Boston bound!
Today we drove into Boston (once again driving from Maine, thru New Hampshire, and into Massachusetts! That will never not blow my mind.). This is Magan's favorite city so I've been pretty excited about it.
I mean obviously Rob loves it too or he wouldn't have taken me there. This has been something he has talked about a LOT. Going to Faneuil Hall. Going to the USS Constitution.
Look. I am not super into US history. But I can still enjoy because vacay is vacay, right?
Except here's what I learned about Faneuil Hall - it's basically an outdoor mall. There are shops and kiosks lining either side of Quincy Market - which itself is essentially a giant food court. I mean, sure the food is higher quality - lots of lobster rolls - but it's basically a mall and food court.
I will say the buildings were gorgeous.
We ate a light lunch at The Salty Dog mostly because I liked the name and it was outside. I had a crab cake sandwich which was disappointingly absent of crab. I can't remember what Rob had - they were out of fried clams which was what he wanted so he just got an appetizer. I think it was stuffed Quaghog clam. After lunch we went inside to the food court and he found fried clams at last.
A little shopping, a little walking, and it was time to head over to the USS Constitution.
The USS Constitution is closed on Thursday.
Guess what day it is?
So here is what I learned this trip. Rob likes to loosely plan things. Which is fine. Sometimes. I totally admire that ability.
But next time I will be more finely tuning the trip.
Sidebar: we had also "planned" to go deep sea fishing but someone didn't make a reservation in time. I'm not saying who.
So we drove around admiring some of the old buildings but we really didn't do much other than shop and eat. And while normally that may be an ideal day for me, I was sort of hoping for more.
On the bright side, we have plenty of things to do on our next trip.
This is also the point where I told Rob that for our last day, why don't we do something he hasn't done before. Start some new traditions. I get that he likes to do the same things he has always done because it brings back happy childhood memories with his family. I wish I had something like that.
Hell I'm so bad at it I didn't even make any family traditions for my kids which I now feel terrible about. The best I can say is Christmas has traditions but what about the rest of the year? I underestimated the value there.
And I'm not suggesting I don't ever want to repeat things we did this week. Let's just sprinkle in some new stuff too.
Back at the cottage we walked around the property a bit more and I really started to see it as a viable wedding location. It was an idea I first thought of a couple of months ago and I told Rob with the caveat that it was just an idea. But the more I was there, the more I could just feel Rob's extended family around us and it is really beautiful. There's still a lot to figure out - like the fact that destination weddings are usually smaller which is good for the budget but bad if you are really wanting a huge celebration with all of your friends and loved ones.
It's a pickle.
Also fair warning this may turn in to a wedding blog very quickly. Or maybe I'll start a new blog just for the "mature" bride. Hmmm. Lots to think about.
We took another walk on the beach - with a sweater on. Did you get that? I took a walk on the BEACH in JUNE whilst wearing a sweater.
That part is less fun for me.
We found some more sea glass, checked to see if Rob's message was still there (it wasn't), and just generally enjoyed the atmosphere. We also met up with our new furry friend Dora. Her human companion asked where we were staying and when we said the first house on the left he said "so which HELD are you?". Turns out, he's lived there all his life and he knows all of the family - and was even close friends with some of Rob's cousins. I think that's right.
Dinner was once again at Lobster in the Rough (for the third and final time) with our standard order of lobster and steamers - this time we also added onion rings. I am now mad that we didn't try those sooner because they were delicious! Back at the cottage for a brief -cold - stroll on the beach because it was the strawberry moon and it was so beautiful. There was probably a dozen bonfires on the beach.
And that's day five.