Heading Home....last stop Cleveland

Because we spent more time in Connecticut and Rhode Island looking around than we had planned we needed to put the pedal to the metal on Tuesday to make it to our last Diners Drivin's and Dives destination.

The day was long and rainy and pretty uneventful. We stopped in Bloomsburg PA. Took a walk and had some lunch at a burrito place not worth mentioning. Bluck!

We were saving our appetites for Geraci's anyway. We had seen in several times on Triple D and couldn't wait! It did not disappoint. We had a small wait but it was very worth it.

Ainslie ordered the spaghetti and meatballs, with Geracis house made red sauce. I was hardly fast enough to get a picture of it before she scarfed it down.

OOOhh lala the hand tossed pizza with house made peperoni's. TO DIE FOR!

And the clincher was the dough balls, completely smothered in sugar. Perfect end to our eating journey.

We found ourselves a Embassy Suites on Rock Island Dr in the Cleveland area to lay our heads down one more night before the final stretch home on Wednesday.

It was a great trip. Worthy of doing again!

Newport, RI..Mystic, CT

If we would have known how beautiful and full of fun little towns the coast of Rhode Island and Connecticut where we would have headed that way earlier. But you live and learn when you are on a road trip...I am always saying, "note to self", I would do this or not do that if we were to come back.

We could have called this the trip of bridges. I wish we would have kept a tally of how many bridges we crossed, rough guesstimate would be 50! We left the Cape by way of the Bourne Bridge and drove on over to Newport, Rhode Island. The states in this region are so small, traveling from town to town seems to go quick. We were in Newport before we knew it.

Newport is FULL of awesome shops and pubs and boardwalks, it would be a very fun place to spend a weekend. We were hoping to find a Lobster Pound to eat at, but were told it was not quite in season for all those little seafood joints to open up. Ainslie was bummed. We were directed to a pub called the Red Brick Pub. It was fantastic!


Brick Alley Pub was a winner! We had one of the most amazing meal of our whole trip here. Ainslie finally was able to order lobster. Our funny line (or one of them) for the trip was "I am just dyin for some lobstah", by Ainslie. She wanted to eat a lobster pound so bad. Just means we will have to go back.


This is what I ordered. AMAZING. Spicy and full of awesome flavors. My mouth is watering right now just looking at the picture. This was voted by Gourmet Magazine as one of the countries best appetizers, or something like that....I forgot to write down the specifics. What ever they are...it was voted by me at spectacular! The crusty warm bread they served with it did not make the picture, but was also noteworthy.



Here is the Roo-girl digging into her Lobstah roll. She said, "YUM!".






When in a seaside village you must buy salt water taffy and fudge. And sit down immediately on the first unclaimed bench you see and commence to eatin!


We did find a Lobster "place". They didn't but the would cook up this monster for us.

The kids had fun, checking out all the live lobsters in tank.



Over all we loved Newport, and would love to come back to Rhode Island and explore it further in the future.

the BEACH at Chatham cape cod

We had been in the car most of the day so even though the tempurature had dropped nearly 30 degrees by the time we reached our destination...it just felt good to get out of the car take our socks of and run in the sand.

Easter Sunday away from HOME

Well, if I didn't say it before this vacation was not overly planned. We decided after we woke up and the kids opened their Easter bags, that we would check out of our hotel and head down the coast of Massachusetts to the Cape.




After doing the scramble to get all of our jazz together and back in the van...after three days in the same hotel room, it was beginning to feel a bit like home.




We decided literally last minute to head on over to Fenway Park and have a look around. What's a visit to Boston with out checking out Fenway. It was opening day after all! Tickets were not to be had, unless you wanted to stand in line ALL day. And the game didn't start until 8pm, not exactly family friendly. So we just walked the perimeter of the ball park and got a look at the neighborhood. Very Fun! We would love to come back someday to go to a game.

Ainslie, Noah, Cece and Luke standing next to the Ted Williams statue, with all the hall of famer banners in the back ground.

I love this picture o the kids standing at the outfield fences looking in...the grass was so green...what a beautiful day for a ballgame!

There it is...the Green Giant! WOW, so glad we stopped and took a look around.

Heading south out of town we got off the highway at a little town called Quincy, named after the president John Quincy Adams...we found a little place by the sea that we could sit outside and have a great view of Boston in the distance. The Clam Box...this place was awesome. Cheap seafood! SCORE!
They had the best fried clams, french fries, and coleslaw. Perfect lunch by the sea.




We stopped in Plymouth, which they spell Plimouth (?), to see the Mayflower II. This is an exact replica of the original Mayflower. It actually reenacted the sail of the Mayflower in 1954. Apparently the original Mayflower was sold for scrap by the wife of the captain after he died. Plymouth was sort of a cute town but we were on track to make it to the Cape by dinner so we did not stay too long.

Before we left we took a gander at "the rock", Plymouth Rock. It was not what any of us were expecting. I was thinking more like the rock of Gibraltar or something. Something big enough to see from a distance. It is just a big rock...there are bigger around it, with the number 1620 carved into it. There is no actually written account of a prominent rock or stepping out on to a rock by the historians of the Mayflower. I guess it is just one of those things that as the years have gone on a story has developed around this big ol' rock.


We were one of a few people going out onto the Cape, EVERYBODY else was leaving...they had been there for Easter and were now on they're way home. We crossed the Sagamore Bridge and the traffic going toward Boston was backed up for miles. YIKES! Unfortunately nothing was open out there. We caught Cape Cod after a holiday weekend not quite in season...so it was a ghost town. Kinda a bummer. We found a new Hampton Inn at a fair price in Hyannis. Hyannis is the place you want to be if you have a medical issue when you are out on the cape, there was a huge hospital and every specialist known to man.

