3 States in 9 days

My most recent travels involved visiting 3 states in 9 days. Originally, I was going to go visit my sister, and work remotely from NYC. She then offered me the chance to go to Vermont to visit my oldest niece on camp visiting weekend, so I did.

I started by flying to Boston on a Wednesday night red eye. It's been a long time since my last red eye and probably a long time til my next one (well, domestic, our trip to BA has to be a red eye). I thought maybe I'd try to upgrade - I was in the middle of a waitlist of 37 people for 24 seats. Oh well. Maybe I slept just a bit.

Flight was early so I was able to grab some Dunkin Donuts coffee while waiting for my cousin to pick me up to drive the 90 minutes to Sturbridge. Supposedly the some of the best coffee ever. It was good, although I did have my McDonald lawsuit moment as I spilled it on my lap. Hot, but not hot enough to do any damage, so Dunkin won't be funding my retirement.

Then spent 2 days at the Host hotel in Sturbridge with my cousin, sister and two youngest nieces. On Friday, I went into Sturbridge Village to watch the kids do English Country dance - now we have promised to take Ellie dancing next time she's here.

From there, it was onto Vermont to visit Lily (oldest niece) at camp visitor weekend. She's been at that camp for a long time, and Ellie is following her next summer, so it was nice to see it in person. The camp is in the town of Fairlee Vermont, which is pretty much in the middle of nowhere on a lake. It was lovely to see Lily.

We stayed at a B&B called the Silver Maple Lodge, considered the best in Fairlee. It's pretty, but a little too close to the interstate to be considered as rustic as the website implies. The rooms are pretty, but the amenities are limited - no TV in the main house, no blowdryers and the continental breakfast is pretty much what you'd have at home - two kinds of pastry, instant oatmeal and orange juice. Pleasant, but nothing to write home about.

During the camp weekend we got to see the camp, watch the camp play (abridged version of Sussical the Musical) and enjoy a farewell sing along. Lily's big achievement was earning her lifeguard certification. Impressive.

Driving back to NY on Sunday, we took the scenic route and went to Mass Moca (Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art - not a coffee place) in North Adams. That was was way cool, and featured 3 stories of exhibits of walls by artist Sol LeWitt. Very much worth seeing.

I spent the following week working out of my mom's New York apartment. My sister had all 3 kids elsewhere so we had a great time. We had dinner with a coworker at Parlor Steakhouse on Monday, saw the Harry Potter movie on Tuesday and dinner in Weehawken NJ with one of our 3-day team members on Wednesday. On Thursday, we saw one of the 3 plays that make up the Norman Conquests - a series of farcical plays about a family weekend somewhere in England. We enjoyed it so much that we opted to see a second one of the plays instead of picking up my mom and Becky at the airport on Friday night. If you ever get the chance to see these, I highly recommend them. I'm hoping to see the third sometime (timewise, they all overlap each other).

On Saturday I went home, leaving from Newark airport. My mom decided that they should see where she grew up, so I got a ride to the airport. In the process of picking a route, Beth managed to find the shortest, rather than the fastest, so we got the scenic tour of Hoboken. The highlight of the trip was when my mom was telling her where to go and she finally got to tell someone to stop being a backseat driver who was actually in the back seat.

Flight was a bit late, which was bad for people making connections, but good for me, since my ride couldn't get to the airport before about an hour after the flight was originally supposed to come in.