Boston, November 2021

With Barb getting a federal holiday, we used this weekend for an early Thanksgiving visit to Boston to see Allie and Perri.

November 11

Happy Veteran’s Day! We got a little bit of a late start driving north as we waited for Manny to finish his morning bowl of wet food. For the next three days he will get by with dry food from neighbor Mark until our return Sunday evening…all in anticipation of his dental surgery next week.

The drive itself was uneventful. Google routed us through New York via the GW Bridge and the Cross-County Parkway — my least favorite route but evidently the fastest based on traffic, which admittedly was fairly light. We left a little after 10am and arrived in Boston by 6pm, very much par for our course.

We got ourselves settled into the guest apartment and then spent some time with Allie and Perri while we waited for our 9:15pm dinner reservation. Allie had snagged the reservation at Contessa, a new rooftop Italian restaurant overlooking the Common. Allie wanted to try it since it opened to great reviews earlier this year. It turned out to be excellent. We started with complimentary bread and olives with chunks of aged Parmesan swimming in a balsamic dipping plate. Yum! Allie and I shared a grilled octopus appetizer that was done as well as I’ve ever had grilled octopus. We all shared two freshly-made pastas, one a simple fusilli with pesto, the other the restaurant’s signature capellini with spicy lobster sauce (mild, at Barb’s insistence). Both were wonderful. So was the grilled bronzino that Allie and I shared. Barb had a veal milanese that was something of a disappointment for her — rather than thinly pounded veal this was more of a breaded veal chop. She didn’t finish it and Allie was happy to take it home for a future dinner with noodles. Allie and I shared a pistachio gelato that was nearly as good as one we had in San Sebastian. Barb ordered a lemon sorbet that was way too tart, even for me. In sum, Allie and I had a 5-star excellent meal; Barb’s was a notch below though she really loved the lobster capellini. It was easily the best Italian meal we’ve had in Boston, and the most expensive but a good treat. Our early Thanksgiving.

Allie got a call earlier in the day from Kristen Embrey who popped up in Boston for a wedding. It would have been nice to know ahead of time, but it worked out to arrange meeting her for breakfast the next day.

November 12

Kristen took the commuter train to South Station and we met at 9am at the Tatte near the station, a conveniently short walk for us in the drizzly rain. We had a nice breakfast together, catching up on the Denver Embreys, especially Emmy.

Our main activity for the day was to drive to the north shore of Massachusetts and come down the Essex Coastal Scenic Byway. The weather, however, was very uncooperative: very rainy and windy. When it wasn’t raining too hard, we enjoyed seeing what was left of the autumn leaves and wandering a little bit in the small towns along the way, particularly Newburyport. 

I aimed for the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge, thinking it would be somewhat like the Blackwater Wildlife Refuge in Cambridge, Maryland, one of my favorite spots. The Parker Refuge was a seashore and marsh reserve, almost entirely empty on this nasty day. The small visitor center was closed; we drove the six-mile road and only saw some ducks trying to shelter on a pond from the 50-mph winds. I took a short boardwalk to see the ocean just as a squall of rain attacked. I stayed for a minute to watch the roiling waves on the sandblasted beach before hustling back to the car. It was far from ideal, but the girls stayed warm and dry in the car.

We then headed south on the scenic byway toward the Ipswich Clambake restaurant. We were the only customers throughout our mid-afternoon meal of clam chowder, fried clamstrips, fish and chips and onion rings. It was maybe the most unhealthy mound of food I’ve eaten in a long time, but it was freshly made, hot and pretty darn tasty. I made the sacrifice of squeezing lemon juice rather than the several tablespoons of salt I would have liked to pour over everything. We polished off everything except for a few fries, then waddled back to the car.  

With the rain still pouring and the light fading, we decided to head back to Allie’s apartment. It took about an hour from Ipswich in traffic, especially once we got close to Boston. Not a pleasant drive, but pretty much what we bargained for. It was an interesting little outing and it got Allie out of her apartment for the first time in a while. She and I had a good time chatting the whole way while Barb was in the back seat, reading or napping.