Over all the Cape was beautiful but disappointing.

We stayed up late and watched Easter service on our computer at LifeChurch.tv , it was an awesome service but was a late night.

saturday..HARVARD squware!

Another beautiful sunny day in Boston. This day we jumped on the T-line to Harvard Square. You have to listen to a New Englander say Harvard Square...it's so awesome! We kept saying it over and over. Ha-vad Squwa or something like that...

What to do on the Campus of one of the oldest Universities in our country? Not much. Look around. Walk. Watch people. It was perspective student weekend so there were lots of student/parent groups getting led around. Take in the awesomeness of a educational institution with so much history. Sneak in on a walking tour and then ditch it because the kids were bored. (they were free, so no harm done)
Student tour guide.

Dorm of John Quincy Adams.

Johnson's Gate- story is that as a freshman you walk through the gate to move in and you should not walk through it again until you graduate and if you do you will have devastating luck while on campus.



The highlight of our trip was here smack dab in the middle of Harvard Square right out in front of the Au Bon Pain bakery. Two out of four kids agreed this was there favorite thing to do while in Boston or most memorable moment anyway. What was it??? Oh yeah....it was standing on the sidewalk near a pile of doggy doo (which by the way walkers beware in Cambridge...NO ONE picks up their dogs poop!) watching people walk by and waiting for someone to not notice the poo. Which 9 out of 10 people did not and only missed stepping in the disgusting pile of poo by a horse hair! The kids thought this was hilarious as did their father...it's all in the genes, you see. Of course I did not get any pictures of this momentous event.

Well now where does one eat in Cambridge, well much to our pleasure there was a "triple D" in Cambridge. Mr. Bartleys Burger Cottage. This was my highlight!


The line was beginning to form, when we left it was 1/2way down the block.

This is the inside...they jam them in. You may sit with people you do not know..it's all good. Over in the corner is the kitchen...that is where they kick out a insane amount of food. Everyone has their job to do and it all works together like a fine tuned something or another!
This was the extensive menu...what to choose when you are under pressure by the burger nazi. If you are not ready to order by the time you get to gramps on his stool you are given the evil eye and not allowed in until you MAKE UP YOUR MIND! Too much pressure
This is my Viagra Burger...not the most pleasant name, but it had bacon and house made blue cheese dressing on it so no matter the name I was eatin this BURGER!

Noah doing the "Guy hunch" over his burger. Everything was fantastic!

We were a two mile walk back to our hotel so we decided to do some doggy doo dodging and walk back to the hotel since the weather was so beautiful.

Once back at the hotel, we swam, did laundry and the boys even skate boarded in the parking ramp next to the hotel.

The dilemma of where to eat dinner all hinge upon the NCAA basketball championships...where could we eat a good meal and see the game with four kids. Cheesecake Factory fit the bill! Not my first choice although the food is always good and overly plentiful. I just wanted to go some place we had never been before. Oh well give and take...

MSU lost to Butler...bummer. So we decided to go shopping. We went on a Converse tennis shoe buying spree. The Gap in this Galleria Mall had an abundance of cool tennys so there you have it! Another day in Boston behind us.

bean Town..day ONE part II....

Since we were a short subway ride over to the Science Museum where the Duck tours departed from. We decided to skip the South end of Freedom Trail and do the Duck tour instead. The Duck Tours are amphibious World War II vehicles that drive you around the city and point out all the interesting and historical spots in and out of the water.


We arrived at 3 and the next tour was not leaving until 4:30...BUMMER. Well we were there and we might as well just wait and do the TOUR already. So we bought our tickets and spent the next hour or so in the museum gift shop, in the bathrooms, on the steps that are like the piano in the Tom Hanks movie Big, outside jumping off curbs...that 1 1/2 hours seemed like an eternity!

I really dread the stores in museums, especially the rock table that everyone and there brother runs their slimy, grimy paws through and my kids are not excluded in that. I usually stand near by with the wetwipes an the ready. I do have to say we have found some good books and educational nic-nacs in museum stores. And on this day is was a good time passer.



But before we new it were getting put on our boat/truck and our tour guide was none other than Johny Baggodonitz...a very knowledgeable old man, gave us all sorts of interesting facts about Bean Town. And let all the children drive the boat in the river, AND got us jammed up against another Duck Boat! Yikes, we all had to unload and reload on another boat.


Ah-yah...this was a very interesting moment. I was afraid we were going to have a mutiny against Johny Bag-O-donuts! We stood out there and froze our buns off. They (whoever they are) were emptying the river, so there was a very strong current. Our driver was afraid our older Duck Boat would not be able to go against the current so he called in a newer stronger boat. Making us then unload and reload, under the highway next to the train tracks...weird...NICE! Baggodonitz! Made for an interesting trip.
Each kiddo on the boat had the chance to drive the boat...giving Baggo a break.





By the time we were done with our Duck Boat Adventure...which by the way was well worth our time and money( aprox 30bucks a person X six!). We say the whole city and got the scoop on everything. Although it was chilly when we took the tour so the windows where down on the Duck and I did not get any pictures if the city. While we were moving.

Then we scooted back to Quincy Market to eat our dinner at Dugen-Park a very old supposedly authentic New England eatery. In it's original days I am sure it was awesome but unfortunately it has become a bit too commercialized. Our meal was tasty but overpriced. I would steer clear of the Quincy Market area for eating....too commercial and overpriced.