I had considered doing my regular day-by-day blogposting of my most recent trip, but as it was a return to New England, which I have now been compelled to travel to three times in a row, I elected to do one singular post detailing my escapades. Compelled is perhaps a strong word, but each trip has been necessitated by specific events. In October of last year my brother's wedding happened in Salem, CT and, of course, Jess and I flew up for that, as well as the bachelorette party in Maine. On those trips the only activities we participated in were wedding related and therefore I did not type anything up for those travels. In July of this year my grandfather's funeral was held in Connecticut so we flew up to attend but then slingshotted over to Colorado to visit two friends who live there. I did not record anything really of the funeral but I did detail some of the visits with local friends and then, as you can see from previous posts, I did record our time in Colorado. This third trip up to the area was to attend the wedding of one of our oldest and dearest friends, Amy. We decided this time to try and find some interesting things to do in the area to make the best use of this trip and while the things we did were rather fun, they were also not really enough to fill multiple blog posts. Instead, I have written this.
I don't think Jess and I had ever set aside an entire day for just travel, but simply because we wanted to, we did for this trip. We took the entire Friday off even though our flight was at 8:10pm so we could wake up late, relax, and get everything ready for our trip. I was up before Jess and threw on Kiki's Delivery Service to inspire me to think of this trip as fun and exciting to try and ward off my usual pre-travel nerves. We lounged about casually getting everything set until 4pm when we finally began the drive to WallyPark, our favourite place to leave our car when traveling.
I will be the first to admit that I am a bad driver. I have, thus far, not been involved in anything major, but that doesn't mean I haven't been a major nuisance on the road to everyone who has had the displeasure of driving on the Florida roads at the same time as me. Now, any trip into Orlando is usually bad for me, but this time I had to rely on Jessica to tell me when I could merge on the right as our car's right-side mirror is shattered which made things messier than usual. As is apt to happen on the road, we discovered too late that I was in the far left lane when our exit was coming up on the far right. I had made it over three lanes when our exit came up hot. I was being closely tailed by a blue car and was side-by-side on the right by a white truck. I slowed down to try to merge after the white car but the blue car behind me didn't slow down and I was worried it was gonna rear end me if I didn't keep the speed limit, so I decided to just slide into that weird middle triangle between exits to let the white truck pass then merge in. As I was going towards it Jess suddenly yelled "Cut him off!" She had meant 'cut off the car behind the white truck' which, if I had slowed down enough, I would have been able to slip in between. I couldn't see that car though, because the right-side mirror is broken, and interpreted her words to mean 'cut off the white truck'. I slammed on the gas, skidded over the triangle thing, and basically made two 90 degree turns, first right, the left, to get onto the exit. The truck behind us, rightly, fully leaned on his horn as we narrowly avoided being t-boned into the cement partitions by him and carried on down the exit.
There was a debate at this point as Jess and I both claimed the other was at fault for this near-miss. We both eventually agreed this was a mutual screw-up, as I should not have cut in front of the truck no matter what the passenger said, but also that she should not have yelled "cut him off" without context. There is a parallel universe version of us who ended their vacation then and there to deal with an ugly accident. But not this universe! We did indeed make it to Wally Park, and from there to the airport via shuttle, and from there we got our Jersey Mike subs and boarded our non-stop flight to Bradley International Airport, then called the 24/7 shuttle to our Hilton Garden Inn! We ate one Jersey Mike sub before take-off, and saved the other for when we got to the hotel as our dinner, a very good idea we decided as we ate it while watching House Hunters on HGTV.
November 4th: The Wedding!Our friend, Alex (hi!), had offered to pick us up from our hotel at 9:45am so we could all drive to the church so I was up around 8:30am to get myself dressed and ready. Jess was up a little afterwards, but she has less hair to wrangle so she got to sleep in later as a result of her permanent style choices. My hair was harder to manage than usual as I had attached my press-on nails the day before and they kept snagging and tangling my hair as I tried to put it up. I elected to just put it in a high-top ponytail and call it a day. We both got dressed in the pre-requested purple attire and packed up what little we had unpacked before Alex arrived to whisk us away. We discovered at the front desk that as a gold Hilton Honors member Jess got a $10 breakfast credit good for the suite shop, all of which was also half-off to all team members regardless of where they worked. So, we grabbed an iced caramel cappuccino, a Naked Berry Blast, and a Lunchables and headed out!
