Summer's End

How can it be the end of July already? Where has the summer flown? 

Next week, I head back to school for a couple weeks of prep before students arrive. They start August 12th. 

As usual, I had planned/hoped to accomplish a lot more this summer - reading, travel, planning, writing - but despite failing to do all the things, we did accomplish quite a few. The last two months were incredibly full. I wrote about our trip to Michigan; the next week I taught a session of camp at the kids' school. My session was drama camp: I directed a group of 10 6th-8th graders in an abridged production of A Midsummer's Nights Dream, which was tons of fun and a great success, despite a host of costume malfunctions and a few forgotten lines. Never having done something like this, I was a little apprehensive about how it would go, but it turns out the hardest part was finding a good script that fit our time frame while using much of Shakespeare's original language. The script I found online worked perfectly and preserved the basic plots and language in a 40 minute production. 

The following week was VBS week - I didn't volunteer this year, even though I suffered pangs of regret for hanging back. This was supposed to be a week of planning, reading, writing, research, but was mostly focused on travel planning and resetting the house after hosting a big graduation/birthday party for our 18 year old. In a few weeks, she'll head to college, and we'll be down to one child in elementary school. The 10 year old has already shed tears anticipating her sister's departure, and I have had a few moments of anxiety about having an only child. I'll need a babysitter! I suggested hosting a foreign exchange student to my husband and daughter, but I didn't get much enthusiasm for that idea. Not for the babysitting, of course! But perhaps slightly motivated by the hope of forming a bond with someone whose family might host us overseas...

Family vacation followed on the heels of VBS - this time we headed back to San Diego to celebrate the Fourth of July with our oldest daughter - as well as her birthday on the third.  Our VRBO for this trip did not measure up to our fabulous place in Maine, not surprisingly. Given it was a holiday week, we were lucky to find a place that was relatively close to the beach and big enough for the seven of us who gathered.  Our oldest was on vacation with his wife*** See big announcement below!*** while our third son needed to work (I regretted not funding his trip but struggled with the fairness) and our fourth son was working in Italy (more below on that, too). 

Our original plans were scrambled a bit, but the resulting week turned out to have a nice balance of time with family and friends, without being too active, although it wasn't exactly without some conflict. The first couple of days were full of celebrations - we hosted a party for our 22 year old daughter at a brewery/taco place with her friends and a few of ours. The next morning we followed that up with waking early for the Fourth parade in Coronado, which offered opportunity to catch up with friends and relive happy moments. On Friday we went to SeaWorld, thanks to complimentary tickets for military and veterans. This was a request of the 10 year old, who loved it, despite long lines and expensive snacks, which reminded others of our group why we don't go to amusement parks very often.  Saturday was Balboa Park and beach day, followed by dinner with friends, while Sunday was Mass, brunch, and concert in the park. Some of our group would have preferred to just hang at the beach on Friday and Saturday and skip SeaWorld and the museums, but in the end, everyone got to do a little of something they liked.  We would have had more beach time if the ocean waters in Imperial Beach and Coronado were not contaminated by sewage overflowing from Tijuana's water treatment plant. This has been an ongoing issue for years, and it doesn't sound like a solution is in sight. As a result, although our condo was a couple blocks from the beach, we had to drive up the coast a bit to get past the e. coli water.

Most of the family left Sunday/Monday, but the 10 year old and I stayed two more days to go camping with friends in the San Bernardino National Forest. The temperature was unusually high - in the 90s even at 8000 feet elevation, but we managed to fit in a couple hikes in the morning and evening, and spent the hottest part of the day at Big Bear Lake, which benefitted from the heavy snows the past couple of years so that it had higher water levels than the last time we were there. That suited the girls just fine. My original vision was more of a backpacking trip - in fact, I bought a new backpack on sale - but I was just happy we could get in the mountains for a bit where the girls could enjoy unmediated time in nature. 

I had just enough time after returning from that trip to get the laundry done before we headed to Oklahoma City for the weekend to celebrate my father-in-law's 82nd birthday and meet their new puppy. This is their third golden retriever, and we are all praying he is as well-behaved and smart as their previous two dogs. He is a very much a puppy with lots of energy, but he is adored by all - let's just hope he can get housebroken!

A highlight of our weekend in Oklahoma City was a visit to the Blessed Stanley Rother Shrine.  Bl. Rother was a priest from OK who was martyred by - who? drug lords or the government or both? - in Guatemala in the early 80s. He was warned that he was a target for assassination and was given the opportunity to return to the States, but his famous quote is "A shepherd doesn't run from his people." 

