Saturday, May 7, 2016

Chapter 15 - New England

As I mentioned in my last post, after we left Santa Fe we headed straight up to Marlboro, VT. Well, we did stop in PA and have lunch with my dear old friend Kathy, her sister Ann AND (believe it or not) her elusive husband Dave! What a treat it is to be able to stop along the way and spend a few hours with old blog buddies. A real bonus benefit of living on the road!


Marlboro was great. We lived in a large, beautiful home with 2 German shorthaired pointers and a drooly cat named Lexus. Hannah was very old (I think 13-ish) but Bella was still a youngster (around 3) and acted like it. I'm pretty sure that given the opportunity, Bella would have stayed outside and ran non-stop for 12 hours. I've never seen an animal with so much energy. One of her favorite things to do was to have us fling a tennis ball 100 feet or so across the yard using a... uh... tennis ball flinger. Yeah that's it. We later named the game "spitty ball" because by the time she had recovered it 20 or 30 times it was, you guessed it, pretty much soaking wet.

Hannah

Lexus, not sure about the hand I just played

Bella with her spitty ball
We really enjoyed our stay in Marlboro as it was in a very remote part of VT during a cold/drizzly/messy part of spring, so we took advantage of the opportunity to just relax and decompress for a couple of months. No big excursions or exciting adventures, but quiet time in front of the fireplace and remote walks through the woods. A very peaceful and relaxing house sit.

And then... BAM!... Boston, Massachusetts! Well Hull, to be precise, but Boston is just out our front window. Literally. This house sits right on the shore of Boston Harbor looking out over the big city skyline and we are in love with this little town. Everywhere you go there is water on either side of you with marinas every mile. Big ships and tug boats pass in front of our house on a daily basis and the sail boats are starting to emerge, like a new spring hatch on the water. Charli and I walk or run the shoreline roads every day and are soaking up the endless charm.

Just one of the many thousands of sunset pics we have of Boston... from our front porch!

And then there's Baahston itself... just a 30 min ferry or 45 min train ride from town. Two things about Boston...
1. the people there are super friendly
2. everyone sounds like someone doing an impression of themselves

Because we only have 2 cats to care for here, we have the luxury of heading out on a Saturday morning and spending the majority of the day there. We've gone over several times now and each time have walked over 8 miles within the city. We can't get enough of the place, as I'm sure anyone who has ever lived there or visited can attest to. Boston is just amazing, and that's all I can say about it.

Row houses on Newbury Street
"The Commander's Own Drum and Bugle Corp" at Bunker Hill

Hanging with my BFF B. F.

Taking the ferry home at night
But alas, our visit has come to an end all too soon and now next week we must haul anchor and set sail for our next port (see what I did there?)... Point of Rocks, MD. We are, of course, very excited to experience this historic railroad town just outside of Washington, DC and will be packing up soon to do so. But we still have a good 10 days left here in Hull to take advantage of the area before we have to leave.

In fact, today we went up to Salem for yet another historic day of sight seeing with an amazing National Park tour of the tall sailing ship Friendship, the infamous House of the Seven Gables and a VERY thorough walking tour covering the history of the Salem witch trials.

The Friendship

Me, not actually steering the Friendship

The House of an Unnecessary Number of Gables

My biggest challenge with Salem however was to suppress all the Monty Python quotes from the witch scene in the Holy Grail. I'm sure Charli didn't mind though. After all, there's nothing she enjoys more than hearing me do bad impressions from the movie.

"How do you know she is a witch?" "SHE LOOKS LIKE ONE!"