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From Away to Down East and Back Again

Al, Austen, and I just returned from a lovely road trip to Maine. We took our time (a trick I learned when Austen and I traveled alone to Maine in November), spending a night in Springfield, Mass on the way up and one in Norwood, Mass (near my best friend Sandra's place in Canton) on the way back.

We watched a bunch of Red Sox games ("behball" is now part of Austen's vocabulary) on NESN, got to spend some quality time with Val, ate great seafood, walked the Eastern Prom Trail, hiked on Mackworth Island, rode in a narrow gauge railroad car, visited two lighthouses, explored the Old Port, and still had plenty of time for naps and relaxing and swimming in the hotel pools. Oh! And on our first night in Maine, Val and Matthew cooked us an awesome dinner of grilled salmon, dilly beans, amazing potato salad, shrimp and brown rice pasta salad, and a really neat coconut milk ice cream. I have already bought some brown rice pasta so I can try out the shrimp salad at home (it was a simple preparation with a bit of sesame oil and garlic oil), and I need to get Val to send me the potato salad and dilly bean recipes. (Al was dreaming about the potato salad on the way home.)

A few photos from our trip are up on Flickr now, but I still have a bunch more to post, so stay tuned. I'm already missing Val (and probably will even more when I head out for my morning walk alone tomorrow), and I'm wishing Sandra, Austen, and I could've spent more time at Millenium Park in West Roxbury (man, that park is gorgeous—and HUGE!), but I'm also glad to be home. Everything about this vacation turned out great, from the planned Monday departure and Saturday return (so we'd have a couple days to chill out at home before and after the trip) to the unplanned minivan rental and hotel stay in Old Port. What a fun week!