Salisbury Beach

Lizzie is feeling better and Arlington has been quite warm so we decided to head to the beach for the weekend.  We reserved a camping spot on Salisbury beach on the northern Massachusetts coast and took off.  The campground is in a nature reservation that includes a great sandy beach where the Merrimack River meets the ocean.









We spent a very relaxing Friday evening and Saturday, reading books,

walking along the beach,

biking to the nearby town of Salisbury,

watching sunrises and sunsets, and moon rises. 

It was a lovely and relaxing time.

46.7 miles; Salisbury State Reservation, MA

A day in Boston proper

The mechanics—find doggie day care and get there

Negotiate parking, bus to T, and T to Park Street

 Enjoy the Common on a beautiful day

Make way for ducklings and babies

People watch on Newbury Street

Be illuminated

And ponder career options

Don says "I could do that"

I ♥ Arlington

We have been here with Lizzie one week and it has been lovely. We don't do much of anything except walk the pups and eat well.

Puritan Divine

Boston Burger Co

Practicing Crew on Spy Pond

We have walked to a number of parks nearby, including a walk on the Minuteman bike trail to Spy Pond.

We went with Lizzie to get her stitches removed and met her doctor. A very nice man with impressive looking credentials. Lizzie asked if he had photos of her appendix or surgery and was told that she did not want to be medically interesting. Our friend Susan at age nine was given her appendix in a jar by her father, a doctor, after its removal. This would have appealed to Lizzie, but alas, no such luck.

Before

After

We also took the dogs to a vet to renew their health certificate so we can take them to Canada and return, although I have since discovered that the rabies certificate is all that was required. An expensive exercise.

Highlights of our stay so far have been a trip to Lexington and Concord. The Lexington Minuteman Park was open with reenactors showing how things were done during the Revolutionary War period;

Pups strangely drawn to cairn fence

making and eating excellent French bread in Lizzie's kitchen;

shopping at the local farmers' market

and enjoying the products of our trip: an heirloom tomato salad, burnt sugar corn, and marinated goat cheese and a chilled bottle of Grüner Veltliner on a hot summer's night.

No Niagara Falls

What we saw

This was our longest day—we drove into Lizzie’s at about 5 p.m.  We stopped only for coffee and to air the pets.  We did not do any sightseeing except out the window of the Tiger.   I looked up Seneca Falls on the I-phone and learned about the first convention to support the rights of women in 1848.  The declaration of the rights of women included such items as equal rights to the pulpit and to vote, radical ideas at that time.  Sadly, only one signer of this declaration lived to vote after the franchise was extended to women in 1920.  Although we missed a lot, it was great to see Lizzie (who is doing very well), and we were rewarded with a take-out dinner from Punjab—my favorite Indian restaurant.   

* miles; Arlington, Mass. 

On the road again

We hit the road again on September 16.  It was tough to say good-bye to Rose, Don’s mom, who had given us a wonderful break.  And immediately we had trouble with the storage unit on the roof.  Don stopped four times to climb up on the roof to try to identify and fix the problem—which turned out to be a couple of things.  We drove longer than usual but did take the opportunity to stop at Zingerman’s Deli in Ann Arbor, which must be the best deli on the continent.  It was quite a treat.

Sated, we drove until mid-evening, and stopped at a rest area in Vermilion, Ohio.   A number of roadside rests in Ohio are equipped for motorhomes.  They have electricity and a dumping station and the state charges $15 for one night, which is the permitted length of a stay.  It suited our needs perfectly and we stayed until 4:30 a.m., when we were able to start our day and drive with a Starbuck’s coffee.

376 miles; Vermilion roadside rest, N 41° 22.599’ W 82° 13.548

Interlochen

September 11-15  

In Interlochen and Traverse City, we visited with friends and family.  This is “DeYoung” country.  Dutch immigrants settled in northwest Michigan and you can see this ancestry in the garden sculpture—kissing figures with wooden shoes and miniature windmills are everywhere.  We also took the circle tour around the Leelanau Peninsula—a beautiful drive through small farms and vineyards and Lakes Michigan and Leelenau and Sleeping Bear Dunes.

The local produce is celebrated and the area attracts many visitors. There are many very good restaurants in this area.  We really enjoyed Patisserie Amie with a dear friend from my childhood.   


This charming restaurant’s motto is in French, which if I am correct means “tell me what you eat and I will tell you what will kill you.”  


Can this possibly be right?  [Emily, help me out here!]  

Don’s mom lives on a grass airstrip.   It no longer provides very many opportunities to view small planes (the residents are elderly and no longer do much flying).  

Don’s brother flew his RC 40% lifesize airplane for us on the airstrip. 

It is in the country and you can walk for miles along the airstrip and into the woods.
  

Boomer amid the dew dappled spider webs

Normally completely invisible, 

the sun on the dew drops shows them

We took the dogs and found a small turnip patch, which was obviously being enjoyed by the local wildlife, and a Lincoln Continental graveyard.  This wooded area is fairly remote and local residents have, apparently, taken advantage by abandoning old automobiles.  There must have been a dozen, all old land yachts from the 60’s.  And four of them—lined up nicely together—were identical Lincoln Continentals.