We’re back up and running here at Chez Stoddard. It only took an ENTIRE WEEK to replace our hard drive and successfully reload all our software. Thankfully, Sammy’s train movies came through unscathed.
But I’m here today to tell everyone about our Getaway last weekend. For those uninformed, Leah whisked me away to a bed and breakfast on the North Shore of Massachusetts for a night. Without children. Paradise found.
Auntie Gina stayed over Friday night and looked after the twins. Pop and Grandma Marsha took Sam. Leah and I dragged ourselves out to the airport at 6:00am Saturday morning. The weather forecast called for rain. Good. We had an entire plan revolving around a rainy day.
We touched down at Logan around 9:00am, picked up the rental car, and headed into the city to get some breakfast at her favorite bagel place on Comm. Ave.! Every access road is underground now. Very different. I’d love to meet the genius who thought that it would be acceptable design to stick with just two traffic lanes each way. What a douchebag. To think that my tax dollars paid his salary makes me ill. I pity the poor people who still live anywhere near that city.
We then merged onto Storrow Drive and were immediately reminded of why we don’t live in Boston anymore: bumper to bumper traffic – on a Saturday morning. Damn Earth Day Concert at the Hatch Shell. It rained on them later for delaying our getaway weekend schedule.
Bagel Rising has the best bagels in the entire civilized world. We had breakfast by the Brookline Reservoir, and then drove up Beacon St. to our favorite wine store in the world, Best Cellars. We had to phone them to have someone open their doors.
Wine in hand, we headed up the coast on Route 1a and 127 into Marblehead. We had planned on going to go to our favorite little restaurant for lunch, but to our dismay, it was now a Turkish towel store! Oh well. We hopped back on the road and found a great sandwich shop just outside Beverly. Then we went on to Pride’s Crossing to the chocolate store. Yum.
We drove on to Rockport and found the Captain’s House B&B. It overlooked the water and three lighthouses. Oh my God was it beautiful. We strolled in and out of little shops in downtown Rockport for a while, stopping in a jewelry store to talk to a man who comes to Hamburg twice a year for the crafts show at the Fairgrounds. Small World.
We went back to the B&B, took a nap, and then went to dinner at a seafood restaurant (there really aren’t any other kind in Rockport). Dinner consisted of crab cakes, shrimp cocktail, raw oysters, raw clams, clam chowder, seafood stuffed mushrooms, and of course, steamed lobsters. Plus, our great bottles of wine. Rockport is a dry town. Every restaurant is BYOB.
The next morning, we read the paper, ate breakfast, and then collected shells and sea glass on the beach for Sammy.
I can’t tell you how much I miss the sounds of the surf and the salt in the air. I used to be able to hear the ocean whenever I wanted. It was never more than an hour away, sometimes only a few minutes. Now, I will treasure my opportunities all the more.
