Thirty

I started this blog shortly after my 10th anniversary. June 1st we celebrated our 30th anniversary. How wild is that? 

Initially, we thought about doing something substantial to mark 30. We had a great trip to Canada for 25. We thought about going back and retracing the route of our honeymoon through Nova Scotia. We thought maybe we'd go to Denmark or Sweden, or an Alaska cruise. Covid and the Pandemic kind of changed any cloud talk plans that we'd mentioned to each other for marking the occasion. Plus, Canada is closed to us Yanks.

Doug suggested we go to Massachusetts, see my folks, see the kid. It sounded just about right to do something meaningful. My parents were ready for us to visit, and comfortable. Jess was not, but Doug was pretty determined we'd still visit. 

So that was decided. 

We left on Saturday, and on paper it is about 7 hours to my parents, in reality more like 9 with traffic around NYC. We got to our hotel and got takeout and beer Saturday night. Sunday morning we went to my folks' and hung out. We went to their favorite watering hole, and all my mom's favorite people were there, including Bert, who told me once he's marrying my mom. So I call him Step Dad. 

They have a lovely support system up there at their bar, people who take good care of them when they are not well or need help. It's kind of like a church family, only they are from the bar. The bartenders have our phone numbers (me and Linda) and can get ahold of us fast if there is an emergency. That kind of community is hard to come by for some folks in their late years so church family, bar family, it's family. 

I asked my dad to smile for the picture and this is what I get. When you are 81, you can do you. He's so damn funny. And look at that hair. 

We stayed at a hotel a town away, and we took my dad for a couple drives because my mom literally never goes anywhere and he doesn't get to go out as much as he likes. 

We went to the Canal, and took a walk. We drove around a little town on the bay with all kinds of great little water vistas. We tried to go driving down to a road that turned out to be private to go out where the water would be all around us. We had a lot of fun with my dad. 

During our trip, my mom and I went to see her sister, my Aunt Bea (Bevvie, Beverly, etc...) who is now at an assisted living facility on the Cape. My cousins got to the point where this was just the best option for her, for safety reasons. It is hard to be the caretaker for someone with memory loss. I could write a whole entry on that visit. I may just do that. 

My mom has been reluctant to go visit her, and my sister has given her a hard time about it. I'm sure for my mom this is hard, to see her baby sister in a position where she isn't "herself" and needs pretty much round the clock care which my cousin John really could not continue to give her.  She frustrates my mother, because she asks the same questions over and over, and doesn't remember a lot of things. So my mom has been incredibly reluctant to go visit. 

This frustrates me and my sister, because ... well that's your sister. You should just cope with/deal with her in her situation and meet her where she is. Having mercy for both of them, I was more than excited when my cousin Billy offered to bring us to see her. We had to be added to his visitation, so he took care of that signup. 

I took a lot of photos on the trip that were not shared socially, this one chief among them. My mom is holding the pudding cup so Bea can get all the pudding out. "It keeps trying to get away from me," she said. Laughing, mom helped her out. 

Ages 78 and 76 or ages 8 and 6, there is your sibling helper. 

I have a lot of feelings here. I'm sure my mother has. I'm sure my sister does. I'll just say we had a really lovely visit. I hope I get to see her again, at least one more time. 

Here are a couple shots of my dad. I think we had more fun on this visit with him than we've had in a long time. With kidnapping him and taking him for a ride one day, and kidnapping him and going to the canal another day, he was full of stories.  

Here he is at the Canal with the train bridge behind him. I thought we would take a long walk here, but it was a short one, as he migrated towards the street, towards a bar. Like you do when you've escaped the house. My cousin Billy had told me to go to Buzzards Bay Brewing Company, next to the bar Bart was aiming for, as he knows we like craft beer. So I steered him to the right a little bit and we had a good time without a Keno machine or a TV. 

My dad is not a craft beer aficionado, so I always ask the staff "what's your closest beer to a Budweiser, or your lowest ABV ale?" 

There was a pack of cards on one of the table, so Doug dealt 21/Blackjack for us and we had a good laugh with those. 

On Memorial Day itself, we went up north. We realized that if we were going to see Jess we'd need to do it on the Monday. They weren't going to take time off while we were there, or come to the Cape. Jess is reluctant to do anything because too many people are not taking post-covid life (or somewhat post-covid life) with a seriousness of upheld caution. Even though they are vaccinated, they are not happy we (Doug and I) are not vaccinated. Side note: We've held the belief of science - that if you've had a disease, you don't get vaccinated after it (I know a lot of people disagree). And because Doug booked us in this hotel for a whole week, instead of a few days down by my parents, a few days up north, we knew it would be a day trip up there and our only real chance to get together. The forecast was for rain in the morning, and things held off enough for us to get in some time. 

We met Jess and their roommates and stood outside and chatted. They did let me in to use the bathroom (and pet the cat because I love me some Doyle). We took Jess to Salisbury Beach for a nice long walk, and then we drove up the coast through Hampton/North Hampton/Rye. 

I love this kid. So much mine. 

