Adventures in Boston

And this was for yesterday....

This morning we woke up early, finished the laundry and packed an overnight bag. Since it was supposed to be rainy and yucky (and it was), we decided to drive up to Maine and get our magnets from there and New Hampshire and stay the night in Boston. On the way back to CT tomorrow, we plan to go to Plymouth, so Jim can see the pebble, and maybe have lunch in Newport on our way back.
Today was interesting. It started out fine. The rain came just as it was supposed to in the early afternoon. We were on the road , driving through Massachusetts, and of course, people drove like complete idiots. Drivers are jerks all over the country, I guess. We got to Kittery, ME, one of the southernmost parts of the state a little after one and had lobster rolls at a little restaurant on the water. We were on the hunt for a magnet too, and I found one in this little grocery store, but evidently it was a decoration and the lady wouldn’t sell it to me! So we ended up finding one in a candy store a bit down the road. Actually, there were more to choose from there than anywhere else we’d been! I didn’t get any candy, though. Jim wouldn’t even let me look!

The section of New Hampshire on the coast between Massachusetts and Maine is like ten miles long, which drastically limited our magnet searching options. On the way back from Maine, we stopped in Portsmouth, which is just across the state line. It had a really cute little downtown area and we parked the car and walked through the dreary drizzle until we found a “gift store” which ended up being code for “smoke shop.” Even Jim didn’t catch that one at first glance! The next store we walked into was small and mostly sold newspapers and candy bars, but in a case at the counter we found a small selection of magnets! The guy said “you guys must not be from around here,” and of course we weren’t! Who wants a magnet from their own state or city? Not me. Although we’ll have to get a California one if we want a complete collection.

"2vi" takes us to some weird places sometimes. This was part of her directions to the hotel we didn't stay at.

We made it into Boston after sitting in a bit of traffic coming into the city. This is where the day gets REAL interesting. I booked a room at a place called the College Club of Boston…it’s a club, but they have a bed and breakfast too, and you don’t have to be a member to stay there. Anyway, we get there to check in and the guy can’t find our reservation. Of. Freaking. Course. So he looks and looks and finds it…for YESTERDAY. I SWEAR I made it for the right date. I made two other reservations for the wrong dates already this trip. I’ve been TRIPLE checking that the dates are right.
So, of course, they have no vacancies and the guy pulls up expedia and finds us a couple of other options, gives us the phone number for expedia and sends us on our way. So we’re in Boston, it’s raining, we have our overnight bag and the laptop and the cameras and stuff, no place to stay for the night, the car was parked in a garage across the park (where their website told us to park) and no clue whatsoever what we were going to do.

The tulips are blooming in the Public Garden

We ended up finding a Starbucks on Boylston, two streets away on the other side of Newbury and used the internet there to book a room at the Omni Parker House. It was much more than we wanted to spend, but what else were we going to do? All of our options were about the same price and this one was close to where we parked the car. So we packed up the computer again and trekked across Boston Common again to the hotel.
Halfway there, Jim says “Well at least it’s not raining hard,” and guess what happened. Yea. It started raining hard! We made it to the hotel completely soaked. My arm was sore from carrying the heavy (pink) bag, and we were both starting to get a little cranky. Jim didn’t even want to leave the hotel again, but we got up to the room (which is MUCH smaller than the one we had here, Mom!) and put our stuff down and dried off a bit and decided to make the short walk to Faneuil Hall to have dinner at Cheers.
Cheers isn’t the best food in Boston, but they modeled it after the one in the show, so it was an “experience.” Jim had a burger and I had some pasta. Neither of us had beer, which I guess kind of defeats the purpose, but whatever. It was a neat trip though. We passed a lot of historically significant buildings on the way there, and the rain more or less stopped before we left the hotel, so it was worth the while. We also found our magnet and got some candy (Jim’s idea, imagine that) and walked through some of the stores and stuff. It was a nice evening.
When we got back to the hotel, we sat in the bar and had dessert. The Parker House is where Boston Cream Pie was created (although it’s NOTHING like what you get anywhere else…I actually like it better), as well as Parker House Rolls (we got some of them too), so we sat and talked and had a nice dessert.
We’ll be back in Connecticut tomorrow evening. We’re not sure what we’re doing Sunday. If the weather is nice we might go into New York, but more than likely we’ll do that on Monday. So we may take a drive up to Vermont, get some syrup and a magnet and head back to CT.