The Shrine is a large and lovely classical church - its ornateness and expense might have dismayed Bl. Rother, other than it draws many people to visit. The day we visited, we stood in line for almost an hour to venerate relics of Padre Pio- his glove, a lock of hair, a piece of his tunic, some blood. More people were in line when we left than when we arrived. The shrine complex also includes an informative museum of Bl. Rother's life, while at the end of the plaza in the front of the church is a replica of the hill of Tepeyac and a tableau of St. Juan Diego and Our Lady of Guadalupe. We didn't follow the path to the top of the hill because a line of people were also waiting to reach the top to prayer. So although our visit was incomplete, we were heartened by the large number of pilgrims visiting. 

After Mass and brunch at a Old Country Buffet, a bit of a tradition with the grandparents, we returned to Austin in time to do more laundry and to spend a few days with our son who returned from his service project in Italy. He was working with L'Arche in Bologna for 6 weeks. Three of those weeks were spent on a bike trip through the Dolomites. The first three weeks he worked as an activities assistant and spent time on various outings and activities with the residents. L'Arche is a residential community for adults with disabilities. He had an amazing experience becoming "comfortable with the uncomfortable" as he said in this essay he wrote for ND. And his Italian improved! To say we are proud of him for doing this is an understatement.  But we were also sorry to that he only had a week home with us before heading back to campus to work a job with Irish media creating content for their athletics department. 

My visit with him was cut even shorter because I had to pack up again on Wednesday. This time I was heading to Oakland for a conference for Catholic school educators on teaching the Holocaust.  The conference was excellent - full of history, stories, and time for reflection.  Sessions were led by a priest and a rabbi, both scholars of Jewish history, as well as a by a teacher who leads a Holocaust seminar for Catholic high schoolers in Atlanta. We heard from the son of a survivor who has helped produce a documentary on an education initiative she started, and another presenter shared information about the Jewish partisan movement of resistors during WW II. A researcher from the US Holocaust museum presenter her research based on her access to the Vatican files of information from WWII, which was just recently opened to researchers. But the highlight of the weekend, aside from time to learn from these presenters and from my fellow attendees, was a visit to a temple and Shabbot services followed by a meal with two survivors and a dozen or so second generation survivors. The two women were in their 90s and full of welcoming energy. One of them was a small child who was hidden away and then sent away on the kindertransport, while the other ran away to the woods and hid with the partisans, although she was too young to fight. She had to stay almost five years in a displaced persons' camp, a part of the history we don't hear much about. It was a very moving experience. 

The past week since returning from that trip has been spent resetting and researching for the return to school. Each day I've logged onto a webinar hosted by Teach Like a Champion, which has had some really practical advice, even if it isn't as inspiring as the Holocaust seminar.  We've had our dental and doctor visits for the summer, although the eighteen year old had to return to the dentist this week because she chipped her two front teeth on the 10 year old's head in the pool. It wasn't the ER visit she thought it might be the moment after it happened, but it was an unplanned expense. 

Tomorrow I return to school for teacher workdays. I'm wishing I had one more week. I wanted to get to Indiana to see my parents on the farm, even though we saw them in Michigan, but I've run out of time, so that trip will have to wait until the fall.  In three weeks, we'll be boarding another flight to take our daughter to school at Furman University in South Carolina.  A new phase of our lives will begin, one the ten year old is not looking forward to. She'll be an only child for the second half of her life. We'll miss having high school events on our calendar, although I'm sure we'll find ways to fill the days. We're already planning our fall trips to see the kids at their various homes around the country! 

A few photos: 

The birthday girl

Enjoying the parade

Fireworks atop the NAVFAC building downtown SD

Visiting Belugas

Riding roller coasters

Patting manta rays

Walking the IB pier

Balboa Park in bloom

Body Surfing at No Surf Beach

League of Wives statue that my friend helped get created and installed

Ship wreckage Coronado beach

Camping in San Bernardino NF

Hike to Jenks Lake

With a Holocaust Survivor Etty H

Puppy pals

Starring as Ms. Hannigan

Siblings!

Blessed Stanly Rother Shrine

The priest that married us is in this photo with Fr. Rother

Oakland Cathedral of Christ the Light

Forgot to mention Summer Swim Team!

Travel tips for the frugal museum loving family adventurers

How did April, one of my very favorite months, go by so fast? For that matter, whither March? 

I never wrote about our Spring Break, which was way back in mid-March.  Since this blog is primarily a family history, I thought I should keep a record of our travels, so in ten years from now, when my kids ask, "Why didn't you do this for us?" I can point to this blog and say, "See! I did!" 