Our hotel was 15 minutes from the church where the wedding and reception were so it was a quick drive and we were there by just before 10am. We made Alex open his trunk twice to put things in there, and unlock his car twice to use his mirrors and retrieve items, so we really put him through the ringer as far as things went! We finally, makeup done and drinks retrieved, went into the church and suddenly became concerned we were in the wrong place as there was no signage dictating that a wedding was happening and also no one in the church looked like people we knew. But then we saw Amy's father and figured this had to be the right place. He chatted with us for a few minutes as we went into a pew and then Jess began figuring out how best to call in Dave. Our friend Dave discovered just a day before the wedding that he has Covid and couldn't make it, so Jess and I, though really Jess, was put on FaceTime duty. Jess tried to call at around 10:25am and Dave messaged: What's happening? to which Jess replied: Amy's wedding? and Dave seemed to remember through his TheraFlu fog what was happening that day.
After a little technical sorting he was set and ready and around 10:45am the wedding officially began! Lovely ceremony, very Catholic, and Amy looked beautiful in her gown, which our friend and the maid of honor, Adri, had spent the rehearsal dinner tailoring and altering. The ceremony was, as the invitation promised, only a half-hour or so long and we were all out and taking the short walk around the building to the reception room around 11:15am. In there Jess, Alex, and I were directed to Table 3 where we were seated with another couple who were friends of Amy. They were sweet and nice and we probably seemed clinically insane to the two of them as we recounted the aforementioned tale of our drive to the airport, among others, but it got a laugh from them so at least they thought we were funny!
The reception served a buffet brunch and while most of the food, the pancakes and scrambled eggs and fruit, were from a caterer, someone had brought a tray of spring rolls that were AMAZING and Jess and I each had like four of them. I also had a lot of fruit because fresh fruit is expensive and my body could definitely use more in it. There were only two speeches, given by the best man and maid of honor, and both were quite short which was excellent! They did their speeches, we toasted the couple with mimosas, and continued with the festivities! There was a congo-line-photo-moment where everyone lined up to get a silly photo taken, in turn, behind the bride and groom. Jess, Alex, and I did a Secret Service photo which we thought was quite funny. There was also Fuji Film Instant Camera (a newfangled Polaroid basically) on a table to create a Photo Guest Book so everyone could take pictures of themselves or whatever and clip it to a provided frame. Jess, Adri, and I took a number of increasingly silly photos and had a lovely time with the thing. There wasn't a huge space for dancing but people did get up every so often for a song or two. Jess and I were the only ones who got up for the Cupid Shuffle which is just sacrilege but perhaps New England isn't as familiar with that dance as Florida is?
The reception went until 3pm and while Alex had to leave around 2 o'clock, Jess and I stayed until the end as we had asked Adri for a ride into Massachusetts with her when she drove back to Salem. We would have stayed until the end anyway though, as that's who we are. We drove back to Amy's house with Adri and Amy so they could drop off Amy and some of the wedding things that needed to be at her place. We stayed there for a bit as Amy showed us progress on the house and Jess booked us a hotel in Peabody, which was en route to Adri's house in Salem. We left after an hour or so of hanging out there and began the hour and a half-ish drive to Peabody/Salem. Adri stopped for Burger King on the way back, which we paid for to thank her for driving us, and she had us listen to the Dungeons and D.A.D.D.I.E.S. podcast as she drove us, which was quite funny and we all had a good time on the journey! We arrived at our hotel and were checked in by the most goth looking goth of all time, rock on babe, and went to our room to clean up, and pass out to National Treasure as it played on FX.
