Gloucester Report

We have just returned from a really great trip to Boston and Gloucester.  I decided that we'd treat ourselves to a nice weekend to celebrate our birthdays and this just so happened to coincide with a genealogy conference in Boston.  More on the conference later--great breakthrough achieved!

The conference was in Boston Saturday so we travelled there Friday night; found ourselves and Irish bar right near the hotel for dinner.  This place sat right smack on the water and had great food.  Jim spent the day loose in Boston while I conferenced.  He visited our nephew Drew at Boston University and found himself in an Obama rally.  He did find his way back to me though and we had a late lunch at the place next door to the Irish pub--and this place had the best wings I've had outside New York State EVER. 

Off to Gloucester.  Our Rockport hotel was right on the water with a big wide window open to the sea.  We left the windows open in the night to hear the surf against the shore throughout the nighttime.  The hotel provided a self guided auto tour of the area so we could find our way to the Eastern Point Lighthouse and Dogbar breakwater.  The guide states:  "If you are hardy and fleet of foot you can walk out to the end of the breakwater."  And even though at least one of us doesn't meet those guidelines, we did indeed walk out to the end.  It was a beautiful but windy day. 

I think some of you have been here, but we never have.  Then off we went to Halibut Point State Park--what a hidden treat that is (at least hidden from us!).  It's an old granite quarry that sits at the edge of the ocean.  So we became hardy and fleet of foot once again and dared the fates by setting the camera to auto timer so that I could dash across the boulders in time to have our picture taken together to mark the day

Oops!  The camera never lies, they say.....but we did get a pretty good picture at the Cape Ann Brewery (not everything required being windblown)

This should probably be our Christmas card!

We spent time with Tim, Emmy, Chris, Cathy and Julia.  We did not get to see Kevin or Peter but got adequately caught up on their adventures.  Everyone looks great.  Julia drew a picture of us very carefully noting the color of our clothing.  It's on our refrigerator.  She's going to be Minnie for Halloween and they are planning a Disney trip in the spring so I guess I did most of the talking during that conversation.  She's taking piano lessons and played a little bit on the keyboard for Jim.  She most definitely has Tim wrapped right around her little finger.  It was wonderful to see everyone and enjoy the splendors of fall and Cape Ann.