Case in point: New York City. We visited my brother- and sister-in-law when they lived in Brooklyn in 2007 or 8. If I were writing a blog then, I could look it up. As it is, I could dig through photo albums and find the prints from that trip, but I'd rather finish writing this and get some other things done today. I just remember that our sixth daughter was in the baby backpack. Thus, I could tell her she had visited NYC when she asked, even though she doesn't remember. Her older siblings don't even remember much about that trip. Heck, neither do I. although I do remember we traversed Manhattan from the Statue of Liberty to Chinatown, and we got to peek in the lion cages of the Central Park zoo where my sister-in-law's sister worked. Or was it the Brooklyn or the Bronx zoo? See, I need to go back, or ask my sil.

At any rate, for spring break this year, that backpack baby had a track meet in NYC, so we made a vacation of it. This time, we only had 2 kids with us, instead of 6 with us, but a good chunk of our time was spent at the Armory, the historic indoor track up by the campus of Columbia University in Washington Heights. I was geeking out a little bit on the track history, although the "Hall of Fame" there could be so much more than what it is.  We stayed at a hotel recommended by the track club, the Radio Hotel in Washington Heights, very close to the Washington Bridge over the Harlem River, not to be confused with the George Washington Bridge over the Hudson River, which is also not very far. 

This is a gift of traveling - you can begin to make a distinction between those two rivers and have some sort of sense of what upper Manhattan is like and where things are - and just how big that island is. All of my reading of novels set in NYC doesn't really approximate a knowledge of the city's geography, scale, or the reality of daily life there, no matter how good the author is. For the most part, my imagination is colored by television and movies, but it still isn't the same as being there, and visiting is not the same as living,.. (You might say the same about seeing a Giotto fresco in the church of San Francesco or the Last Supper in Milan, or hearing a live concert, watching an opera on the stage, or eating a gelato, or an In n Out burger or good cheese or fine wine - no matter how well it's described. Experience defies description! And yet Art! Does it exceed what it imitates?)

Leaving aside philosophical digressions to return to the travelogue:
We had three days in the city. What began with a sunset uber ride from JFK airport to the hotel was followed by a delicious, although not fine, Italian dinner at a crowded little taverna in the neighborhood. Our daughter's friend joined us, and we were entertained by the toddlers at opposite tables who were watching and testing each other in the way that toddlers are fascinated by each other.  After dinner, I'm sorry to say, we stopped in the urban Target down the street to get energy food for the girls, and then returned to the hotel to crash.

The hotel is relatively new, but it felt old - the  halls were dark, the elevator was intended to seem industrial with spray painted, grafitti-style, aged superheroes on the wall. The room was tiny, and the bathroom design need input from an actual user - to save space the since was sideways, which caused way to much water to splash over the edge. And the shower door was outsized adn opened out into the tiny bathroom. But the price was right, the service people were nice, and I appreciated some of the tiny room design features like hangers than opened up, clever coat hooks, and drawers under the bed. 

One of my favorite things about the hotel was its location - not close to most of the touristy parts of NYC, but convenient to the track, with a somewhat open view over the river, and, the highlight, a great coffee shop next door. They served Dominican specialities - corn fritters, Dominican coffee, and something they called sweet wheat. We went in every morning and tried something different.  I love trying different places, but there is also something satisfying about sticking with someplace that is good, and having them great you again on the third day.  It was called Milo's, if anyone ever reads this and happens to visit that specific area. 

Our first morning was spent at the track - cheering on our daughter, watching her friends, enjoying the spectacle of a big meet with elite runners.  We got sandwiches from a convenience store for lunch - which became a theme, and a thrifty lunch.  We were still on our meatless Lent, so a grilled egg and cheese sandwich was a satisfying source of warmth and protein to fuel our days. 

After her events were complete and a quick clean up at the hotel, we jumped on the subway for an hour ride down to the tip of Manhattan to catch the last ferry out to the Statue of Liberty. We hadn't actually ridden the ferry the last time we visited, and our nine-year-old really wanted to. For that matter, who doesn't love a ferry ride? My husband was happy to reminisce about living his preschoool and indergarten years on Governors Island, when it was still a Coast Guard base. My mother-in-law often recalls how bad the cockroaches were in their apartment, and my husband said his dad through rocks at the island on their final boat ride back to the mainland, but it was a happy time for my dad and his brothers. I'm surprised it hasn't been converted into high end real estate.

