Massachusetts meanderings

We spent this past week in Massachusetts, exploring the area we'll move to in a year. We flew into Boston on the 10th, spent two nights in the city, then spent the remainder of the week on the North Shore, where we'll be living. Daddy will be working at Northeastern University's Marine Science Center, which is in Nahant, about 15 miles north of Boston.

This was Caden's first plane ride, and he was such a good little boy! We had two 3.5-hour flights (plus delays) each way, with layovers in Dallas, which made for some long travel days. As we noted last week, Caden is very interested in cups. Whenever we were served beverages on the plane (that's all they serve you unless you pay extra...), he would grab at them. Furthermore, he would start making annoyed noises if we didn't let him play with our cups. So, we gave Caden an empty cup to play with, and it became one of his favorite toys.

We spent two nights in Boston, so Daddy could talk to people at Northeastern's main campus in the city. While we were there, Elisa, a friend of Mommy's from high school, who is now in a PhD program at Brown, drove up to visit and to meet Caden. On the morning of the 12th, we piled into our rented Chevy HHR (don't drive one unless you absolutely have to) and headed north. We stopped at the marine lab to say "hello" to people, then went to our B&B in Marblehead. We then reconvened with folks from the lab for a tasty dinner overlooking the water in Swampscott.

On Wednesday morning, we headed back to the lab to explore the local rocky shore at low tide. This was our first east-coast intertidal experience, and it was fun to start looking at the animals and seaweeds that we'll soon be studying. Caden especially enjoyed touching and pulling on the Ascophyllum.

One of our main reasons for the trip was to look at possible places to live, and we spent most of Wednesday afternoon talking with a realtor about housing possibilities in the area. We then headed back to the B&B to regroup, then into Marblehead's old town to find a quick dinner to take back to the B&B. We found some yummy salads, a fantastic garlic-dill chevre, and a GIANT brownie at Crosby's market. Mmmmm... Then Caden had a bath in the sink at the B&B. He actually filled the entire sink (see picture), making for a silly, wet, and slippery experience.

On Thursday morning, we looked at a couple of houses for sale in Swampscott. Don't worry folks, we're not going to buy anything yet; we only checked them out to get a sense for what's on the market. Next, we headed back to Marblehead for a delicious lunch with one of our new colleagues and his family. After that, it was time to head over to the lab for Daddy's seminar on rocky-shore ecology. We then went out for pizza with folks from the lab, including a bunch of students enrolled in Northeastern's Three Seas Program.

Friday, we spent the morning at the lab with a friend from Bodega/Davis who is finishing her Master's in phycology at URI. We had a great walk up the hill from the lab along a trail overlooking the ocean. After that, we headed north to explore the Cape Ann coastline, including the town of Gloucester, the nation's oldest fishing port. We stopped for dinner in Marblehead on the way back to the B&B, and enjoyed window shopping, checking out the old buildings (many of which date from the 1700s), and exploring the waterfront. And, of course, we had to get another of those GIANT brownies for dessert.

Saturday, we got up early and were pleasantly surprised that we made it to the airport, returned our rental car, checked in, and were through security in just over an hour. Two jet rides, one car ride, and one very tired little boy later, we arrived back in Sebastopol, happy to be home.

Glad to be home!

Looking across the bay toward Little Nahant.

Nahant from the air. The "island" is in the center of the photo, joined to the mainland by a causeway. The headland to the north is Marblehead.