We realized it was getting close to dinner time, and Jess didn't want to go to a restaurant because of the aforementioned pandemic-is-still-going-on concerns. I realized we were very close to our friends Mike & Michelle's house, so we called them to see if we could do a drive by hello since traffic was insane (as it would be on Monday evening of Memorial Day Weekend for folks headed home from Maine/NH). They enthusiastically welcomed us to the porch, lit the gas fire pit, cracked open a new homebrew pony keg,

cheffed us up some dinner, and we had a great visit! I didn't get a chance for all of us to connect before we moved nearly 4 years ago, so this was a long time coming.  I'm so thankful they were comfortable to have us over. And would have been just as thankful for a driveway hello. 

We got Jess back home, and didn't have time to go visit anyone else on our tour of the north, which made me a little sad. 

Doug and I went to New Bedford, my parents didn't want to go. Well, my dad would have gone but he wasn't up to going through a whole museum. We hit the Whaling Museum, which I love but it also makes me sad at the same time. Great presentation, new exhibits that weren't open the last time we were there a million years ago with both kids. Here I am, inside the belly of the whale. 

We ate an early dinner at Moby Dick Brewing Company, walked down to the harbor and looked at all the fishing boats while soaking in Magic Hour as it got underway. We went over to Fort Rodman park and did more pokemon playing there. We watched a guy with VR goggles on flying his drone around while he sat in a beach chair on the hill by the fort and it was quite enjoyable. We got run out of the park by the cops as the sun was going down. Never had that happen before. 

Our plan was to hit the road to start our west and south bound journey on Friday. We had some time to play with, and I reached out to a few friends to see what they were up to on Friday night/Saturday during the day but people already had plans or were headed out of town themselves. 

We left after doing some gardening with my folks (which.... was dramatic and there was yelling) and headed towards Providence, RI to see what that town was like. It wasn't that awesome. A couple good views, mostly a lot of traffic. They close down a neighborhood for al fresco dining on Friday/Saturday nights and that's where we were parked, so we decided to get out of town before we got trapped. We drove down to Newport, RI to drive along Ocean Drive Historic District (since we've been to the big ass houses in the past we skipped that). We enjoyed views of the ocean, and went over to Brenton Point state park for some more great views. 

Driving west, we tried a couple restaurants along the way and there was too long a wait so we went further. Got to a town called Branford, found a little restaurant that didn't have a wait. It was raining (again) so we had to eat inside, and had a delightful meal. We booked a hotel just up the road, settled in to watch some hockey, and hit the hay. 

The plan was to check out the Thimble Islands via Stony Creek and the Thimble Island Cruise company. The 2 hour cruise around the islands was very nice, affordable, fun, and honestly... what a beautiful day after so much dreary weather. 

My only regret is we didn't stop at the Thimble Island Brewing Company on our way out of town to get some take home beer.  

The boat we toured on was the Sea Mist, and they have a beer named for the boat. We enjoyed one on the toodleaboot, and I would have liked to take some home. 

We never really have spent a lot of time in this section of Connecticut. Traditionally, from our time in the Boston Area and went to Pennsylvania, we'd travel down via the Masspike/84/Merritt Parkway, around NYC... and never touched the coast. If we went to my sister's, we'd either go down the Merritt to 95 to Bridgeport for the ferry, or go to Mystic for the ferry. There wasn't a lot of us meeting the coast where it lives. So this was a fun drive for us, checking out Rte 1 (Boston Post Road) and the towns along the stretch there. We'd always seen signs for the Thimble Islands, never went, and now we know and will go back again, I pretty much predict it. Getting to my parents' now, you kind of hug the coast on 95 and then go up to Providence to cut across to roads to access the Cape so the Thimble Islands and other shore points between New Haven and the Cape will be easier access.

We pushed through to head home after we grabbed a sandwich and got hung up on the Palisades Parkway in Fort Lee, NJ with no way to escape the highway closure due to a big huge fire that literally just started when we got a couple miles north of the location at Hudson Terrace.  

Finally getting through, we zoomed down the Turnpike, got some gas, and Doug thought we should stop for dinner in Havre de Grace, MD. I'd always wanted to visit there, and he wasn't in the mood for truck stop options. It wasn't too far off the highway, and I scoped out Tripadvisor for a foodrinkery while Doug was driving. 

The place I picked had a live band playing, and for as much as I miss live music, I have never once in my life wanted to walk up on a show and ask them to stop. They were atrocious. The lead singer had no style, the drummer was using those super heavy metal double bass pedals which do not work with Spin Doctors, Jimmy Eat World, or Collective Soul songs. No. Stop. Please. We could hear them all over town too. 

We found an indoor place to eat. Thankfully. They had a patio, but it was completely full and polluted by these dudes up the street wrecking a Harvey Danger song. We happily enjoyed a really tasty dinner, in air conditioning and peace and quiet. We noticed a DJ starting to set up out on the patio and were relieved to be done with the meal and ready to go. I guess I am An Old now if that kind of stuff just makes me want to move along. 

Happy to be home, feel like we could have done more up north as I said but thankful to spend as much time with my folks as we did. I look forward to doing it again sometime.