We had several ideas of things to do with our Sunday but they either fell through or just didn't make sense for a number of reasons. So, we decided to make it a semi-rest day with little on the to-do list but recover from the wedding and prepare emotionally for the rest of our vacation. I got up freakishly early, then remembered day-light savings had just ended so what was actually 7am was, to me, 8am. I took a nice, long, luxurious, someone-else's-water-bill shower, and went downstairs for my free Hampton Inn breakfast! It was CRAZY busy down there, some kind of cheer team was checking out, so everything was madness. My heart went out to those breakfast attendants. Jess joined me about 20 minutes after I had gone down and we had a nice breakfast then returned to the room to watch Sing and Hailey's On It before heading out for our activity for the day.
Jess had found a lovely graveyard nearby that she wanted to check out and we wanted to pick up some alcohol to drink during our evening in so we bundled up and began the walk to the Puritan Cemetery. Getting across the highway was the hardest part, but the walk was only about a mile and the weather was good so we had a lovely time getting there and a wonderful jaunt about the cemetery! It's basically a park with graves and we found a willow tree that was just perfect for climbing so of course we had to stop and do that for a bit! There's nothing Jess or I enjoy more than an excuse to take a walk and have a chat so we had the best possible time as we went up and down paths in this enormous cemetery. It was a perfectly delightful way to spend an afternoon!
On the way out we went down the street a little more to check if the Shell gas station had any alcohol but it didn't and there was no means of crossing the street to get to the 7/11 directly on the other side besides going back up the way we came and crossing at that light, so that we did! We walked back up, around, and down only to discover the 7/11 doesn't sell alcohol. We bought a bag of chocolate covered pretzels and found a packie about a half mile further down via Google Maps, so we were off again! Donovan's did not sell FourLokos, which we had initially been looking for, but under some boxes we discovered a full variety pack of Spiked Dunkin' Coffee! So we got that and three bottles of nips to use with the full bottle of Sprite we'd gotten at the end of Amy's reception. While purchasing them we, naturally, had to present ID, as Jess and I both look 16, but the guy stared at them for a good long while longer than usual. I thought it was because they're Florida ID's and maybe he didn't know how to check if those are fake or not, but instead he said "Did you just hand me two of the same ID's?" Jess and I both gave a laugh as Jess pulled off her glasses and we said, as always, in unison, "Oh, we're twins!" That got a laugh from the clerk as well as he realized there was a difference on the ID's: One said Jennifer and the other said Jessica.
We then proceeded to carry our 12-can variety pack of alcohol the mile back to the hotel and discussed our dinner plans. There was a pizza place right next to the hotel so we decided to order a pizza each from there, pick it up, and then watch A Haunting in Venice which just hit Hulu on Halloween. We dropped off our stuff, ordered our pizza, then headed our once more to collect it before settling in for the night. We both enjoyed our pizza and generally enjoyed A Haunting in Venice, even though it strayed almost entirely from Hallowe'en Party. Afterwards we were pooped and ready to sleep even though it was only 8pm so we found Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle playing on TV and put that on as we fell asleep.
November 6th: Lizzie BordenThere had been a plan for this day to take a series of buses and metros and trains to get from Peabody to Fall River but we decided our time was more valuable than our money and decided to just pay for a Lyft to take us all the way down. It just didn't make sense to lose all that time on our vacation getting from one place to another, it was worth the money to get there in one hour and 12 minutes. We were up, dressed, and ready to go by 10am but we hung around in our room eating the last of our food that we couldn't take with us and watching Hook on TV until check-out time at 11am. We ended up forgetting our Naked Berry Blast, which we still hadn't drunk, in the fridge and I was forced to make the front desk agent cut me a new key to run back up while we waited for our Lyft to arrive.
