Tour of New England

Mac and I enjoyed an extended 4th of July weekend with a 4 day roadtrip through New England. We started out with a bang and drove straight from Princeton to York, ME with a lunch stop in Worcester, MA where we ate wonderful Armenian food and stopped at a farmer's market and got a huge and delicious dill pickle as a treat. We arrived in York around 3:30pm and were warmly greeted by Sylvie and Miriam and their families. We stayed in Miriam's parents' beautiful victorian house near the beach with a huge wrap-around porch that offered plenty of opportunities for relaxing and chatting.

After doing some dinner prep a bunch of us took a nice walk down to the beach. The water was freezing! I couldn't even put my toes in. But it was still lovely to be near the water and hear the surf.

After coming back from the beach we started getting dinner ready. They had 15 people over for dinner. It was an amazing spread of grilled goodies (including the veggies in the photo below), wonderful salads, expertly made gin and tonics, and eventually amazing cakes and pies for dessert.

After dinner we headed over to the beach again to enjoy the fireworks (See the 365 photo of the York Fireworks). It was a great show and we sat on the rocks overlooking the beach, which was a perfect vantage point. Once we got back to the house we lit some sparklers and took tons of fun long-exposure photos with my new camera. Here are just a few choice shots:

Mac:

Molly:

Beth and Mac:

Sylvie and Miriam:

After playing with the sparklers we headed into the house and played a few rounds of Scattergories before calling it a night. It was such a full, fun and yet relaxing day. Truly a perfect way to start out the long weekend.

Apparently the games never stop when you're on vacation in York. Sunday morning all the "kids" woke up fairly early and headed to get some bagels and play Skee Ball before Mac and I had to leave for the wedding. After fighting the beach traffic, we finally made it to Fun-o-Rama for a few rounds of Skee-Ball. I've played here before and it doesn't disappoint!

This whole trip came about because Mac's friends Nick and Becca got married on Sunday (July 4th!) in Essex, MA. After getting back from Skee-Ball, Mac and I packed up and drove to the wedding "hotel" to get ready for the 3:15pm ceremony. It was a beautiful day, a little toasty, but overall a really lovely day. Here is the happy couple:

And the wonderful vegetarian food! I had to take a photo because it wasn't standard pasta primavera. Roasted asparagus! Rice Pilaf! And a black bean and veggie filled puff pastry! Yum!

And yes, there was plenty of dancing! Here are the Hibben 1Q boys, Mike, Eric and Mac cutting a rug:

On Monday morning Mac and I left the wedding venue around 8am and dropped off Mike at a train station to get back to Boston and then headed to Concord, MA and Walden Pond. It was a really hot day and by the time we got to Walden Pond at 9:15am, the lot was already full and we had to try and come back at noon. We decided to go over to Decordova during that time. The Sculpture park was open (and free!), but the Museum is closed on Mondays, so we couldn't get in, but Mac did a great job of posing with the sculpture:

We finally did make it to Walden Pond, but we avoided the traffic jam that was the official parking lot and parked a little further away and walked in. It was the perfect thing to make a dip in the lake feel wonderful! We spent about 2 hours in and out of the water and then walking up to the much more crowded official swimming area and across the street to see the replica of Thoreau's house and then back to the car.

By the time we got back to the car and stopped at the gift shop to pick up an annotated copy of Walden we decided that we should just head to our B&B, The Sleighmaker Inn in Westborough, MA. We took the scenic route through some small towns and past a bunch of boarding schools and finally got to The Sleighmaker around 4pm. We had thought about maybe heading into Cambridge, or driving down to Providence, but instead decided to take a nap. It was perfect. Nothing says vacation like taking an afternoon nap!

Once we woke up we drove around looking for dinner and actually ended up at a delightful place in Wellesley where we got flaming saganaki and I got a delicious risotto. Then we headed back to the B&B and I took a bath (which is such a treat because I only have a stand-up shower in my apartment) and then we called it a night. The next morning we were treated to a delicious breakfast of yogurt, fruit, waffles with pecans and cinnamon sugar, and baked pears with cottage cheese. It was truly wonderful, and such a great way to start the day!

From Westborough we headed to Storrs, CT to meet up with Mac's former advisor from Drexel and he took us out to lunch in Storrs. It was good conversation, good food and a nice break in the drive home. We also stopped in to see one of the engineering labs and there was lots of technical speak that sorta went over my head, but it was good for Mac to see what they were working on.

After Storrs our next stop was a gallery in Norwalk, CT. Interstate 91 was closed after Exit 17, so we had to take a detour. We stopped for a snack and restroom break at a Dunkin' Donuts and got one Beachball Munchkin! We couldn't believe the neon colors on these sprinkles, and it was actually pretty good. I probably couldn't eat more than one at a time, but it was fun to try. It made for something to laugh about after a slightly frustrating stretch of driving.

We stopped at the Artist's Market in Norwalk, CT and had a great time just looking at all of the wonderful old maps, MC Escher prints and vintage posters along with lots of handmade artisan things. Here is another photo from the gazing ball in the Escher room.

Sadly, after Norwalk, our next stop was Princeton. We got almost all the way home and decided to extend our vacation for just another hour by stopping at Tre Bar in Forrestal Village for dinner and a drink. It was the perfect way to talk about everything we did and unwind after a hectic drive. After that it was time to go home, unload the car and return to normalcy.

Overall it was a packed trip, but somehow it was still relaxing.