trip to New England with Chet & Elaine

Paulette and I went to Cambridge, Ma for wedding of a friend on October 1, 2011. We extended to visit to drive around New England with Chet and Elaine who flew in on Saturday Oct 1.

Here is a blog of how the trip is going.

Sunday Oct 2: picked up car at Logan drove into Boston and got lost a few times even with Gigi our trusted GPS voice. picked up C&E in Arlington and went over to Harvard Yard for a tranquil walk towards Harvard Square.

drove downtown to Copley Square and saw some "blessing of the pets" at Trinity Church then toured Boston Public Library - very impressive. Attacked Lobsters and Crabcakes at Legal Seafood in the big Mall attached to a big WESTIN hotel. (convenient parking furnished by Chet's handicapped parking sticker which is good until 2013)

Monday Oct 3: on the road again at 11:00 AM towards Lawrence. Gigi-GPS has ideas that make no sense, but the driver is a rookie.
stopped at Andover Inn where the South Bend family stayed for the wedding 57 years ago.

The wedding breakfast was held here also. The Inn has been updated several times and is very handsome and luxurious.


Then on to Lawrence:
found Sacred Heart church, but it was locked,so we walked around a bit. The we met a nice Dominican nun who lived there are let us in and gave us some history.




The school is now apartments for older residents (50+) and the church church is struggling. They have the old Latin Mass and the stained glass windows are gone - but it looks pretty much like it did 57 years ago.



There was an altar rail and Mantillas for the ladies and the nun said that prayers for painting the building were answered and she has some prayers in the future.

Then we walked around the grounds on the North side.





(note: There are more pictures, and they will be added when I have more time.)

Then we went to the house on Brookfield and to St Patrick's school and to the grocery store in North Lawrence.

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Then we started on the big adventure of finding the cemetery of Sacred Heart parish.

We stopped at a diner near the church and the clients (inmates?) suggested that we could get to a Jewish cemetery nearby. The waitress looked it up on her cellphone and said it was in Andover. When we went there, we knew we had gone too far, so we stopped at Whole Foods and asked directions and ate. "Two blocks past the Cadillac dealership, turn left on Williams and, and, and..."

There was a cemetery there all right and it had a few gravestones marked Gallant, but it had no directory or assistance. So we called for the wizards: Bernard and/or Normand.

Bernard had the quick answer "Call Normand"

Normand said "Go to Lawrence, turn on Mount Vernon, take a left fork in the road at one quarter mile and you will see it soon. I missed the forks or what should be forks, but after coming back to Mount Vernon and starting over, I found a new fork and took it and we were in the same cemetery that we got to by going to Andover!

Then we started walking the rows:



and Elaine found it!


:


Here is Google Map rendering



Then we went on towards the ocean for some lobster.


Tuesday October 4
We went to Portsmouth via the long coast road. We visited Strawberry Banke which is the original settlement on the river. It's harbor was called something Pond which was created by a twelve foot high tide.

Then we went down to Salisbury Beach in Mass looking for a cottage similar to the one that Omer and Alice used to rent back in the forties.

Again, Elaine found it.

and another view:


Wednesday October 5
Went up to Maine for two major sites:
Ogunquit Museum of Art and LL Bean


The leaves have not yet turned colors. This one might have been left over?

Then we ate in Kennebunkport at Mabel's which has a newspaper clipping about being a favorite of the Bush family. It was nice.














Then on to L.L.Bean...




L.L. Bean is a nice place with lots of nice stuff, but somehow none of us wanted to go rafting or hiking, so we just moseyed on back to Hampton Beach for TWINS NIGHT (2 lobsters for 21 bucks)



It seems that the Hampton Beach hotel (Ashworth by the Sea) has been a very nice anchor spot for going to Lawrence, Salsbury Beach, Portsmouth, LLBean and Qgunquit. We stayed here three nights and today we move on down to the JFK library and then to some nice place on the Charles in Cambridge.
Thursday October 6:
Up early and down to Boston for the JFK Library

and a play at night based on Huck Finn. Both were very nice. For the many fans of Mark Twain, "Big River" is a Broadway musical based on Huck Finn , . and it does it a very good job of staying on the story. Tom Sawyer always has ideas about keeping thing "interesting" and I appreciated this especially on this trip.


Friday October 7:
Went to Fanueil Hall for a good visit and enjoyed the atmosphere and walking around.

Then on to MFA.org or the Museum of Fine Arts for their display of everything. They have a good collection and it is worth three days. One exhibit that ends on Monday was "The Clock"

"The Clock" is snatches of film from all ages of film that feathure a CLOCK. We walked in at 4:30 PM and walked out at 5:30 PM and saw pieces of "Casablanca", "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" and about 100 other films from all over. It is also on exhibit in Montreal right now and it will probably tour. "Too clever" You will enjoy it, but you will be exhasted after one hour.


Saturday October 8:
Left hotel (Courtyard by Marriott on the Charles) at 8:30 and go to LOGAN by 9 AM. I think everyone got home on time.



Thursday December 22
We printed out the blog for Roberta and she liked it so much that
I had to make a movie.



In the Mood. Canyadigit?

It was a good trip