By 11:15am our Lyft had arrived and we were on the road and we could not have had a better experience! Guy showed up, loaded our two bags into the trunk, and we climbed into the car for a fully silent experience. It was luxurious, the best ride of my life. Not a word, just silence and a smooth ride. We tipped him $20, he was amazing. He brought us right to the cafe we'd asked to get dropped off at as check-in for the Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast where we had selected to stay for the night didn't start until 5pm and it was only 12:40pm-ish by the time we arrived. We somehow missed the storefront for the cafe, however, and ended up wandering up the street a while before deciding to check Google Maps and discovered we'd just taken a little walk for no reason! The cafe, Choco-Latte Cafe, was AMAZING! Super cute! It was such a nice, cozy, comfy little spot with amazing food and coffee! We got one Maple Cinnamon coffee, mozzo-sticks, and then a Brownie Toffee coffee for the walk ahead. We stayed there for about an hour and a half, chatting with the owner who was awesome and some of the baristas and then began the mile or so walk to the Oak Grove Cemetery.
We had to haul our suitcases with us, but we pack light so even with the 11 remaining Spiked Dunkin's in our suitcases they weren't so much trouble. The walk was a pretty steep uphill but we're good walkers so we had a good chat as we went up and turned towards the cemetery. As we entered Jess pulled up Google Maps to help us find Lizzie Borden's grave and it led us to the right side so that's where we went. As we were walking a cemetery employee pulled up to us and asked if we'd parked on the right side of the cemetery as they were shutting and locking those gates. We said no, we'd come through the front and we're just looking around. He then, nonchalantly, asked "You here to see Lizzie?". He said it like she was an old friend people came to visit and not a grave of a potential ax murderer. Jess and I gave a laugh and said yes, we were indeed there to see Lizzie! Then he went "Why didn't you follow the arrows?" and told us there are spray painted arrows on the road directing visitors to Lizzie Borden's grave and they take visitors to the left as opposed to where Google directed us. The employee was great though and pointed us in the right direction from where we were and off we went! And we found it! Lots of folks seem to leave items for Lizzie, and some for Emma too, who is buried beside her. There were flowers, cigars, coins, glass pebbles, a bottle of fireball whiskey, bracelets, and more. It's a rather small grave, but it does the job as well as any!
We then tried to locate Eliza Borden's grave and had a devil of a time looking for it. We think we found it but there are so many Borden's and even though Google Map's claimed to know where it was we still aren't sure we found the correct Eliza Borden. But, we found a lot of interesting graves and names as we wandered the cemetery. The sun was starting to set by then and the graveyard closes at dusk so we trotted off back the way we came and decided to stop into the Dunkin' Donuts we'd passed to a bathroom break and a quick bite to eat. By then it was 4:20pm so we started the remaining walk to the Lizzie Borden house. We arrived just as it was getting dark and headed in. We took a bit to figure out the keycode but we made it happen! We arrived just as some kind of tour was finishing up, I imagine the last of the day, and we brought our stuff up to the third floor Bridget Sullivan room where we were to stay! The family staying in the Lizzie and Emma suite came up to check out the attic and popped their head into our room and were initially embarrassed to have intruded but I told them come on in, look around! We were just relaxing for a second after our travels and they were free to have a peek at the room!
We dropped off our stuff then popped over to the gift shop where Jess bought a pair of hatchet earrings and we had a chat with the employees about the house. They discussed some of the legends and traditions of the house, which includes guests on the third floor reading a children's book to appease a pair of ghost children who inhabit the attic. The three of them were very friendly and interesting and it was cool to hear them talk about the house and what they knew of it. From there we decided to walk down the street two blocks and get dinner at the Fall River Grill as we had been told by Alex that we had to get Portuguese food while in Fall River. And the food was good! We ate pretty quickly, cause we were pretty hungry from all the walking but also because the food was good! Our waitress even gave us extra bread to take home with us so that was cool! The restaurant was pretty slow, as it was a Monday evening, but right after we placed our order, who should we see enter but the other family we had just seen at the Lizzie Borden house! Seems we all had the same thought!
