The love I have for my sister Katie runs deep into childhood beginning with my beloved job of entertaining her! Entertaining her to keep her outside until dinner, entertaining her until we have to get out of the bath, entertaining her after school, entertaining her on the car ride to grandma's house or better yet on the way to Florida, and just entertaining her because I'm her big sister and mom said that was my job. I took my job with pride and the memories that we share because of it are unmatchable and unfathomable to most. We decided that without this creative energy instilled in us by our mother, we would not have the careers or the vigor for life that we, as young adults, have today!!! So last week Katie came to visit her big sister on the east coast, game on!!!
A movie recently watched quoted saying, "happiness is best when shared". I have been traveling nearly a year now and have had few chances to actually engage people in what I have experienced. I now had the great opportunity of entertaining another sister, Katie. Katie had just spent a week in Jackson Hole, WY with her boyfriend Matt and of course our parents, and now was traveling to Boston to see me. If any of you know Katie's vacation schedule or tolerance I should say, you wouldn't believe that our little Katie could withstand a 2 week adventure, but she did with great sustenance. Katie was to arrive on Thursday afternoon around 4:30pm to Boston however a slow start in Jackson Hole and a stalled engine in Chicago stranded her there. With quick thinking and our geographically trained brains, Katie was rerouted to Providence, RI arriving at 11pm that same evening. 1.5hr road trip for Becky and a little planned reorientation, I received Katie safe and sound.....not quite sane and sound :)
After a round about trip into Boston to avoid traffic, quick view of my amazing patio and photo sharing we hit the hay anxious for our weekend travels. Friday morning we awoke with a sprint, gathered our bags and headed out to Maine, not before getting coffee at Dunkin' Donuts for ourselves and the lovely concierge, Farrah. It seemed like an 80hr trip up to Portland, ME due to Katie's lack of enthusiasm for travel at this point and my anxiety to create the perfect trip but we made it. We barely remembered our sunscreen prior to sprinting, or running, OK jogging to the lighthouse that so many of you have only seen in photos. Cape Elizabeth of Fort Williams Park, Katie Anderson has arrived and you have never seen someone more excited to be there. We looked at her from all angles, the lighthouse that is, taking photos the best we could with our self timering skills. We then decided to rock climb a little down to the ocean! Beautiful, adventurous, and stupid considering I didn't know how to get back up! We eventually figured it out after jumping over a fence, a few local tourists greeted us with glee exclaiming that they had been watching us and were worried we wouldn't make it up out of the valley of rock and sea. After our adventures we found the perfect lookout for a quick picnic and last pictures before headed back into the truck.
From Portland we headed down to Kennebunk, ME of course to show Katie my "local" hangout and get some darn good seafood. As our late lunch was being prepared, I took the liberty to take Kate to the beach, spread out a blanket and soak up the sun on the shores of Maine. The phone rang when our lunch was almost ready and we headed back to the restaurant to sit outdoors on the patio and enjoy our baked stuff lobster and haddock ala dockside. When our bellies were full and Katie was convinced that I had been telling the truth about the food for the past 6months, we headed down to Portsmouth, NH for the evening and to stay the night. Portsmouth is a great "walking" town with small shops along the river, bordered by Kittery, ME. We had a fun evening of catching up and walkin' the streets!
Saturday we awoke and found Dunkin' Donuts yet again after the exciting continental breakfast of fruit loops and english muffins. I attempted to take Katie along a great route 1 up the coast line, but really it proved to be a futile attempt. You have to park or stop mostly and get out of the car to see the ocean, but you could smell it if you had the windows down! Come on people....I'm a tourist too remember!! We decided to hop onto the interstate in the interest of time and cruised onto the island of Cape Ann, MA. I pulled right up to the footpath to the Atlantic that I'm fairly convinced at this point that I'm the only one that knows about, and started down the pathway. Well the last time I was here, it was winter and there wasn't too much greenery....however now it was covered and surrounded with overgrown bush and thistles! Bad choice on the sandals and skirts, oops! We did make it to a great picnic spot after a little trespassing and some rock climbing again. Thank goodness Katie is very fit!!
What I didn't know about Cape Ann this weekend was that it was some sort of festival weekend. Stopped cars, packed beaches and long lines for restaurants. I am not used to any of this and did a lot of pointing and driving by with descriptions of how neat it would be if I had enough patience to find parking! Sorry Katie. We did manage to have a great lunch at Causeways by the marina with fried seafood and clam chowda'. It was all part of a plan I'm sure to hurry us back to Boston this afternoon because we needed a quick nap prior to our next adventure, whale watching!!