Among other things, we made tentative plans for upcoming travel. I will try to put together a winter break for us in the Keys (rather than Aruba, it seems) toward the end of January. Allie wants to go to Denver in April for Emmy’s birthday (more or less) and would like me to come. She has some other jaunts in mind later in the year. I need to get a better handle on them.

We got back to Allie’s apartment, far too stuffed to think about dinner. We settled in for a Ted Lasso marathon, finishing off the last several episodes of the second season Barb and I hadn’t seen. They were OK at best; the show seems to be working its way through a three-season narrative arc and this was the dip in the middle, more or less. We hope the final season redeems itself, whenever that is.

November 13

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I woke up early after a not-very-restful night. Maybe too much fried food topped off with too much whisky while watching TV the previous night? Barb put in an hour of aerobics over Zoom — good for her. I sat and started this journal entry. The girls went to a nice Four Seasons tea at 11am. I decided to try the bahn mi place across the street from Allie’s and had a tasty sandwich and cha gio spring rolls back in our apartment. 

While they were at tea, I researched our trip to the Keys (and comparison shopped against a trip to Aruba, the Virgin Islands or Puerto Rico). It turns out there are multiple festivals and events going on in Key West that week, driving up hotel prices and limiting availability. Rather than spend a week in either Key West or Marathon, I decided to split the difference: two nights in Key West so we could get some good food and see the sights, and three nights at a nice resort in Marathon where hopefully the girls can get some sun. I decided that flying to Key West was easier than going to Miami and renting a car. I went ahead and made hotel reservations at Tranquility Bay in Marathon and the Havana Cabana in Key West.

The ladies returned with some nice leftover sweets. They were very happy with the tea, the best they’ve found in Boston so far, though they got ripped off with Champagne when Barb could have opted out. Instead, Allie drank for two which may explain why she was sleepy in the afternoon. We hung out with Perri in Allie’s apartment and watched Come From Away, the Broadway production about events in Gander, Newfoundland on 9/11. Barb and I enjoyed it while Allie napped.

We had early dinner reservations at Bostonia Public House which was relatively close to Allie’s, though we ubered there because of a thunderstorm. The pub/restaurant was packed and very loud when we walked in and we were given a booth near the noisy bar. I asked if we could move but there was nothing else available. So much for Covid protocols. We rather quickly moved our way through dinner: vongole for me, mussels for Allie, a burger for Barb. Allie and I shared poutine tater tots as an appetizer, a gooey bomb of flavorful unhealthiness. Allie wanted it and I couldn’t resist.

The meal was decent but we got out of the restaurant as quickly as we could. The rain cleared so we walked back to Allie’s apartment and shared the leftover sweets from tea as we watched Great British Baking episodes. It all seemed appropriate. 

Allie and Barb retired before Saturday Night Live even though one of Allie’s favorites, Taylor Swift, was the musical guest. Allie was aflutter that Taylor had just released the remake of her Red album featuring a 10-minute version of the breakup song, “All Too Well”. Allie had us watch the video which had just dropped and filled us in on the backstory of Taylor’s short-lived fling with Jake Gyllenhall. Much tempest over a teapot of a song. Taylor did the full 10-minute version on SNL to rapturous applause and squeals. I wasn’t impressed.

November 14

Our getaway day was normal, with final goodbyes to Allie and Perri and then the regular 8-hour drive home, via Tappan Zee. Manny was very happy to see us when we got home.

This was, deliberately, a short trip to substitute for any of us traveling on Thanksgiving weekend. It was great to see Allie and Perri, and to bump into Kristen unexpectedly. We’re already looking forward to fetching Allie and Perri in December to stay with us for a few weeks over Christmas and New Year’s. And now we’ll see her again in January in the Keys.