expensive.  They decorated them anyway they wanted, with their own furniture and carpet and accessories.  

Pews as box seats

Skinny house

I overhear another tour guide saying that just up the hill (the one we just came down) is the most narrow house in Boston – only 10.5 feet wide, I’m not going back up.  I try to convince Dana to head back up and get a pic, but even she’s not into it.  Dana finds a shirt she really likes – but doesn’t get it and later regrets it –  you have to always get it.

Dana's shirt

After the church we walk through a plaza with Paul Revere's statue – but Amy finds a much more significant statue of Maika’s saint in the courtyard, St. Francis.  It’s been a Maika trip – MV was her favorite vacation spot, and all trip Amy has been finding what she calls pennies from heaven.  Just going about your day and finding those random pennies (remember this for later – more spoilers).  Any time we happen upon those things that bring her back to life for a minute, it’s a celebration.

Paul Revere with the Old North Church

St. Francis 

The next stop on the trail is Paul Revere’s house – but first we’re hungry – and completely indecisive, we can’t make a decision to save our lives, we’re bad on any given day just because we’re all so flexible, I assure people that if I had an opinion or felt strongly about something that I would share it, but I literally don’t care where we eat.   Our regular level of indecisiveness is magnified by our low blood sugar.  It’s 3:00 and we are hungry, we didn’t really time our meals out right because we haven’t eaten since Dunkin Donuts, but we don’t want to ruin dinner – so we want something light.  Another woman walks by us being a mess of “I don’t care, what do you think?” and suggests Mare which is right around the corner, world class food, a “little expensive”… no, not a little.. yikes – no way – but we find a great little Italian place, Francesca’s across the street (in addition to being the old historical part of town, it’s also little Italy) –Really great, fresh food, we order appetizers and split them – Bruchetta with goat cheese, a stuffed eggplant, and a caprese sandwich. Perfect choice.  Dana and I sit out the Paul Revere house while the others explore because we’ve been – there’s a great little courtyard outside with stone benches and our feet are happy.

Goat cheese bruschetta

Caprese sandwich

We head to Faneuil Hall – which we eventually find out sounds like “Daniel” – it’s just after 5:00 by this time and there is a daily street market that closes at 5:00, now it’s bustling, selling boxes of fruit and veggies for half off so they have to pack less up – we lose the trail for a minute because it’s hidden under all the vendors, but we catch it again on the corner and head into the plaza that contains the Market square – three Soulard market sized buildings with food and little shops – musicians and entertainers are all over the plaza.  Boston is very full of life along the trail. 

Inside Faneuil Hall is an interesting mix of museum like history displays that you might expect, and then vendors that sell anything – like leather goods, coffee..  just an odd mix.

Boston streets seem so European

Inside one of the markets

Games outside the market

The Boston Massacre site is something that I was looking forward to, maybe I’m a little morbid, but I expected to see a site – and instead it’s a medallion on the sidewalk marking the spot.  It’s right in front of the State House (which is now also a subway station on its lower level) and the mood of this is all set by a dancing bear playing guitar… it all goes together..

Patti has really been looking forward to the Old book shop – and while we were sitting for a minute at Faneuil Hall, I looked up the hours to make sure we could still get in since it was going to be after 5:00 by the time we got there.  The Trail website has information about it, how it was significant to history, the bookshop that Jefferson and Franklin frequented, how the historical society saved it – and how they now rent it out to a Chipotle.  Patti is completely disappointed – what the hell?  Really.  I can’t imagine how the history of this building is being preserved by creating a fast food kitchen in it.   

The trail does a little jog across the street to the place where the meetings about the Boston Tea Party took place, and then we cross the street and head to the statue of Franklin in front of City Hall.  As we approach City Hall we notice a sign for a Ruth Chris Steak House.  Seriously??  It’s odd to me that they’re letting these parts of history be take over by commercialism.  Maybe that’s how they solve the problem of upkeep and funding.

City Hall

City Hall Steakhouse... with Ben Franklin

It’s now 6:00 and everything along the trail closed by 5 so we don’t have access to the oldest cemetery – or the other cemetery with all the cool people (Sam Adams, Hancock, lots of other people)…. But there is a guy in patriotic garb out in front of the cemetery trying to sell papers.  He claims that he has all history of Boston and New England compiled into one easy place.. and Amy seems distracted, he tells her, I have all of this and you’re not even interested.  Well, she says.. we’re trying to get someplace… yes, away from him.  And then we’re back at the Park metro stop that we became so familiar with the day before.  Great people watching – a 7 ft man in a beard and a dress, with a bull nose ring… tons of cute puppies..

