New England Vacay ~ martygaal

The vacation was fantastic, but motivating myself to write about it has been difficult. Alas, a friend wanted a recap so I quickly wrote out an email to her which I now present to you (a bit edited) below.

One of the Gaal's ate ice cream throughout the week and the other drank beer all over the place. You can figure out which was which.Weather is awesome up there, I guess warm for them but compared to what we've been getting it was refreshing. Cape Cod is nice, different than Florida and even NC beaches, but pretty in a different way. When we drove to some of the towns it was cloudy and in the 60's! Martha's Vineyard is a tourist haven, but with upscale shops** instead of Wings. We had a nice lunch after biking between towns and then read** in a park. It was beautiful.

Boston seems like such a fun city. Wish we could've spent more time there. Stayed in a swanky hotel next to Copley Square, walked through Boston Public Gardens and then to Fenway Park. It's a very walkable city and much different then NYC. I just can't imagine going through a winter there.

Met up with our friend Sue the next day and she took us to Walden Pond (Henry David Thoreau...dust off your high school English reading). It was like 85 degrees and packed! Poor people don't know what to do with themselves when it's nice out. The park was actually closed because of capacity issues which Sue said she's never seen, but she gave a sob story to the little ranger about how we were from NC and really wanted to see it...blah blah she let us in. They have a 1.7 mile trail around the lake and you can go see the remains of Thoreau's cabin. I did 2 loops and tripped and fell on the second loop and totally skinned my knee like a freakin' 5 year old. Totally embarrassed, and lots of people around including a guy all decked out in hiking gear that exclaimed, "That root is really high!!" I got up in a flash and took off trying not to cry because even though it didn't hurt THAT much for some reason those things just set me off (I think it's more the embarrassment). Anyways, got back and changed into swimsuit to go for a swim in the pond.

This was AMAZING. You would've died, it was so awesome to swim here. The water temp was like 79. This lake was made from a glacier so it's shallow around the outside and then super deep in the middle (like 100 feet). And so clear. I could see Marty's feet the entire time, and the rays of the sun streaking down into the lake - this was so much better than any lake we have here and even better than White Lake. Too bad most of the year it's freezing. Marty spoke whale to Logan** underwater ;) Did a little sightseeing around Concord (Paul Revere -- dust off your high school history) and the shot heard 'round the world.

Then up to Maine where Sue's inlaws all have houses on the beach.
Another awesome beach, just different but so pretty. The water is seriously cold, I mean, they kept saying that it wasn't too bad, but it was probably 65 degrees. Maybe. You stick your feet in and you get that bone hurt immediately. The next day we went to another beach so the kids could boogie board and Marty could surf, it was hot, and the water had apparently warmed up a touch (one of the little girls said, 'it's warm!' poor kids have no idea what warm is). Most were in wetsuits, including Marty, but he shed it to swim because he did get warm sitting in it in the sun. I watched sitting on the rocks (not much beach to speak of). We also did a little kayaking in the afternoon. We both read a lot on the vacation.

Nice dinner in Kennebunkport, saw the Bush compound and then back to Boston to spend the night at Sue's house for our flight the next morning.

**upscale shops: The Black Dog is so overpriced and a big sellout now. You can find the store anywhere on Cape Cod. No, I do not want a long sleeve t-shirt for $58 thank you very much. No, I do not care that Bill Clinton bought stuff for Monica Lewinski here (get with the current century please).

**I read The Magicians by Lev Grossman and Marty blew through the first two books in The Game of Thrones.

**Logan Marton is his name. Marton is the Hungarian version of Martin, which is also Marty's dad's name.

And now, pictures.

Downtown Falmouth, where our bed & breakfast was.