Katie was quite unsure about this event and had to do some hard visualization meditation to prepare for our whale watching tour out of the Boston Harbor. I had a friend of mine from work, Rachael join us just in case I needed some medical backup on the trip. We left the harbor in overcast skies taking in every scene, but quickly found a dry seat indoors for the 45min trip out to sea. When we first arrived at the whale watch site we were a little underwhelmed due to the distance away from the whales we were, however that was soon to change. We were on a catamaran, 3 level boat that had a gap in the front, or splint deck. Katie said at one point that it would be fairly neat to see a whale come up in the middle of the decks....well Katie, ask and you shall receive. At one point Katie looked over and said, "what is that under the water?", I said, "don't know looks like smoke or something......or a WHALE!" Holy crap the whale about hit the dang boat!! There were 2 whales that took turns coming up and diving sometimes together and then at the end, not together at all because one of them took a liking to our boat! After and hour and a half or so the announcer said that we had just sited our last whale and we should head back. Well the boat didn't move, neither did our intent to see just one more whale. Katie would describe it as a conversation between her and God, leading her to look out one side of the boat and viewing the most blessed event of the trip. A whale came right out of the side of the boat right under where we were standing in perfect swimming form, performing a great dive for the grand finale! The excitement can only be described as elation. Katie said that it was definitely worth the money she didn't spend on the trip!! :) I was just thankful that all of Katie's practicing of "whale talk" for the past 24hours had not only paid off, but had now come to an end!
Sunday we awoke to another awesome adventure of a segway tour. Those of you that aren't up to technology....these are the little standing, 2 wheeled scooter things that you see people riding with helmets and vests, sometimes mall cops. We had a great walk across the Charles river after stopping and grabbing a quick lunch at whole foods (whole paycheck) and finding our way into the Cambridge area. We were the only 2 people on the tour which proved to be great because we needed the extra attention of the 2 guides. We had a 2 hour tour that followed a 20min crash course, no pun intended. Helmets donned, about 20ft into the tour was our fist decline, Katie lost control and our first hubcap....ooops! We had a fun tour of west Boston crossing the river, circling Fenway, cruising through Boylston area, the green necklace parks, and some other stuff that I couldn't hear because we were cruising at about 14mi/hr on a mobile craft. It was a fun, funny, adventurous and successful trip without injury except the hubcap!
After our ride we managed to take the T (red line) to a shopping location and then navigate home for a nap! We then got dressed for Katie's only request of the whole entire trip, "Becky, I just want to eat a lot of crab legs out of a bucket!" Well let me tell you folks, this ain't easy around here. Crab legs aren't the most popular seafood around these parts but I hear that they are in Baltimore, MD. So besides chartering a plane I took a pole of every human being in the area for the past month and came up with a spot. We did have to navigate the transportation system once again and got a little off track, but thanks to my dad Steve's directional sense....we made it to the Summer Shack. So we sit down to eat and they do in fact have the crab legs and I do see red buckets at some of the tables. Katie then decides that they are too expensive being her practical self.....with reddened eyes and desperation I explain to Katie, "so help me, if I have found the only place on the east coast with crab legs and a bucket, get you here via public transport, and you don't order them.....I will cry! I'm buying, order the damn legs now, PLEASE dear sister!" So when she decided on the pan seared sherri, garlic and rosemary seasoned crab legs that turned out to be the best meal of either of our lives....we weren't mad when they weren't actually served in the bucket because we put them in there for a dang picutre!! Amazing!
Monday I had to work and let me tell you, I was a little worried about the Katie versus Boston movie that was about to unfold. I was either going to warn the ER at MGH or the coast guard of her arrival but hadn't decided on either prior to her successfully meeting me for lunch after she had ran about the city and made it back to the apartment to shower after stopping for coffee even! Wow she has grown folks! After lunch she then found her way to Boston commons to enjoy frog pond, with swan boats though, to CVS, and back the apartment again! What the heck, she is great ya know!! Our last night we got dolled up, strolled into the North End for some wonderful Itailan food and a few desserts from Mike's Pastry, fun picks below the Boston skyline and then passing out like the fat rat on Charlotte's Web after the night at the fair!