Back at the house we did some exploring, checking out the kitchen, dining room, living room, and parlor before taking a quick peek at the second floor rooms which were booked for the evening but which no one had checked into yet. Technically we knew someone was checked into the Lizzie and Emma suite but they had left the doors open and we knew they were at dinner so we took a quick look about. Up in our room Jess and I took turns taking showers in the shared third floor bathroom because it seemed fun to use the shower in a haunted house, and then got changed into our jammies to settle in for the evening! We kept our door open for some time so anyone else checking in looking to meander the halls could see the whole third floor, but also so we could see who was coming up the stairs because while neither of us really believe in tangible ghosts, we do both spook easily. Me more than her.
We got settled in and relaxed for a bit, Jess reading her Eye of the World book that she brought while I did some typing on my tablet. Around 10pm we decided to check out the place at night and found two other guests wandering about as we apparently all had the same idea! It looked pretty much the same as it had earlier in the day, but it was still cool to feel like we were about to spend the night in a museum! After having our fill of exploration we trotted back upstairs to get ready for bed. It's supposed to be tradition to read a children's books to the ghost kids on the third floor, but we figured they'd like to watch an episode of Scooby-Doo and Guess Who better. Mostly because that's what we wanted to do before going to bed in a haunted house. But they were welcome to join us! We kept episodes playing on my tablet until about 1am when I finally shut it off.
Neither of us slept super great. Power of suggestion probably had us alert for any sounds or sensations (like the toe-pulling we were warned about) so it wasn't a particularly restful sleep. At one point I heard a clicking sound and instantly wondered why I hadn't checked reviews to see if anyone had seen bugs or rodents, as are want to inhabit old houses, but it turned out to be just Jessica clicking her fingernails together. Not on purpose to spook me she just does that out of habit. But then once I got thinking about bugs all I could feel was itchy because I have that kind of paranoia and by the time I settled myself to there being no bugs and no cause for concern it was already the early morning hours.
November 7th: Salem DayI had set one alarm for 7:30am and one for 8am so I could get up at 7:30 and be dressed and ready for breakfast by 8am. For how little sleep we got neither Jess nor I were groggy at all. We'd gotten good night's sleeps all the while leading up to that morning so it made sense that were were preemptively well-rested enough to handle one bad night's sleep. I was up before Jess, as always, but we were both dressed and ready for our breakfast in no time and headed down. In the kitchen we could hear voices, we assumed the breakfast staff, but they were talking kind of weird. We couldn't hear what they were saying as we came down the stairs but it was a stuttered speech, like they were listening for something. We appeared in the kitchen and the two employees stared at us for a second then one said "Are you here for breakfast?" and we were like "Yeah!" cause now we were concerned they didn't know we paid for that. The two of them gave a little laugh then and said "We had checked upstairs and it seemed like everyone had checked out. There was one door closed on the third floor but we didn't hear anything so we thought everyone was gone and- you're gonna laugh- for a second we thought you were ghosts coming for breakfast."
We all had a good laugh as they led us to our seats at the table and started preparing the breakfast. It was a good spread for sausage patties, pancakes, scrambled eggs, some VERY well seasoned potatoes, orange juice, apple juice, and some fruits. Both apples we were offered felt quite squishy so we passed on those, and I did grab a coffee but it was… so bad. Yeah, it was terrible. It actually activated my gag-reflex. I don't know why or what about it was so bad, it tasted both weak and bitter at the same time. But otherwise breakfast was delightful! We had the whole dining room to ourselves so we just sat and enjoyed!
Upstairs we both laid down a while longer. It was only 9am and checkout was at 10am and if we paid to stay until 10am then darn tootin' we're not leaving until 10am if we don't have to! So we both rested up a little more, trying to recover some lost sleep, then packed up what little we had and headed next door to Miss Lizzie's Cafe. They're very clear about not being associated with the Lizzie Borden House next door, with signs all over the door saying it, so I imagine something happened between the two businesses to cause that. Either the Lizzie Borden House tried some legal biz against them, or people for the House perhaps kept coming over assuming that the cafe was included in their stay. Regardless, the place was super cute and we both got a small Maplecroft Latte. I'd meant to order one to share but she misheard me and started making two and I figured since we could use the caffeine, two coffees could only help us! The coffee was delightful and we enjoyed them before Jess summoned a Lyft to bring us to Dedham where our friend, and the new bride, Amy would be meeting us.
