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Spring Break in Windy New England

Posted on Mar 16, 2011 by | 1 comment

Yale gave me a long 2 week spring break.  My new professor took a week of it, which was so good getting settled in lab and learning how to turn on the amplified laser system.  But since the entire lab took off for a conference I am currently in the middle of my real spring break week.  Jacob took off yesterday and Monday so that we could have a little vacation.

We started out Saturday, right after our water was shut off because the plumbing is all messed up around here so Mr. Rotorooter was trying to fix it.  Jacob wanted to stop at the Scout store in Hartford where we did some surprise geocaching and shopping.  Then we thought we would take a look around Springfield but once we got there decided it might be a good idea just to keep going. But we did stop in the Titanic museum.

The museum was in the back of a little general store. We learned a lot about the ship and its sister ships (the two built with the same design) and also the ship that helped save the survivors. There was also one lady who kept all her memorabilia on her person at all times so there were some neat letters and tickets also on display. Half the museum was devoted to movies about the wreck.

We stopped for the night outside of Boston at a castle-y hotel.  Sunday we set out for Boston to walk around. The city is beautiful, once we found our way off the highway; we were lost for a bit there.  But the park in the middle of town was wonderful.  Lovely statues and fountains and plenty of grass for the occassional game of frisbee, there was an ice skating rink, and tour guides in colonial garb.  We walked around enjoying the sights like the old state house and the state building, lots of beautiful churches and solemn cemeteries. The wind was inescapable so we hopped in the car and continued north, making it to Maine before sunset.

Sunday was Jacob’s birthday, we celebrated with a quiet stay at an adorable bed and breakfast in Portland and a cow-tongue reuben from Duckfat.  For his 26th birthday my lovely husband got a Nikon D7000 camera.  It sure is fancy schmancy, but a ball to take pictures with.

Monday morning we ran out to get some camera practice out by the nearby lighthouse.  We had the whole windy place to ourselves and it was a blast taking our time to get some good shots.  The lighthouse was built near some old military forts and along with helping ships into the city’s harbor alerted them to avoid the sandbar that was hidden near the shore.  It was quite a long walk out to the actual lighthouse but was a perfect place to play with Jacob’s telephoto lens.

Jacob surprised me with a stop at the Verizon store in Maine.  I got a new purple smartphone!  Finally, I’m up with the times with my email, calendar, and scriptures all in a smaller package than I’ve ever carried in my purse before.  It is so great, however I’ll have to figure out how to not spend all my time playing angry birds and checking facebook and my feeds.

This was both of our first times in Maine.  Jacob usually beats me to states, what a traveler, but we got to do this together.  In celebration of that and of the state we got some local lobster.  It was such an experience!  It was messy, and I was completely revolted by the eyes and bazillion legs, but I made it through the tail and a claw before throwing in the napkin.  It is funny how Jacob’s encouragement to try new foods has only been accepted since I got pregnant, I’m having a hard time deciding if it because my body is changing or my brain is like “you don’t want to baby to be allergic to X.”  But either way we’ve had fun trying new things and even introducing some of it into our normal routine, like omelettes and green peppers (I’ve always hated eggs!).

Before we left Maine we had to see a moose.  We felt so wildernessy up there with some geocaching and a trip to the L.L. Bean flagship store, but nothing screams wild like meese, am I right?  So since we stayed a few days and weren’t lucky enough to see one we had to make our own encounter so we stopped by a chocolate store with a chocolate moose.  It was pretty big for being something edible and the snacks acquired at the shoppe were great for the long drive home.

Thanks for the awesome, relaxing vacay Hunny Bun!

1 Comment

  1. Fun Trip! So glad you got to have some fun on your spring break!

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