The Actual July 4th Celebration

We were in the spirit of the holiday.

I still can't believe we did this, but Karlo and I spent the entire day in Boston to celebrate the 4th. I know Karlo really loves me to take me to a big city - his least favorite thing on Earth. It's hard to come up with different things to do when you've been around as long as I have ;-) and I wanted to play tourist for the day (something that we very rarely do at home). We bought advance tickets for a sunset cruise on a tall ship so we were committed. Karlo couldn't have a change of heart. Not only did we willing go into a big city, but we used the dreaded public transportation to get in. This was really pushing Karlo's limits for sure. But we did just fine. I'm still shocked at what a great time we had and how ungrumpy he was about the whole thing. This is living proof that our recent rebirth and venture into meditation is doing wonders.

We drove to . . . well, I'm not quite sure where we drove to, but the T station was called Riverside. It was the furthest station from the city. Getting there was a piece of cake. It was right off the highway and the parking was easy. Then we figured out how to buy the T tickets and jumped on the first train. It's easy to get on the right one when there's only one choice!


It took about 40 minutes and most of the train was full of Red Sox fans heading to the game. We got into the big city just about 1pm and got our bearings. We found the harbor, the Freedom Trail, and Quincy Market with no problem. First stop was a giant pretzel that I've been craving for 2 days. We got "Boston pretzels" which means there are sesame seeds in addition to salt. Yummy! Next stop was to grant my only one big birthday request. I have been waiting for a month to try a Dunkin Donuts frozen hot chocolate. I can't imagine a better day as it was about 100 degrees and I was wearing jeans (brilliant). I managed to suck down the whole thing and not complain that I was the slightest bit cold.


We walked all over Quincy Market strolling the shops and watching street performers. I had my heart set on the Duck Tours, but we never did manage to find them. This is a great excuse to go back and do it all over again (now that we are seasoned vets). Instead we took a trolley tour and I suppose that, aside from the portion of the tour where you get to drive around in the Charles River, it was pretty much the same. I enjoyed snapping photos as we zipped along. I should however mention that my lens was not functioning properly so I only took half as many pictures as I intended. Even with a brand new (mildly expensive) non-functioning lens I still kept my spirits high. More proof the meditation is working because just thinking about this situation now infuriates me. I did the best I could with what I had and I knew I would fix the problem some day - along with suing Tamron for my photo losses!


We managed to fill the entire day being tourists and then it was time to board the sailboat for our sunset cruise. I am so proud to say I lasted the whole two hours without needing a sweater. I was thankful for all the heat at this point. The conditions were perfect for me. And of course, they were ripe for photos as well.

One of the cool things about the harbor is the proximity of the airport. We had tons of airplanes taking off overhead. I finally got tired of taking photos of them after about 20 shots.


At about 8:30 we headed back to the T station and easily found the proper train to board back to our car. I was worrying about hitting all the 495 traffic on the way back and I so didn't want to end on a bad note since the day went so well. By some stroke of luck there was positively no traffic issues at all and we sailed all the way home. Even the train was empty due to the fact that everyone was heading into Boston for the fireworks as we were making our escape out of the city. The funniest part of the whole day was laying in bed watching the 11 o'clock news (the Boston station) and seeing Karlo's reaction when they showed reports from all the festivities that took place around the fireworks. He said, "THAT was going on today??? If I knew that there is no way you would have gotten me anywhere near that place!" The moral of that story . . . What you don't know will never hurt you.

I uploaded more photos to an online album. If you would like to see them, please click here.