Friday, August 7, 2015

Boston!

We made it to Boston!  We took the bus back to the South Station and transferred to the train.
 Lots of cobble stone streets and sidewalks.
 Lobster as fast food?  I guess so.


 My nephew, Andrew, lives right outside of Boston, so OF COURSE, we had to connect.
He met us for dinner on Friday night.
 One of the first places we sought out was...
 ... Georgetown Cupcakes!
 Poor Tiffany.  I asked her to stand by Tiffany & Co. for a picture.  
How do you pass this up?  What a good sport.
 Tonight's dinner was a cheese steak sandwich and salad.
The next day, we stopped at a David's Tea for drinks and visiting.
You can see our group has grown.  
Kendall and Stella - who went to school with Tiffany 
and Kimmy - just happen to live in Boston and they were such wonderful tour guides.
So we had Kendall and Stella, and Andrew with us all day.
 Drinks for everyone.
 We walked around Boston and stopped for lunch at Saus.
The clerk at David's Tea suggested it, so we went since it was new to everyone in our group.
They serve Poutine which I never would have tried, if not for Kate.
She was so happy Poutine was on the menu.  She knew exactly what she wanted.
French fries, fresh mozzarella, brown gravy and shredded beef.
 They were so good - As you can tell by the empty carton. We split an order which was perfect.
On our continued walk, we went through a local vegetable market.
 Still walking, we purposely headed toward Mike's Pastry known for it's cannolis.
 They made every flavor you could imagine.
 This is a view from taken while walking through Harvard Square.
 There were street performers all over.  
This lady played the sides of bowls (with water) like you would run
your finger around the rim of a glass.
You can see she had someone turn the crank while she played.
We really enjoyed watching her, it was definitely unique.

More of Boston to come.

Thursday, August 6, 2015

Cape Cod, Continued...

Another thing we did was walk a wild life preserve.  If you look close, you can see the small starfish.
The mossy looking thing in the middle of the picture is actually a horse shoe crab.  
Here they are - the hydrangeas!  They were all over the Cape.
We stopped at this roadside stand of salt water taffy.  We each brought a small bag home to share with our friends.  Salt water taffy was also prevalent at the Cape.
I'm not sure if there was a competition going on, but there were some amazing sand castles all over.  Each little town had a display.
Of course, a day couldn't go by without a cupcake!
This is the view from the top of Scarga tower.
And this is Scarga tower.  Given to the city of Dennis on behalf of the Scarga family.
We did simple things like visit book stores.
 Tomorrow?  Boston!



Wednesday, August 5, 2015

More of Cape Cod...

One thing I really enjoyed about Cape Cod was ALL OF THE FLOWERS!  Hydrangeas were everywhere!  For some reason, I only took one picture of the hydrangeas, which I will get to later.  Flower boxes were prevalent and I LOVED them.
Another day we walked the Cedar Swamp Trail, which was literally just that - a boardwalk around a swamp.  It was interesting but we did get chewed up by mosquitos.  So much so, one of us turned back.
We caught this big fish right off of Provincetown - Okay, we didn't.  But it was a great photo op.
We noticed that a few places weren't "closed."  They were "shut."
Another view of the osprey - this time feeding on a fish.  I know - it's hard to see, but it really was happening.
Tawny is very crafty and thought we might want to bead bracelets - so that's exactly what she and I did one night.  We really had a nice time.


One thing we all agreed upon was trying almost every ice cream shop and cup cake shop on our route.  Sometimes we even went out of our way to find those places.  My favorite was the Sundae School Ice Cream Shop in Harwich.  It was amazing.
I got a four-scoop sampler. Very, very yummy!  We all shared our ice cream so we could taste more that way.
Tiffany, Kimmy, Megan, and Kate - all very happy after finishing our ice cream.
Jean and Tawny - also very happy.  You can see most of us were wearing jackets.  The weather was absolutely beautiful!  I think the highest was 73 degrees.  One day was cloudy and hit about 69 degrees.
We went up this lighthouse.  I didn't count the steps - I forgot to do that.  You can see it's not that tall.  And the crow's nest was really hot, no ventilation.
This photo was taken at the bottom of the lighthouse, looking straight up. This particular lighthouse was maintained by the Coast Guard.
At the beach, I was somewhat taken aback when the "Caution" sign indicated you should watch out for sharks.  You might remember, though, that there was a shark attack at Chatham Beach earlier this summer.
Chatham was another nice community and evidently somewhat proud of the Great White Sharks.
More flower boxes.  So pretty.
We had lunch this day at the Lazy Lobster.  We found that lobster rolls, which are very popular, go for about $15 to $24 each.  McDonalds even had them on their menu.
Waiting for our food... Kimmy, Tiffany, Tawny, Megan, and Kate.
Tiff and I split the fish and chips.
 Not done yet.  Still more pictures to come.

Monday, August 3, 2015

Our Mother-Daughter Trip to Cape Cod

We arrived at the airport at 4:30 - that was AM, raring to go... with smiles on our faces:  Kate, Kim, Jean, Tawny, and Tiffany.  This was a Mother-Daughter trip to the Cape and Boston planned by Kimmy and Tiffany.  Two moms and four daughters, 6 total.  Tiffany's sister, Megan, flew in from Denver and met us in Boston.  The rest of us started out in Phoenix.
Flying into Boston...
Love the housing!
We took a bus from Boston Logan Airport down to the Hyannis Bus Station.  We drove through this tunnel, which seemed very, very long.
We arrive in South Yarmouth at Riverview Resort - this view is from the back deck overlooking Parkers River.
Our first meal just had to be seafood - Tiffany was the first one to dig right in by ordering lobster.  it looks like it is hugging the dish of melted butter.
At the resort, on the top of the lighthouse, is an osprey nest - a mama and her baby.
The Veschios on the left - and the Bradsher girls on the right.
On the first day, we walked to the beach.
I don't know why, but I love seagulls.  I don't want to touch them or get close, but I like to watch them - and photograph them.  (I have no clue who the guy is in the background.)
We stopped at a Trader Joe's - fun pic of Kate and Kim.
We stopped for ice cream, more than once.  This was just the first of many stops.
Kimmy and Tiffany...
We are all interested in oils and/or herbs, so we found a lavender farm that we could tour.
Inside the lavender is drying...
and such a cute little cottage on the outside.
The whole outside wall housed birdhouses - again, not sure why, but I really like them.
These ladies are picking the lavender.  It looks like a tedious job.
One of the first places we went to was Provincetown, the very tip of the Cape.  We really had a wonderful time - a lot of walking and shopping.  We came across Scottcakes - a cupcake shop.  They bake only one kind of cupcake:  yellow cake with butter cream frosting.  I have to say it was probably one of the best - if not THE best - cupcakes I have ever eaten.  Really tasty.
We stopped for lunch at The Canteen and the meal was SO good!  We ate outside where we could see  the ocean from our table/bench.  I think this was my favorite meal on our trip.
Just a shot of a walkway - it really caught my eye.
More tomorrow!