The Great Northest -the Beginning

Sept 6-10--A Great Start to Our Newest Adventure

We flew to Boston Logan Airport with a stop in Minneapolis for just enough time to stretch our legs and get some lunch. After arriving in Boston, we picked up our rental car and drove to Malden, MA to our first motel. We had made reservations so we didn’t have to search in the dark for a place to stay. We brought “Susie” our GPS, with us so we just told her the address and she got us there with very little trouble. She will be a life saver each day we are sure.

On Friday, we drove into the city to pick up family and headed for Cape Cod for our niece, Catherine and her partner, Sarah’s wedding. On the way to Provincetown, at the tip of the Cape, we decided to stop first at Hyannis and visit the JFK museum. We walked around this cute town and then spent a time at the museum. It brought back lots of memories with all of the wonderful pictures of this family. It was sad to see how many of these family members have met such tragic ends to their lives. We have always felt that this family had a curse on them with the loss of so many at such young ages.

We drove down the Cape and arrived at charming Provincetown. It was great to be with John’s sister, Susan and her husband, Carl and the whole wedding party at the same lovely beachfront hotel called the Crown and Anchor. It is a lovely older hotel and was the location of most of the wedding activities for the next few days.

That afternoon was the rehearsal on the beach. That was to be the location of the wedding the next day so everyone involved needed to practice. John was asked to read the translation of a Hebrew prayer so he was there for rehearsal. During practice time, a dozen or so friends arranged all of the flowers which centered on sunflowers and wild flowers.

We all walked to the rehearsal party at a nearby restaurant. It was fun to meet so many of Sarah’s family. Most live in the NY/NJ area but others came from Europe and other parts of the USA. Both of the brides’ friends came from many areas of the country so it was nice to see so many at the party.

Wedding Day: We spent the day shopping the many stores in Provincetown until it was time to dress for the big affair. The wedding started at about 5pm with about 150 guests on the beach. The brides were both so radiant and their dresses were gorgeous. They made such a lovely couple and their smiles showed their love for each other.

After the beautiful ceremony, which included many Jewish traditions, we all were served drinks and snacks until the sit-down dinner/dance was ready. The whole evening was wonderful from start to the late finish. We are both so happy for the new married couple as they are both so sweet and happy together.

 

The morning after the wedding saw John and I driving north to the coast of Maine. We enjoyed the lovely drive through the Colonial towns and marveled at the houses that were built before our Pacific NW was not even a thought. We drove along through the coastal towns and especially enjoyed the fishing and lobster town of Gloucester where we saw the famous Fisherman’s monument. This is a memorial to the over 5300 fishermen who were lost at sea from this town.

Further north we found a delightful motel on the beach in a town called Old Orchard Beach. We decided to book for two nights so we could spend the next whole day touring the area without searching for a place to sleep.

Monday found us driving a little north through Portland ME. It was fun to see the signs directing us to Portland. It was kind of weird since we had lived for so much of our lives in the other Portland.

We wanted to see what Freeport ME was like after hearing so much about it on all of the LL Bean advertising. This town is all outlet stores and makes our NW outlet malls look like corner markets! LL Bean itself has over a half dozen huge stores. It was fun to walk around the town which was so tastefully done and not a bit tacky but this was definitely like an outlet mall on steroids!

We drove along the beach route so we could stop and see the Portland Head Lighthouse, the second oldest lighthouse on the east coast and probably the most photographed one in the US! We got back in plenty of time to walk again on the lovely soft sand in Old Orchard Beach.

Tomorrow we are going to head west into New Hampshire to explore the mountains and lakes that everyone says are so beautiful.