Omni Mount Washington Resort

We had to get up before 6 this morning because our bags needed to be ready inside our rooms by 7, which meant we needed to be dressed and have makeup and hair done by then. We went down to the nice buffet breakfast, which had just about anything a normal person would want. I'm counting us normal as we were content with our choices of breakfast foods.

We got on the bus and departed the Harraseeket Inn by 8 AM. I'd like to know what kind of damn vacation is it when you have to get up before 6 AM.

We left Maine (and its' lobsters behind), or so we thought. We have Shakespeare stops fairly frequently...about every hour or two. I hadn't heard the term before the tour. Shakespeare stop...to pee or not to pee. The stops are planned to be at a visitor center or the spot where we'll eat lunch or at one of the points of interest selected for us.

Today we made several stops in addition to the Shakespeare stop. We stopped at a very scenic river location and an old covered bridge and also at a lake. All of them featured beautiful foliage. We all took bunches of photos. These stops are never for very long...maybe 15 minutes or so. We have to keep on schedule or we might miss a meal!

Our lunch today was at the White Mountain Resort, which had beautiful views all around. We had a really good lunch. I asked our bus driver, Mike, what he would suggest and it turned out to be lobster rolls. We had butternut squash soup, lobster rolls with homestyle french fries and slaw, and a delicious bread pudding for dessert.

We were in New Hampshire by then, I think. And we are in New Hampshire tonight at the beautiful Omni Mount Washington Resort.

We got drinks and sat in a huge room with a rotunda type ceiling and a big fireplace, which was lit. There were fabulous views all around. The top picture above was taken in that room. We barely had time to do anything other than finish our drinks and go to our rooms to freshen up before dinner.

Maybe I'll get back to the dinner (which included a fabulous lobster and creamed asparagus soup) in a different post. I keep falling asleep while I'm trying to type this and we have to follow the same procedure tomorrow morning as we did this morning...that is, have the bags ready by 7, depart at 8. I hope I have something really special to post next time!

Coastal Maine Botanical Garden

After our stop for shopping, sailing and lunch at Boothbay, Maine, we drove just a little further to visit the Coastal Maine Botanical Garden. Our stop was scheduled to be only about an hour so we couldn't do the whole tour

We did tour all of the Children's Garden, which was just a delight with so many whimsical touches, such as the "yellow brick road" with large figures of Dorothy, Scarecrow, Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion. If you look closely in the above photo (which I hope is there), you might recognize me poking my head through the Cowardly Lion's face.

There was a boat with a pirate in it by a small pond. The boat was aground and there was a yellow slicker in it for children to wear if they wanted to climb in the boat and be photographed.

There was a playhouse and a treehouse and granite whale figures which spouted a fine mist of water from their blowholes. There was much, much more, but I can't remember it all.

It was beautifully planted with a great variety of flowers, grasses, shrubs and trees, carefully selected and planted to carry on the various themes. It was enchanting!

Children visiting can build fairy houses. I'm sure they are encouraged to do so.

We did walk through some other areas which were beautiful, but had to miss some of the gardens due to time constraints.

Boothbay Harbor

We left the Harraseeket Inn this morning and headed for Boothbay Harbor where our visit included shopping, sailing and lunch.

We did some shopping while half the group went sailing. I found Wayne a warm cap that looks pretty goofy, but will be really warm. I have a photo of me wearing the hat, but I've already used the picture of me and Carole with the bear. We look like we are helping an invalid down the road.

After shopping, it was our turn to board the schooner. The captain and his wife built the East Wind themselves and first launched it about ten years ago. It was about the sixth boat they've built.

We motored out a little way and then got under sail. I'm trying to sound nautical...bear with me. We sailed out toward a lighthouse and then came about and headed back in. Herb and Doris provided slickers for everyone...it was a bit cool and overcast when we left the dock, but then it suddenly cleared up and we had sunshine and blue skies for the first time since we left Texas!

After the sail, you can probably guess what we did next. What else? We had a wonderful lunch including, you guessed it...lobster!

Then it was back to the motor coach and on to our next stop...the botanical garden.

