Vacation - Day Four to the End

The rest of my time on the East Coast was not as great as the first three days. Things kind of went downhill and I kind of wanted to go home early.

Day Four was supposed to be RISD day. We had found online that the Museum of Art at the Rhode Island School of Design had a textile and costume collection which included some samplers from the Mary Balch School. I was excited to be going. We got there, paid the $20 admission and walked all over that museum...and you know what? I didn't see such a collection shown anywhere! After asking a handful of employees that didn't know anything about what I was talking about, I was finally told that even though they have the collection, it is not on display. Yea...waste of time and money. I think that if they are going to boast on the website that they have all these fantastic items, they should also state that said items are not on display and that a request for private viewing will need to be made in order to see the collection. So note to anyone looking to see some Mary Balch School Samplers, RISD has them but a request would need to be made weeks in advance to the curator in order to actually see them. I was quite disappointed.

After that, we went back to the house and waited for the mom to get back from work so that we could take a trip to AC Moore. I'd never been to one since there aren't any here and I wanted to check it out. On our way there, we saw a child get hit by a car. It happened so close to us that it could have been our car that hit the child. It was scary...and fast...and kind of set my mood for the rest of the day...and my mood wasn't all that great after RISD. Who lets kids wander around by themselves? Cross a busy street without adult supervision in a not so good area? This child was small...maybe six years old at the most! And he just ran into the street...didn't even look to see if a car was coming. Amazingly, the child was able to get up and limp to the curb while his mother finally came out of their house only to scream at everyone "what happened?!". Perhaps she would have known what had happened if she had been supervising her child! Everyone else but her was trying to make sure that her child was ok. Once we saw that the situation was being handled, we went on our way to AC Moore and dinner at a local spot for clam chowder and clam cakes.

Day Five was Boston. Boston seems to be a city with great architecture and history but between *the boy* getting lost repeatedly despite him saying he knew where he was going and being stuck in a car in a walking town, Boston wasn't that enjoyable. I'd like to go back sans rental car and just walk the city and take public transportation. The drivers and pedestrians in Boston are crazy! The traffic, crazy drivers and pedestrians just walking right out into the street contributed to my blood pressure sky-rocketing and us just leaving out of sheer frustration! Seeing traffic accidents happen in front of me didn't help matters any after the scene the night before. Seriously...not the best impression Boston could have left on me. Plus $9 for 20 minutes of parking is just insane. That was the parking fee in order to park the car near Faneuil Market. Boston definitely is not a good siteseeing place to go to with a guy on crutches! I do have pictures to share for Boston. We took a Duck tour and that is how I saw most of the key sites in Boston and we got photos of a lot of great things. I think I'll show the photos in a separate post.

Day Six was supposed to be South Shore day but after the total bust that the last two days were and it being the Friday of Labor Day weekend and the newscasters telling everyone to go to the beach because the weather was supposed to be fantastic, we decided to stay close to home and kind of hibernate. So I stitched and relaxed and we ran a few errands and had a big family dinner with loads of pasta with clam sauce and literally...like 30 pieces of italian pastry and cake! It was yum! This was our final night on the East Coast!!

Day Seven consisted of packing and getting ready for our flight that evening. We had to head to Boston Logan airport on the early side to allow time to return the rental car, catch the shuttle to the terminal, check in and get through security. We allowed way too much time and had to hang out at the airport for a while! The flight took forever (seemingly) but we got home safe and sound. I know there is plenty of crazy in my neck of the woods...it is SF after all...but this is the crazy I am used to and can handle! I was very happy to get home.

It's now 2.5 weeks later and truth be told, I don't feel like I had a week long vacation! How does that happen. Back to life's daily grinds...work, housesitting, classes, relationship hoopla. Ugh, can't wait til my next vacation!