View of a gravestone from the oldest cemetery in Boston

Now that we’re off the Freedom Trail, we’re headed to Dana’s store – Boston Marathon Runbase.  It’s on Boylston which is one of the streets that runs parallel to the park, so it is fairly easy to find.  We have to walk quite a ways, and our steps are already rivaling yesterday’s.   It feels like forever – it kind of is, and maybe we could have and maybe should have taken the metro, but we get to see a lot of interesting shops and buildings along the way.  We pass the public library which is the finish line for the Boston Marathon, and we find the restaurant that we wanted just a block after that, which was a block before her shop.  We had called before and reservations would have put us at 10:00, but they also had a wait list for patio seating and we could get in on that, so we put our names in they tell us that it will be about 45 minutes, which isn’t bad.  Patti and I sit outside and rest our aching feet – and Amy, Sandy and Dana head up to the shop.  They report back that it was actually pretty sparse, a bit of a disappointment, and nothing really that Dana felt she could buy even.  But she’s glad she went, and her running friends are jealous and geeking out vicariously.

 We keep checking on the table, it’s been a little over the wait time they told us, but they have told us which table we’re waiting on.  There is a family about 5 feet from us finishing up dessert. It’s getting to be 8:00 ish and we’re starting to get hungry, so we find ourselves staring down the family now and then – how long does it take to eat that dessert? Really, we need to chat more?  Just pay already… they should have never have told us who we were waiting on.  We get some good people watching in, some great shoes pass by – how do these ladies walk in those things? We think of our throbbing feet and can’t even imagine.  We’re entertained by two little boys – one is with his dad and doesn’t want to get back into the kidding backpack seat again, he wants to walk, but dad doesn’t want him to walk (why?), because I know you (why?), because you will walk for a little bit and then you won’t want to.. and then the kid says (and he’s maybe 4 years old), “I want to Uber home”… no we’re not going to Uber home (why?)… growing up with this tech and these conveniences, already using Uber as a verb. And there was another little boy, he had a trach in, but lively little guy, dancing around, and then he signs “more” (he wants to dance more) – and we all laugh at him and sign “more” back.. he’s astounded that we know his secret language, and now he has an audience, so there is a lot more dancing.   One beautiful young lady comes out of the restaurant, she’s in a nice form fitting dress and heals, looks very classy, and she’s obviously waiting for someone else to come out of the restaurant.  This guy walks by her and then actually walks back and starts talking to her, telling her how beautiful she is and that he had to come back and tell her that.  She handles it well and tells him that she’s with someone and waiting for her boyfriend to come out – the guy walks off and right after that her boyfriend comes out and (I had missed all of this) the girls who had seen it start telling him that he missed it… and she says that happens to her all the time and then she tells him about it and he doesn’t believe her, but this time she has witnesses.  Cute couple.

Our family leaves and they get our table ready – the wait was worth it.  We have sea bass, haddock, shrimp risotto, and Dana has crab dip that she’s been craving since we decided not to go to the Barking Crab.

Sandy's haddock

Amy's risotta

my sea bass with  lobster ravioli and spinach

We start talking about how close we are to the finish line of the marathon and wondering where the bombs went off … we do a little research on our phones and find pics, and the address.  It’s right where we’re sitting!   Very weird that we just accidentally ended up there.  After dinner we decide we need something sweet on the walk back, we go for ice cream and I notice the address is where the second bomb was, the one closer to the finish line.  The man sitting out front over hears us saying that this is where the second bomb was and he said it he was right there where the cone is (where we are standing).  The pavers are just slightly loose and if you’re looking for it, you can see that there must have been impact there.  The cone is there to keep people from tripping on the pavers.

We're sitting right under the blue umbrella

Our seats circled on the bomb site picture

The other bomb site - Marathon sports

The disruption in the pavers

We walk back – but not all the way back to Park this time we get the green line and transfer to the red and finally we’re HOME!!  And we got more steps in today than yesterday, over 27,000 steps!  That’s like 20 miles in two days.  We figure that we have about 2 days of steps banked and we’re planning to draw from that bank once we get to Martha’s Vineyard… which is TMW!   We have to be checked out by 11, and pick up the rental car at 11..  we don’t really want to take the metro with all of our bags, and we’re worried that some of the streets will be blocked off because there is a 10k in the same area tomorrow.  So we make a plan to Uber to the rental car place.  We’re all in bed pretty quickly, and the blog gets put on hold in favor of sleep.  J