The trip to see the Statue was short - no tours up to the crown this day. But we did meander through the museum, because we missed the last ferry to Ellis Island - it was leaving 15 minutes after our arrival, and even though we trotted around the base of the statue to try to make it, they still roped us out, which was disappointing, but at the time we were happy to go into the museum and gift shop, and we got back to the ferry landing 30 minutes earlier, so we had time to get to the 9-11 memorial before the sun started setting. That was a moving experience, and I'm glad the younger daughter had had the opportunity to learn a little about it this past fall. She had read a story about a girl whose father had died, so we found his name. 

We didn't go into the actual museum - it was closing in 30 minutes, so we elected not to spend the money on admission. Instead we went into the space age Oculus mall/train station across the street, which satisfied the teenager's desire to go into some higher end shops. 

From there we trained back up to Times Square for a quick stop to see the lights and pop in a couple shops, just to say we did, and then we had to catch the subway back to the north end of Manhattan to meet her team for a team dinner at a pub style restaurant that had family style seating. We arrived just before most of the team, but ended up being served almost last because of some server error, but that gave us time to make friends with the other family at our table, also in town for the track meet, but from the East Coast. The dad ended up being a college cross country coach, so we had a lot of common interests. 

The next day was our mostly free day. After our coffee shop stop, we took the train down to Central Park and the Natural History Museum. After about 3/4s of the museum, runner daughter wanted to go back and watch friends run, so my husband generously offered to take her. Younger daughter and I finished to museum with the dinosaurs - now on the top floor (I feel like they used to be lower?) - and then meandered through Central Park with a pretzel and a corndog from a food park over to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

Let me tell you something about my travel philosophy - I would rather spend on museum entrance fees than on food. Many people do not feel the same way. I'm happy to go hungry in order to see great art. Now we are financially stable enough that we could afford a nice lunch, but we also had to budget lunch. So food truck snacks fit the bill of being quick, easy, tasty, and relatively cheap - although these particular trucks were in a prime location and their prices reflected that. 

Our route through the park took use through the Shakespeare garden and the castle folly. It was too early for much to be in bloom except hellebores and a few forsythia and redbuds, and yet still the park was lovely in its late winter muddiness. New York is huge, dirty, and expensive, but give me New York over LA any day.  Public transportation, food, parks, interesting people, and some of the world's finest museums.  Of course, LA does have the ocean, but there's something about New York. .  . .

The Met was extremely crowded. I'm not exactly sure why - just a bunch of art lovers out on a Saturday morning? A free day fpr residents?  At any rate the non-resident line was shorter, so we were able to skip the wait. And we skipped the Egyptian tomb, which is super cool, but the line wrapped around the gallery. Instead, we blazed through the mummies, flew past the classical sculpture, and then raced upstairs to the Impressionists, because we only had a little over an hour before we were supposed to meet up with friends near the carousel in the southern part of Central Park.  And of course, the 8 year old wanted to see the works she had seen in books and on PBS kids - and we needed time to scan the museum shop, which has some of my favorite jewelry and children's play sets. But since we were short of time and money for souvenirs, we didn't shop long. We didn't even get a postcard because the lines were long. We can buy it all online anyway. Hopefully we'll be back to linger in the galleries longer.  I also want to get to the Museum of Modern Art one of these trips.

But this trip was all about NYC highlights. So after the two big museums, we met up with some dear friends we met in Guam who now live right in midtown Manhattan. Such a contrast! In between duty stations, they lived in Washington State near the mountains. He works for the FBI, not the Navy, so they have more options for assignments. They guided us around the rest of Central Park, pointed in the direction of Times Square, Rockefeller area - I missed the Public Library to my dismay - I wanted one of those photos standing between the lions! Ha! - but the 8 year old again got her way by stopping at the American Girls Store, which happens to be very close to St Patrick's where we were planning to attend Mass.  She had a slight meltdown there because of all the choices - so many things! - and no one else wanted to spend as much time browsing as she did. Fortunately, she recovered from her tearful quandary when I said she could pick one thing for souvenir and another for her birthday. A stop in FAO Schwartz, which is in smaller accomodations now, was not as fraught with indecision because I said we were buying nothing. Problem solved.

Mass at the cathedral was solemn and lovely, even though we were in our jeans. A wedding party had just departed as we were making our way in, and they left behind fancy programs and match books. Someone must be someone to get married on a Saturday afternoon at St. Patrick's cathedral. 

The worst moment of the trip followed Mass - hungry and tired, we left the cathedral to find dinner. Immediately across the street were some food trucks. Best gyro ever, my daughter claimed. But I did not want a gyro; I wanted a dinner. So I pouted a bit until I finally ate a few bites of pizza. But the bit of gyro I did have was really good. 