Tuesday was sad for many reasons, firstly because we had to awake at 4:15am, secondly because she was almost late for her plane anyway, and thirdly because she left! What an amazing trip for the both of us! Whirlwind of entertainment, traveling between 4 states it turned into being that she flew into RI. So if you were counting....we went from RI, to MA. MA to ME through NH, then back to NH for the evening. Then from NH to MA. Take that geography majors and world travelers!!! We did it, little to either of our imaginations that this would be possible at any points of our lives. God is great, gifts are major, rewards are sweet and traveling rules!!! Love ya you know Katie!!!
A movie recently watched quoted saying, "happiness is best when shared". I have been traveling nearly a year now and have had few chances to actually engage people in what I have experienced. I now had the great opportunity of entertaining another sister, Katie. Katie had just spent a week in Jackson Hole, WY with her boyfriend Matt and of course our parents, and now was traveling to Boston to see me. If any of you know Katie's vacation schedule or tolerance I should say, you wouldn't believe that our little Katie could withstand a 2 week adventure, but she did with great sustenance. Katie was to arrive on Thursday afternoon around 4:30pm to Boston however a slow start in Jackson Hole and a stalled engine in Chicago stranded her there. With quick thinking and our geographically trained brains, Katie was rerouted to Providence, RI arriving at 11pm that same evening. 1.5hr road trip for Becky and a little planned reorientation, I received Katie safe and sound.....not quite sane and sound :)
After a round about trip into Boston to avoid traffic, quick view of my amazing patio and photo sharing we hit the hay anxious for our weekend travels. Friday morning we awoke with a sprint, gathered our bags and headed out to Maine, not before getting coffee at Dunkin' Donuts for ourselves and the lovely concierge, Farrah. It seemed like an 80hr trip up to Portland, ME due to Katie's lack of enthusiasm for travel at this point and my anxiety to create the perfect trip but we made it. We barely remembered our sunscreen prior to sprinting, or running, OK jogging to the lighthouse that so many of you have only seen in photos. Cape Elizabeth of Fort Williams Park, Katie Anderson has arrived and you have never seen someone more excited to be there. We looked at her from all angles, the lighthouse that is, taking photos the best we could with our self timering skills. We then decided to rock climb a little down to the ocean! Beautiful, adventurous, and stupid considering I didn't know how to get back up! We eventually figured it out after jumping over a fence, a few local tourists greeted us with glee exclaiming that they had been watching us and were worried we wouldn't make it up out of the valley of rock and sea. After our adventures we found the perfect lookout for a quick picnic and last pictures before headed back into the truck.
From Portland we headed down to Kennebunk, ME of course to show Katie my "local" hangout and get some darn good seafood. As our late lunch was being prepared, I took the liberty to take Kate to the beach, spread out a blanket and soak up the sun on the shores of Maine. The phone rang when our lunch was almost ready and we headed back to the restaurant to sit outdoors on the patio and enjoy our baked stuff lobster and haddock ala dockside. When our bellies were full and Katie was convinced that I had been telling the truth about the food for the past 6months, we headed down to Portsmouth, NH for the evening and to stay the night. Portsmouth is a great "walking" town with small shops along the river, bordered by Kittery, ME. We had a fun evening of catching up and walkin' the streets!
Saturday we awoke and found Dunkin' Donuts yet again after the exciting continental breakfast of fruit loops and english muffins. I attempted to take Katie along a great route 1 up the coast line, but really it proved to be a futile attempt. You have to park or stop mostly and get out of the car to see the ocean, but you could smell it if you had the windows down! Come on people....I'm a tourist too remember!! We decided to hop onto the interstate in the interest of time and cruised onto the island of Cape Ann, MA. I pulled right up to the footpath to the Atlantic that I'm fairly convinced at this point that I'm the only one that knows about, and started down the pathway. Well the last time I was here, it was winter and there wasn't too much greenery....however now it was covered and surrounded with overgrown bush and thistles! Bad choice on the sandals and skirts, oops! We did make it to a great picnic spot after a little trespassing and some rock climbing again. Thank goodness Katie is very fit!!
What I didn't know about Cape Ann this weekend was that it was some sort of festival weekend. Stopped cars, packed beaches and long lines for restaurants. I am not used to any of this and did a lot of pointing and driving by with descriptions of how neat it would be if I had enough patience to find parking! Sorry Katie. We did manage to have a great lunch at Causeways by the marina with fried seafood and clam chowda'. It was all part of a plan I'm sure to hurry us back to Boston this afternoon because we needed a quick nap prior to our next adventure, whale watching!!