This Lyft ride was just as pleasant as the last one, nice and quiet and calm, and we arrived at Legacy Park around 11:15am. As we were exiting the car, however, every fire alarm in the shopping complex seemed to go off. People were all being evacuated out of the shops as the alarms blared and a fire truck could be heard approaching. We made a joke about not being able to find Amy's car in the lot because she was running from the law. As we did so Amy messaged us "Are the police here for you?" We found each other eventually as the fire department turned off the alarms in the parking garage that connects all the shops, as that seemed to be the source of the problem, and then headed off. We stopped in Barnes & Noble and looked about before heading to Cafe Nero to get Amy an iced tea and use the bathrooms. We meant to head right to Salem but Amy had dressed too warm for a day that was quite nice so we stopped off at Target, avoiding the stop lights as best we could thanks to my navigational prowess (I said to turn at the wrong place but it worked out better) and Amy got a cool purple corduroy top and some leggings.
From there we made it to Adri's house in Salem. As she wouldn't be out of work until 5pm she had said she'd leave us her parking pass in her mailbox. She had not, whomp-whomp, and she was quite sorry for it when we messaged her as much, but it was no bother as we parked a little ways up in the free parking at some marina. Jess and I had never been to Salem so we entrusted Amy as our guide as we wandered about looking for somewhere open to get some lunch. Apparently everywhere is closed on Tuesdays at 2pm. Lame. We did eventually find a place, O'Neills, and we all had a good time there getting much too full cause we didn't want to carry our leftovers with us. Jess got a wrap that she liked, and I got a particularly good veggie burger! Then, stuffed full and heavy, we wandered the shops on the main street, popping as we pleased but finding nothing we wanted to buy. Typical. We did buy Amy a few chocolates at some Old Pepper Confectionary but nothing for ourselves as we were still WAY too full.
We went back to the car around 4:30pm and just sat and chatted and had a grand old time catching up before driving back to Adri's lot to wait for her arrival. I managed to check into our flight at this time and got B1 and B2 for seats, go me! Adri arrived and gave Amy her parking pass and we all headed into Adri's place for a bit so she could get changed into her Ghost Tour clothes and we could meet Sabi the Tabby, Adri's cat. She has much taller legs that we'd guessed from our Game Nights. Adri asked if we wanted to take anything to drink with us and Jess and I figured we'd take some of our Drunkin' as we still had plenty in our suitcase and Adri got us some travel mugs to put them in to carry around. Ya know, cause we're classy. Set and ready we headed out for a modified just-for-fun ghost tour of Salem with Adri as our guide! It was a WAY fun time as we got to hear the stories and also discuss what we knew about ghosts and history and all that, and just a fun, educational jaunt about Salem! Of personal interest, we got to see the Old Burying Point Cemetery that has memorials dedicated to each victim of the Salem Witch Trials, a no one knows where they're buried. That makes our third graveyard visit on this wedding trip! Go figure!
At one of the stops a random man drinking something or other wandered over and started talking to us. We all knew what this was, who doesn't! It was some drunk guy stopping a tour to blah blah cause he had no filter anymore. As he was talking and Adri was doing a great job politely handling him I went to open my travel tumbler for a sip. The tumbler Adri had given me was pretty airtight and I imagine in my travels I had shaken it up a bit, so when I popped the lid there was a huge pop and fizzing noise as the drink partially exploded onto me and my nice Cruella de Ville skirt suit. It was, however, perfect timing as the group had to turn attention to me and making sure no stains set and the rando wandered off to do whatever it is he would do for the rest of the evening. Adri called it Divine Intervention. Or a jealous ghost.