Sunday had us back at the track for a couple more races. In between events, my husband and younger daughter and I walked up from the track to the shrine to St Francis Cabrini - Mass was going on, so we heard the end of the liturgical rite and participated in the eucharistic rite - had we gone to confession we probably could have received an indulgence, but we lacked motivation to do that. The shrine was a small chapel in the back of the church with some articles of clothing from Mother Cabrini and information about her dogged persistence in helping the poor.  

After a short stop at a playground, we continued north to the Cloisters, the former home of ... which is now Met Museum home of medieval art. We did not go in because we were short on time and the entry fee was steep, but the gardens were lovely. Walking back,  we stopped for pressed sandwiches from a convenience store and some good coffee and Irish soda bread from a cute coffee shop.

The final event of the track meet was probably our daughter's best showing - the 4 by 400 meters. Her team placed 5th, so they received medals, so there were lots of photos. But this meet was also a clear indication that our daughter will have to work a lot harder to compete at the next level. She has gone far on natural talent, but she doesn't put in the hours on the track or in the weight room to compete at elite levels. I think she has the potential physically, but she needs the mental strength. 

With the meet over, we had one more free evening. The track team kids all went back to Times Square for pizza and shopping, while my husband and younger daughter and I got out of chaperoning to go to Washington Square and check out the Strand bookstore, where I felt as overwhelmed with wonderful choices as my daughter did at the AG store. I put back at least 10 books and left with 3 - Cricket in Times Square, The Girl with the Curious Hair, and Brian Doyle's ,,,,

For dinner we stopped at a Mediterranean place kind of like Cavi but a little more formal - they had wine. 

By the end of that day we were all exhausted and felt like we had seen a good bit of NYC. There still is so much I could explore, but only so much time and energy. 

The next morning my husband caught a flight back to Texas, while I took the subway a couple miles south to pick up a rental car. I made a short detour through Central Park, just to pretend I was local. It was a gray and cool day, but hints of spring made the day seem brighter. I imagined I could live in a big city, walking everywhere, whatever I need a subway ride away or simply not necessary. 

The rental car was to get us from NYC to Boston with some stops at colleges on the way. My original list was scaled down to just Providence College and Holy Cross. Since our daughter is a junior this gave her a chance to see what a school on the East Coast was like. The track was right by Columbia University so she got to see that, too. And in Boston we again visited our son's friend at Boston College. 

I started this over a week ago. So now I'm going to add some photos and hit publish to be done for the moment. Maybe someday I'll write about the second half of the trip.

Discomfort

 It occurs to me that perhaps I should title this post, "Beginning Again with Lent Pt 2."  I've taken a bit of a vacation from Lenten sacrifices. Last week was Spring Break, and amidst travel to New York and Boston and reuniting with family and friends, I have been very lax in practicing any sort of Lenten discipline, other than that travel is a discipline in itself in a way.

For instance, because of stormy weather over our final destination, home, on Thursday evening, the last leg of our travel, a flight from St. Louis to Austin, was cancelled. It was the last flight of the evening to that destination. We sat on the plane prepared to take off - in fact, we had taxied from the jet bridge - when the message came through that we had to wait. So we waited an hour on the plane before the flight was cancelled. Then, I had to wait in line to rebook a new flight. While I waited, I got on the phone to an agent and reserved a flight to San Antonio for the next evening, because all flights to Austin were full the next day. And I rented a car with the consideration that I could drive the 12 hours the next day and be home before this flight to San Antonio landed. Plus, I had the two girls with me, and the teenager is terrified by flying. With these reservations made, I stayed in line to see if I could get any vouchers. No vouchers were given because the cancellation was weather related, but the gate agent was able to book us on a flight that went first to Orlando and then to Austin that was leaving at 5:40 am - four hours later. 

When I conveyed this news to the girls, the teen started weeping because she didn't want to get on two more planes. However, I was calculating the time and cost of sticking with the rental car - shuttle or uber to a hotel at 1:30 in the morning, buy a few hours of sleep for a couple hundred dollars, find a ride back to the airport to pick up the rental, pay a couple hundred for the one way rental car, food and gas on the road, spend twelve hours of driving plus stops, returning the car the next day ... I hugged her and promised her that driving was more dangerous. 

Then we laid our coats on the ground and curled up on the airport floor to close our eyes for a few hundred minutes in supine position.  We might have slept an hour or two; it's hard to tell. 