Katie was quite unsure about this event and had to do some hard visualization meditation to prepare for our whale watching tour out of the Boston Harbor. I had a friend of mine from work, Rachael join us just in case I needed some medical backup on the trip. We left the harbor in overcast skies taking in every scene, but quickly found a dry seat indoors for the 45min trip out to sea. When we first arrived at the whale watch site we were a little underwhelmed due to the distance away from the whales we were, however that was soon to change. We were on a catamaran, 3 level boat that had a gap in the front, or splint deck. Katie said at one point that it would be fairly neat to see a whale come up in the middle of the decks....well Katie, ask and you shall receive. At one point Katie looked over and said, "what is that under the water?", I said, "don't know looks like smoke or something......or a WHALE!" Holy crap the whale about hit the dang boat!! There were 2 whales that took turns coming up and diving sometimes together and then at the end, not together at all because one of them took a liking to our boat! After and hour and a half or so the announcer said that we had just sited our last whale and we should head back. Well the boat didn't move, neither did our intent to see just one more whale. Katie would describe it as a conversation between her and God, leading her to look out one side of the boat and viewing the most blessed event of the trip. A whale came right out of the side of the boat right under where we were standing in perfect swimming form, performing a great dive for the grand finale! The excitement can only be described as elation. Katie said that it was definitely worth the money she didn't spend on the trip!! :) I was just thankful that all of Katie's practicing of "whale talk" for the past 24hours had not only paid off, but had now come to an end!
Sunday we awoke to another awesome adventure of a segway tour. Those of you that aren't up to technology....these are the little standing, 2 wheeled scooter things that you see people riding with helmets and vests, sometimes mall cops. We had a great walk across the Charles river after stopping and grabbing a quick lunch at whole foods (whole paycheck) and finding our way into the Cambridge area. We were the only 2 people on the tour which proved to be great because we needed the extra attention of the 2 guides. We had a 2 hour tour that followed a 20min crash course, no pun intended. Helmets donned, about 20ft into the tour was our fist decline, Katie lost control and our first hubcap....ooops! We had a fun tour of west Boston crossing the river, circling Fenway, cruising through Boylston area, the green necklace parks, and some other stuff that I couldn't hear because we were cruising at about 14mi/hr on a mobile craft. It was a fun, funny, adventurous and successful trip without injury except the hubcap!
After our ride we managed to take the T (red line) to a shopping location and then navigate home for a nap! We then got dressed for Katie's only request of the whole entire trip, "Becky, I just want to eat a lot of crab legs out of a bucket!" Well let me tell you folks, this ain't easy around here. Crab legs aren't the most popular seafood around these parts but I hear that they are in Baltimore, MD. So besides chartering a plane I took a pole of every human being in the area for the past month and came up with a spot. We did have to navigate the transportation system once again and got a little off track, but thanks to my dad Steve's directional sense....we made it to the Summer Shack. So we sit down to eat and they do in fact have the crab legs and I do see red buckets at some of the tables. Katie then decides that they are too expensive being her practical self.....with reddened eyes and desperation I explain to Katie, "so help me, if I have found the only place on the east coast with crab legs and a bucket, get you here via public transport, and you don't order them.....I will cry! I'm buying, order the damn legs now, PLEASE dear sister!" So when she decided on the pan seared sherri, garlic and rosemary seasoned crab legs that turned out to be the best meal of either of our lives....we weren't mad when they weren't actually served in the bucket because we put them in there for a dang picutre!! Amazing!
Monday I had to work and let me tell you, I was a little worried about the Katie versus Boston movie that was about to unfold. I was either going to warn the ER at MGH or the coast guard of her arrival but hadn't decided on either prior to her successfully meeting me for lunch after she had ran about the city and made it back to the apartment to shower after stopping for coffee even! Wow she has grown folks! After lunch she then found her way to Boston commons to enjoy frog pond, with swan boats though, to CVS, and back the apartment again! What the heck, she is great ya know!! Our last night we got dolled up, strolled into the North End for some wonderful Itailan food and a few desserts from Mike's Pastry, fun picks below the Boston skyline and then passing out like the fat rat on Charlotte's Web after the night at the fair!
Tuesday was sad for many reasons, firstly because we had to awake at 4:15am, secondly because she was almost late for her plane anyway, and thirdly because she left! What an amazing trip for the both of us! Whirlwind of entertainment, traveling between 4 states it turned into being that she flew into RI. So if you were counting....we went from RI, to MA. MA to ME through NH, then back to NH for the evening. Then from NH to MA. Take that geography majors and world travelers!!! We did it, little to either of our imaginations that this would be possible at any points of our lives. God is great, gifts are major, rewards are sweet and traveling rules!!! Love ya you know Katie!!!
