Back from vacation

Oh wait—we didn’t go on vacation, Brad and Kerry came here! But in a way, we were on vacation, too. Or I guess it’s called a stay-cation now. You see, we decided last year we would wait to see all the sights in Boston until we had visitors, figuring that we’ll end up seeing them multiple times.

In an amazing twist of luck, Kerry found a non-stop flight from Kansas City to Boston and so they got here at 10 AM Saturday morning. Once we dropped off their luggage, the sightseeing commenced. Kent used the map-my-run tool each day to figure out how far we walked: Saturday we did about five miles and Sunday was closer to six. Boston truly is the walking city.

Saturday we checked out the North End including Paul Revere’s house, had lunch at Joe’s, moved over to Faneuil Hall, toured Granary Burying Grounds, and then walked through Boston Common and Public Garden (home of the ducks) on our way home. We got ice cream at JP Licks (yummy) and were back at our house by 4:30. Then we had a cookout with some friends that night and it was just perfect weather, almost chilly but entirely clear.

Sunday we had brunch and then headed to Cambridge to check out Harvard and MIT. Harvard is by far prettier but both are worth seeing. By then we’d walked off most of our breakfast, which was a good thing. Brad watches a show called Man v. Food, and one episode featured a place called The Barking Crab. Brad wanted to have the same meal shown on that episode so we headed to the restaurant. This place was packed even in the middle of the afternoon on a Sunday. Nevertheless Brad got his challenge food and pretty much finished it. I personally was in awe and also figured he would be in a food coma for the rest of the day. That meal triggered the need to walk more so we walked the entire length of the Harbor Walk, all the way back to the North End. We hoped to get a good view of the Constitution but learned later that it was elsewhere getting repaired. By the way, we didn't eat dinner that night, we were too stuffed from our own food challenge.

Monday was miserably hot and humid, more like Kansas City weather than Boston. But it wasn’t raining so we still got out and toured Fenway. That was a pretty cool tour, and because we were there later in the day on a game day, we saw some Sox players warming up, along with some Detroit Tiger players. Monday night we took them to one of our favorite restaurants, Columbus Café, and afterward we joined them on the roof deck at their bed and breakfast, the Gilded Lily, for some more wine and good company. That was an absolutely delightful evening.

Tuesday we went on a duck tour—expensive but fun. I liked that a lot, and I think the tour does a good job of hitting the highlights as well as orienting folks to the geography in Boston.

Now they are back home and we are recovering from our stay-cation. I miss them and I’m so very glad they came here.