The rest of the trip went as smoothly as can be expected, although a little turbulence made my daughter declare she never wanted to fly again. Our flights were packed with dozens of small children and their weary parents going to Disney World and returning from it. Their exhaustion confirmed my old decision to swear off Disney vacations - although we have enjoyed taking the kids to other amusement parks. 

Despite adding 12 hours to our trip and a terrible night of sleep, oddly enough I didn't mind the disruption. These are a part of the adventure of travel. In fact, I was slightly envious of the couple ahead of me in the line for the gate agent, even though they were taking their sweet time rebooking. The guy was a musician who was going to miss his gig in Austin, so they asked where could they go on a direct flight the next day that had a direct flight back to their home in New York on Sunday. They had a free ride to a 3 day vacation. I think they ended up going to Colorado or Oregon. What a liberating feeling to just go. 

Had this disruption happened at the beginning of our trip, we might have been more upset. And I have to say, the fewer people on the itinerary, the easier it is to deal with the discomfort. My two youngest are pretty mellow, other than the fear of flight. Sleeping on the floor wasn't a huge problem for them - or the lack of bathing. In fact, I had to make the youngest take a shower when we finally arrived home. She was ready to go play with her friend down the street in the same clothes she had had on for 2 days.  No big deal when you are 8. 

So did I think about offering it up? I actually did.  Just over a week ago, some dear friends, Navy friends whom we reconnected with here, lost their three year old son. He died in the early hours of the morning from complications from a virus. Perhaps because he had Downs, his little body couldn't fight it off. Their grief, and our own sorrow at his death, has sat heavily with me all week. And perhaps that is what helped make our own travel discomforts seem minimal.  Although I cannot know what the pain of losing a child is like firsthand, I have imagined it many times, have felt the fear of potential loss during a sickness or after an accident. What mother doesn't feel a sword pierce her heart occasionally? And yet, how we have been spared. How often potentials have never actualized.  Our little traumas are small compare to what others have suffered. 

So pray for them. Their son surely does not need prayers. They will have a White Mass next week - a mass of celebration because his heart was pure, and if anyone is in Heaven, it is children who died too young in their innocence.  This thought is a consolation, but it doesn't take away the pain of losing years together.  

More travel

Since we returned from Boston in early October, I've taken three other trips, two to Californa. The first in October to visit my daughter at Pepperdine for parents' weekend, and the second for an event my husband was involved in honoring military members from our area of San Diego. And now we've just returned from Thanksgiving with the family in Indiana. 

It sounds like we have become quite the jet setters, but we are frugal travelers and mostly travel for family events. Both of the California trips were extremely short - in fact, I was only gone one night when I went to see my daughter in the LA area. I flew in super early on Saturday and flew out late on Sunday. And when we went to San Diego early in November, we flew in late on a Friday and left early on Sunday, so we really were there less time than the first trip, if you don't count sleeping. 

Both of these short trips were occasions to reune with loved ones. The visit to our eldest daughter in LA was a time of one-on-one visiting that warmed my heart. As a condition of being a mother, I have all kinds of worry and concern for each child, and spending quality time, however brief, helps ease those anxieties for a time.

Our second trip to San Diego gave us the opportunity to see some of the Navy friends we didn't see last spring. I am still mourning the friendships we left behind in San Diego, and by visiting often, we are keeping them alive. I am a little afraid we are going to start to wear out our welcome with all of these visits, but every time we stay with someone different, and the brevity of our stays leaves us longing for more time, instead of feeling relieved to be heading home. 

The trip to Indiana was much longer - one of the longest vacations we've had in years. We flew in the Friday before Thanksgiving and stayed until the Saturday after.  The first weekend was spent in South Bend, for what my husband would like to be an annual affair - the Notre Dame - Boston College game. We rented an Airbnb, bought up 10 football tickets, and reserved a parking spot for a tailgater - those were the big ticket items. Flying in a week before Thanksgiving saved us money on airline tix, as did leaving on Saturday. All the kids and my brother-in-law and second son's girlfriend from Maine also joined us. The Airbnb was just big enough, had an easy-light fireplace, nice kitchen, a pretty, big front yard, and a hot tub, which was the source of much loud laughter after the game, when everyone was frozen to the bone. I was especially pleased with the rental house because the past few times I have rented places for graduations or games, either the neighborhoods have been questionable or the houses tiny. The worst was our hotel in Maine.  This time I won the pick - the street looked lovely with pine trees covered in snow, the house itself was nice, and the owners left behind nice touches like fresh coffee cake and coffee and tea, and even made up an extra bed for us. 