A Disclaimer

The way I've been doing the posts while on our trip is mobile posting. Which means I send an email to myself at a special email address assigned by Blogger. I am able to (usually) send a picture using that method. I go to the picture in my phone, select email, then type my post in the email and send it. Then I go to my blog and find the email I just sent in the "Drafts" area. I finish it and publish it. It is not as simple or as easy as posting from a computer, but, at least I can keep up with it while I'm on this trip.

Now, here's the disclaimer: I try to watch out for typos, but don't always notice them when I'm typing. A scant inch is visible to me. The rest is taken up by the keyboard. It's usually very late when I have the time to post. After a large meal and wine and/or beer. I try to proofread before publishing, but get tired of it and finally just "Publish."

Then I look at the published post, which is now on the blog. And that's when it's easiest to see spelling I need to correct, wording I need to change and other improvements I could make.

Alas! Since my posts are usually longish, I am finding that the edit screen for the already published post only lets me correct the first part of the post and I can't scroll down past a certain area. So, you might see some strange words, because my phone sometimes changes words that are what I want to use to words that it thinks I meant to use.

On a computer I can keep going back in to re-edit until it looks the way I like it...but not on the phone. So, please bear with me!

We've Invaded Maine!

We left Boston at 8:30 this morning. It was raining when we left, raining when we got to Salem, raining as we drove the 20 or 30 minutes it took us to get through New Hampshire, and raining and blowing even more when we stopped so that a few of us could get off the bus and take pictures of ourselves at the Nubble Lighthouse. If we hadn't made that stop we might have been in Portland, Maine ahead of whatever accident slowed traffic to a crawl. As it was, we were delayed by about an hour and a half.

During the drive the tour director told us we needed to stop at the desk and make dinner reservations as soon as we walked into the inn. He said that those in the front of the bus would probably get whatever time they wanted, while those further back would probably not. We were a few rows from the back. Always thinking about our next meal, we pulled out a cell phone, googled the Harraseeket Inn and dialed the number. We asked for a 7:00 reservation and the person we talked to confirmed it, but laughed as she said people generally checked in before they made their reservation. We finally got to the inn about 6:00, just in time to go to our lovely rooms and freshen up.

We got downstairs about ten minutes early, so we went to the bar where we enjoyed a glass of Gritty's Seasonal Ale, a nice dark, very flavorful beer. At 7 we were ushered into the Maine Dining Room and had an absolutely wonderful meal.

We ordered and shared two appetizers, Roasted Vegetable Turrine and Crispy Quail. Of course, there was a basket of wonderful freshly baked bread with an excellent airy butter to spread on it. We ordered a nice bottle of New Zealand white wine and waited very patiently for our entered. Wanda, Carole and I had fresh steamed lobster that just melted in our mouths. The accompanying vegetables were really good, too, but omigod...the lobster was superb! Dee ordered a filet mignon which she said was excellent. As if that wasn't enough, we decided to finish the meal properly and ordered Strawberry Crepes for two and also Chocolate Overdose for two. Both of those desserts are flambéed and prepared at the table. Oh my stars, it was incredible! We really thought it would be one plate of each dessert that we would all share...but, nooooo...there were two plates of each.

And, almost better than the food was how much we laughed! It was a fantastic meal, made all the better by the company and the surroundings. What a wonderful memory to pull out and savor!

The Official Start of the Tour

We visited the Museum of Natural Science at Harvard. The photo above is one of the exhibits in The Ware Collection of Glass Models of Plants.  All the many specimens are made entirely of glass.  There are nearly 4400 models. They were made from 1886 through 1936 by glass artisans Leopold and Rudolph Blashka to aid in the teaching of botany. It was really remarkable, although it didn't take me very long to lope through the exhibit. 

We (the entire tour group) boarded our coach this morning for a half day of being driven around Boston, while the tour director, Steve, gave us lessons and nuggets of information about the important events which occurred here at the time of the revolution. It made me wish I had listened and learned more in American History 50 years ago!  