We ended up walking until 8:01pm exactly when Adri began looking for places open for dinner. We found a nice Thai place and we all had a great time trying all the food each other ordered. Jess and I, once again, ate too much and were now well and truly stuffed. After that we walked directly back to Adri's house with her giving modified stories of ghosts and happenings in Salem as we walked. Amy in one particularly dark path made a random right turn and started walking off the path and we all decided she'd been possessed by a spirit and compelled to go right. Back at Adri's house we all chatted for a while as Jess, Amy, and I prepared ourselves for the journey ahead. We ended up leaving Adri's place, and our remaining Drunkin' with it, around 10pm. We stopped at a rest stop about an hour in, so halfway there, so Amy could do some jumping jacks and wake herself up and Jess and I could use a bathroom. I don't remember much about the next hour of driving as I spent most of it either half asleep or fully passed out. We pulled into our hotel around 12 and wished Amy good night as she headed for her own house. We checked in, got ourselves up to the room, and officially passed out for the day, snuggly and warm in our hotel.
As always, I was up before Jess so I ate the mini box of Frosted Flakes we had taken from the free breakfast at the Hampton Inn several days ago and were still hauling around with us. I got myself dressed and sat down to do some writing on my tablet until Jess got up and we both got ourselves ready for the day. Our flight wasn't until 5:10pm and checkout wasn't until noon, so we just hung out in the hotel room until checkout where we headed down to check out the snack situation. We weren't really hungry, but we had a $10 credit to spend and who turns down free snacks? Especially as we were likely to be hungry later. So down we went and we grabbed another Lunchables, caramel macchiato iced coffee, and two Twix bars. We ate one Twix as we sat ourselves down in one of these nice booths with personal tv’s they have in the lobby. Probably for folks like us who are either waiting to go to the airport, or who arrived early and are waiting to check in.
We sat there and chatted with HGTV on in the background for a good couple of hours as we munched on remaining snacks and drank our coffee and the tea Jess got from the usual Hilton free coffee bar. At 2:30pm we finally decided it was close enough to go-time and asked about the shuttle. The shuttle guy was right there and said we could go right now, so cool! At the airport we printed out our boarding passes, just cause we like physical copies, and finished our last soda and Lunchables before heading to TSA. I left a napkin in my pocket that had to be checked, and Jess had missed a Drunkin’ to give to Adri so they had to pull her bag and remove it. The agents all seemed fascinated by the drink though, having not seen one before, and had a brief good time reading the ingredients. “It says ‘shake well’ but also that it’s a malt beverage?”
From there we found our gate, used the bathroom, then grabbed some quick McDonalds to tide us over for the next hour until boarding. We set ourselves up and then did what we do best: Chit-chatted. And ate. Jess didn’t finish her McChicken but she figured she’d save it for the flight. It’s McDonalds, what’s it gonna do, go bad? Yeah right. We were B1 and B2, Hell Yeah, so we were in line and on the plane pretty quick! Just as we were boarding though there was some kind of hold-up and the pilot or co-pilot came out and told us that someone was “being bad” and was going to leave the plane. I’m still not sure what he did, but I do know it was the guy who, while loading onto the plane, seemed… tweaked? So probably that was why. I overheard from the flight attendant area, where we’d seated ourselves, that he apparently said something rude or nasty or ugly to another passenger on the flight that an attendant overheard and they just decided to not deal with him. He left the plane quietly and we were off!
Flight was nice, listened to some of “A Wizard of Earthsea” and watched “The Secret of NIMH” while Jess finished “Unicorn Academy” and we were unloaded and off to the shuttle by 8:10pm exactly! As promised! We know our way pretty well now so we were at the pickup and on the shuttle in no time, and from there we just had the last final drive home in our car! A spider had made a web right over my drivers seat, but the spider didn’t seem to be there anymore so I just got in and dealt. One hour later, we were home! Home at last! Home to unpack, change into jammies, and fall asleep in the livingroom watching Miss Marple, as humans were meant to! All in all, a successful trip with a lot of good times! I think we found some fun stuff to do for our 3rd time up there and I had a great time, but oh am I happy to be in my happy little home!
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