The weekend with the whole crowd was full of fun and laughter - everyone had been looking forward to this weekend, and even the frigid temperatures and half a foot of snow couldn't dampen everyone's spirits. The game ended with an ND victory, which was a perk, but I didn't pay any attention to the game. I was thrilled to meet up with two of my good friends from my college running days. We all have these young adult children now and thus have more freedom to travel about, so we are talking about a 50th birthday celebration this summer. We haven't been able to hit on dates or a region yet, so we'll see if the summer holds more travel opportunities. 

After a great game on Saturday, followed by a big feast for dinner with one of my husband's college friends - it was an impromptu reunion weekend - and then a beautiful Mass on Sunday, we tidied up the house and said good bye, leaving with some good memories, and hopefully not forgetting anything. 

The next stoop was my parents' house for the rest of the week. The weather was much more temperate there, even just 3 hours further south. Our first day was a recovery day - a long walk on the farm, a trip to Nana's famous Goodwill, a heart stew supper. The next day we drove to one of the state parks famous for its covered bridge. We meant to take a shortish hike, about 2-3 miles, but ended up starting off on a different trail - the horse trail, which led us on a much longer hike of 5- 6 miles. After the first mile or two, the terrain, barren trees, and fallen leaves all looked about the same. 

I'm out of time and the month ends in an hour, so I'm going to end this post here - more to come next month...

Rah, rah, the gang's all here!

At halftime

The third quarter

The next morning at the airbnb.

 

Seeing the sites before heading south

The Goodwill haul

State park bound

Fossil imprints

A brand new calf

Exploring the back field

Nana has bathrobes for everyong

A Weekend in Maine, then back to Boston

 October Travelogue, Part II

After covering a good part of Boston on foot, (Did I mention I have been shopping for attractive, comfortable walking shoes for some time? I can't seem to find them. So, much to my daughter's chagrin, I wore my tennis shoes), we headed in a different direction on Saturday. 

The morning began slowly: we walked the cousins' dog through a walk, then picked up breakfast sandwiches at the corner shop, and had a leisurely visit over coffee with the teen cousins still in town. Then we loaded up in their borrowed cars to head north for a weekend in Portland, Maine.

The drive is about ninety minutes up the highway lined with autumn glory. Our first stop, after the bathroom, was Len Libby candies. They are famous for their 1700 pound chocolate moose, standing in a lake of blue chocolate since 1999. They are also famous for their caramel taffy, which is why we stopped. We've become addicted to it after our son's girlfriend started bringing it to us when she visited. We loaded up on taffy, candy, and some tchotkes - a Christmas ornament and a stuffed moose for LK's friend - before heading into Portland.

There we waited 30+ minutes for lunch at Gilberts.  Apparently a cruise ship had recently pulled into port, so we were competing with other tourists who heard this was the best place for chowder and lobster rolls. As diners left, they'd smile at all us waiters and encourage us with a friendly "It's worth the wait!"  And indeed it was. We finally got a table on the deck out back on the harborside, which was chilly but sunny. I had the appetizer sized crab cakes, which I shared, and the chowder. My daughter ordered the chowder in the bread bowl, which we shared. And everyone else ordered lobster rolls, which were loaded with lobster meat and very little mayonnaise. Just what you hope they should be.  (The kids were loving oyster crackers, which we haven't eaten in years, so I bought some at the grocery the other day to eat with butternut squash soup, since it's now cool enough for soups and stews) After filling up, we strolled around Portsmouth and popped in and out of shops. We were looking for a gift to take back to our brother and sister-in-law, new shoes, and anything eye catching. I found some books I wanted to buy but put them back because I didn't have space in my bag or my brain. I had bought a used copy of Wendell Berry's The Unsettling of America at Brattle's, but I wish I had gone ahead and bought the copy of Celia Thaxter's short stories that the Portsmouth bookstore had on sale. I'm not that familiar with her writing, but one of her garden essays is included in our Nature Writing textbook, so I'd like to learn more. I think she's one of those early 20th c. women writers whose work wavers between sentimental and scientific.  In the interest of representing women in the nature writing genre, some authors like Thaxter and Gene Stratton Porter, whose voice is a bit dated, are being revived. 

I also wanted to buy a novel about Winslow Homer, because I was hoping we were going to be able to walk by his house on Prouts Neck, but the trail was closed because someone had fallen off the cliff and died recently. 

Instead we left Portsmouth having purchased nothing but some bracelets from a street vendor for the girls, and instead went to see the Portland Head Light at Cape Elizabeth just down the road. The lighthouse and the view were beautiful, and we took a lot of photos, along with everyone else, including several bridal parties who were taking advantage of the golden hour for a photo session after their October nuptials. 