The coach arrived back at the hotel about 1:30. We (Wanda, Carole, Dee and I) then took a taxi to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, where we looked around for a while at the collection amassed by Mrs. Gardner.  The building which houses the eclectic collections was designed by Mrs. Gardner and she decided how the object that fill its galleries should be displayed.  She stipulated in her will that the general arrangement of the galleries cannot be altered.

We had checked in at the museum cafe as soon as we could find it and were told it would be about a 45 minute wait.  So, we wandered through the galleries until  the pager vibrated and then we scurried to the tiny cafe located near the gift shop where we enjoyed a truly outstanding lunch. 

After lunch we continued browsing through that museum until we'd had enough of it. 

We then walked the block or two to the Museum of Fine Arts.  Wanda was the most enthusiastic museum visitor among us by that time. She paid the $18 fee to enter the museum at 3:40. The rest of us parked ourselves in the lobby and waited until 4:00, when it was free. The museum closes at 4:45, so we scattered and took our time but hurried up, managing to see wonderful impressionists as well as many other truly beautiful works of art. It was amazing to me to see the vibrancy of works as much as 500 and  600 years old. 

After our whirlwind tour we called for another cab which took us back to the hotel where we had to make quick work of getting presentable. We had dinner reservations at Prezza, an Italian restaurant touted as the best Italian restaurant in Boston by the concierge.  We took another cab which got us to the restaurant right on time. And it was wonderful!  We shared four appetizers then we ordered pasta dishes and finally shared one dessert; a limoncello cheesecake slice with one scoop of pistachio gelato. We had a nice bottle of wine with our excellent meal. Such fun!  

We've got our luggage ready to put on the motor coach in the morning. We leave here at 8:30 in the morning to start Day 3. We are going to Salem where we'll tour the area, then separate briefly for lunch. After that we continue on, ultimately arriving at Freeport, Maine where we will spend two nights at the Harraseeket Inn. But, more about that next time...maybe.  

Day One in Boston

Dee and I arrived at Logan Airport in Boston late yesterday afternoon. There was a limo (not a stretch) waiting for us and we were driven right to the beautiful Langham Hotel on Franklin Street, which is just blocks away from Boston Harbor.

Carole had arrived at the airport just minutes ahead of us, but not on the same airline, so she was in a different limo. She was to have flown out of San Antonio to DFW where she and Wanda (who flew out of Austin) would fly to Boston together. But Carole's plane was delayed out of San Antonio and she missed the connecting flight, arriving at the gate just after it was closed. So, her flight left Dallas about the same time ours left Houston.

We all met up in the lobby of the Langham and then went to dinner in one of the hotel restaurants, where we caught up and planned what we would do today (Monday). The tour actually starts with dinner this evening at the Langham. We will get our marching orders at that time and get to meet our traveling partners for the next 11 days.

We will spend tonight and tomorrow night in Boston. And then we will board the bus, heading for Salem, Wednesday morning.

Today we four met in the lobby at 8:30. We walked to Quincy Market where we enjoyed a very nice breakfast. We then set out to walk the Freedom Trail, seeing so many historic places.

We went into the Old North Church, the oldest church in Boston. It was in that steeple that two lanterns were hung, giving warning to the American revolutionaries that the British were approaching by sea.

We shared a wonderful lunch at an Italian restaurant in Little Italy, then we decided to start our walk back toward the hotel. We wanted to go to the Cheers bar and did our best to follow maps and phone apps. We circled around the Old State House and went inside there to look around before we continued our search for Cheers.

Finally, we were told it was just on the other side of a blue tent looking structure. We got to the other side and there it was...no more than 10 feet from the entrance to the restroom that each of us had visited following our first stop of the day. We looked in the door, decided it didn't look like we wanted it to and headed back to the hotel to rest briefly and prepare for the get-acquainted dinner.

We met many nice people there. But, I think I'll have to end this and continue another time...or not. It's about 11 and we need to be up early enough in the morning to eat breakfast and be at the bus before 9.

The photo...if it shows up is at Quincy Market where we had breakfast this morning.

I'm having to type this on my phone, so please excuse all typos, etc.