As the sunset waned, we left to go to the girlfriend's house for dinner with her parents. They treated us to an authentic Maine meal with oysters and fresh lobster complete with bibs and blueberry pie for dessert. We had a great time visiting around their backyard fire pit and laughing over great food and wine. 

The one and only dim spot of the trip was the hotel I booked. Note to self: hotels in Maine book up in October. I had initially been shopping out Air BnB properties, but when we decided to only stay one night, I decided to find a local hotel on the beach. Here is where I should have booked early. The place I found was a great location, even though our son's girlfriend was a little worried when she heard it was Old Orchard Beach, apparently the Coney Island of Maine. But we were a little north of the Ferris wheel and carney rides. Unfortunately, the hotel gave us the wrong room, with only 1 bed, when I had booked a suite with 2 beds and pull out. And since it was late check-in, no one was at the property to help us out -- and no other hotels in a 30 minute radius had rooms. The two boys stayed with our friends, the two girls and I slept in the one uncomfortable double bed, and my husband spent a miserable night on a slim couch with no sheets, only the bedspread from the hotel bed, which I always hate to touch.  The next morning the clerk who checked us out couldn't help us with refunding the cost of the larger room, and she said she had had a number of unhappy customers that morning.  Eventually, I did get a credit for the price difference, but I had to call several times to get an answer. 

Happily, the hotel was right across the street from the beach, and the tide was out. So when I finally decided to stop trying to sleep just before dawn, I was able to get up and take a long, beautiful walk on the deserted beach before everyone else woke up.  They joined me for a bit before we had to get ready for Mass. 

After Mass and a delicious breakfast at the C Salt Market, we waved goodbye to Portland and headed back south, making a stop not too far down the road at an apple orchard where we picked 30 some pounds of tart, crisp apples - Cortland, Macintosh, Jonagold, yellow delicious, and something else I can't remember. Yum.  We photographed our way through the orchard before returning to the car with our harvest and some cider and apple cinnamon donuts. 

That evening back in Cambridge, we cooked in - Dan grilled steaks for the cousins, and we made apple crisp for dessert.  That night, filled with fresh air and antioxidants and exhausted from the short night, we all slept well. 

Our last day in Boston was museum day. We started with bagels and coffee, and then visited a friend at Boston College, She gave us a tour of campus and showed us around the track before having to meet her team for lunch. I regretted that we didn't bring her candy from Len Libby's or something from Austin. I am not a natural gift giver, but while I'm writing this, I'm sorry we didn't come bearing an offering of some sort. I guess we thought we'd take her to breakfast or lunch, but she was not an early riser and already had the lunch meeting. 

The rest of the morning was spent at the Boston Museum of Fine Art. It was free day for the holiday, which was good for saving money, but bad for having to wait in line. The line moved fairly quickly, but it ate into the time we had to see the museum, so we missed a lot of it. Highlights: the Obama's presidential portraits were on tour and were displayed in their own gallery to highlight the work of the artists, Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald. 

LK loved the Egyptian art and artifacts, especially the shawabti, the little doll effigy of a queen. We also made it through the American impressionists - Mary Cassatt and friends - but we missed all the European art from the Renaissance to contemporary.  Nonetheless, we saw enough to satisfy and nearly to overwhelm.  Definitely a museum that takes several visits to enjoy. Fortunately, our son bought himself a membership, so he can return often. 

After a restorative but boring lunch of sandwiches, we did some walking along the Boston Harbor before spending about an hour at the Aquarium - again we had free tickets. Aquariums are all very similar to me, and thus not very high on my list of things to do, but it was something the girls wanted to see. They love sea turtles, and two swam around the big tank at the center of this aquarium. 

By the time we finished there, evening was upon us, and a little sprinkle of rain. Our son had Chinatown on the schedule for dinner, the Emperor's Garden, which is located inside of an old, grand theater. The place was huge, and empty, which doesn't always bode well for the cuisine, but it was fabulous. We all shared plates and laughed and feasted our way through our last meal before our early flight the next day. It was a celebratory ending to a memorable family vacation. 

The Chocolate Moose at Len Libby's

Chowder and lobster rolls at Gilberts in Portland

Portland Head Lighthouse

Never enough lobster

Mercy Otis Warren, my favorite American historian

The Schwabti

This one is titled "Brother and Sister"

Me at the end of the day and first thing in the morning...

Can you see the seahoreses?

Till next time, Boston!