It's a two-fer!

Name these babies! The two photos are taped together, but not identified at all.

I'll take "ancient history" for 2000, Alex

The date at the top is March 1956.

MysteryRunner

Who is this guy? And is he running FROM something or TO something? Hmmmmm......

Who is this woman?

There are a few pictures of her - but none that show her face. She's taking pictures in all of the photos we have of her, except one of a picnic where you can see the back of her head.
Good luck with this one!

Day 1 - Off to the great adventure!

Got up, headed to the airport, and just BARELY made our flight. We walked up to the gate just as they were finishing boarding! Whew, that was close.



Flew to Denver on a small commuter plane. The person I made the reservations with had told me she couldn't seat all 5 of us together on this flight, so she said she would do two together, another two tgether, and one alone. But her idea of "Two together" was one on each side of the aisle! Other passengers were kind enough to offer to trade so that Darrin & Brynn were together and Kyra & Callie were together, with me just across the aisle from them. Brynn LOVED flying. Every single time we took off, she would shout loudly "WHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Making the other passengers laugh. I was relieved because I'd wondered if she would be scared.

After the quick flight to Denver we went to the gate for our next flight. We had some time, so we got lunch and explored a bit. Brynn was delighted to see this:

so of course, we had to get a picture.

On the next flight, we had seats all together, three on one side of the aisle and two on the other. The flight to Boston was much longer. The girls did well with the stuff I'd packed for them to do, Brynn especially enjoyed the small tub of play doh and new cookie cutters. They showed a movie on the plane, but it was "Failure to Launch" - so the girls were disappointed that they wouldn't get to watch one they liked. (But the way home was "Eight Below" which they'd seen with Grandpa Doug and loved, so they were happy then)

Callie had a window seat, and liked seeing the Great Lakes from the air.

Brynn cried and cried in pain when we were descending into Boston. Her ears were hurting. She wouldn't do any of the things we were trying to do to hekp her, ike yawn, eat something, chew gum, etc. She just cried & cried. I felt so bad for her, yet I was not able to do anything for her. Other passengers were very nice, offering gum and other suggestions. As we discovered later, it was the first sign of a cold coming on for poor Brynn.

Once her ears popped while we were taxiing and she felt better, she was her usual happy self again.

Getting the rental car was a two hour long nightmare, I'll spare you the details, except to give the name of the crappy company: Dollar Rental Car. They'd told us the van we rented would have a built-in car seat, so we didn't bring Brynn's with us. They offered to rent us one for $9 a day (for 8 days!) and we decided to just buy a new one, as it would be cheaper and we could use it at home in Darrin's car.

By this time it was dark, well past dinner time, and we were all crabby & hungry and tired. Drove out to the hotel in Rockland, near where Darrin grew up. Checked in, dropped off the luggage, and went to Papa Gino's (a pizza place that holds childhood memories for Darrin) for dinner. Got in just before they closed. I ran next door to the grocery store for some speed shopping while our pizza baked, just finishing before they closed. I guess 24 hour grrocery stores are not common in MA yet. With some food in our bellies and a temporary "home" to sleep in that night, we felt much better.



We all slept well that night. Something about travel just wears you out!

Day 2 - Boston!

We spent the morning driving around looking at the various places where Darrin grew up. Here is the house he grew up in from first grade until he went on his mission.

Are you sensing a theme?

Ate a picnic lunch, then hopped on the T (subway) to go downtown to the Aquarium. We walked through Quincy Market on the way there, and Brynn just HAD to pat each and every fire hydrant we saw (and there were a lot!)

Like most big cities, Boston has a lot of fire hydrants downtown.


Brynn was in heaven.

When we finally dragged her away from the fire hydrants and over to the aquarium, she fell in love with the harbor seals that were swimming in a large tank outside the aquarium. It kept all three girls occupied while Darrin waited in line for tickets. They loved seeing how they swam upside down and you could see their "be-bo" - Brynn's word for belly button. Brynn would laugh whenever they popped their heads above water.

After we went inside, we went first to see the vet's office. Callie had learned from the aquarium's web site that the vet's office had glass walls so that visitors could watch the vets treating animals. Sure enough, we saw a fish being treated. ONe woman was using a giant syringe to inject water through the fish's gills while I lay on a table, while another vet was injecting some kind of medicine into the fish's tail. Callie was fascinated by the equipment, hospital tanks, etc.

We wandered around for a couple hours, looking at all the exhibits. They had an area where kids could hold & touch sea stars and hermit crabs. The kids enjoyed that, but it was crowded and kids were jostling everyone to try & get it, so not so much fun for the adults who were trying to keep kids from being pushed off the step stools!

Kyra liked the voltmeter above the electric eel's tank, and Brynn loved the wave tank full of large green anemones (and hearing Brynn trying to figure out how to say "anemone" was great fun for me. She can do it now!)

We went to the top of the big tank where the divers were just going in. Brynn was really feeling yucky, so I found a quiet corner & sat with her on my lap for a half hour. Darrin went & got her a cold drink of water and I fed her a snack. It helped a ton and soon she was raring to go look at more!



They had a nice exhibit of Jellies, but nowhere near as good as the exhibit we saw in Monterey two years ago.

When we were done with the aquarium, we walked back through Quincy Market in the rain to go to a restaurant called Durgin Park for dinner. Quincy Market was deserted, an amazing thing in the summer! The restaurant was good, we ate yummy food and watched the rain fall outside the open window near our table. Brynn & Callie ddin't eat much, we ended up taking their food home and they ate it later in the hotel.

Leaving the restaurant, the rain had only gotten worse. It was coming straight down, no wind, just pouring down as though you were in the shower! (It was even warm) We had a walk of about 2 blocks to get tot he subway station, but fortunately, mom had plastic ponchos in her "super purse" and we put them on and head off into the rain. Brynn was stomping puddles all the way, we didn't care, because we truly could not have been any wetter. It was kind of fun to see the water running in rivers everywhere. Later in this blog there is a picture of Brynn jumping down some stairs - they were a waterfall this day, and we went around.

Finally made it to the T station and waited with all the other soaked Bostonians for our train, rode out to where we'd left the car, and drove back to the hotel, stopping only to buy a car seat for Brynn when we FINALLY saw a place that would have them. There are not too many places like Wal-Mart, Target or K-Mart in Massachusetts.

Back to the hotel, where Brynn & Callie took a bath with the new bath toys Brynn got at the aquarium. Then we collapsed into bed and fell unconscious.

Day 3 - Driving to Maine

Got up early, checked out of the hotel, and drove up to see the Boston Temple. Brynn was thrilled to see a fire hydrant there.



Then we went up to Kittery, Maine, where we found a nice picnic spot for lunch. They had a fire hydrant there, too, but I'll spare you that picture. It was very wooded there, and Callie liked comparing the pine cones to the ones she had seen in Utah & California.

We then drove up route 1 along the Maine coast. You really can't see any of the coast from the road, due to the very heavy foliage along the road. In fact, most roads in Maine are quite boring, nothing but trees. You don't realize how entertaining billboards can be until there are none, and nothing new to look at, either. Once we passed Portland, the road got much smaller and rural. Lots of small roadside stores, selling everything from antiques to fabric to homemade jams & jellies or candles. Pretty much every home or business we saw along the way had some sort of homespun store attached to it. We drove right through Freeport - a nice little town of outlet stores (and we've got a fire hydrant picture from there, too - they're yellow with blue hoses. I know you care.)

Kept driving until we reached the town of Rockland, where we'd wanted to go to the Maine Lighthouse Museum - but alas, they were closed at 4 pm on a Saturday in tourist season (whoda thunk it?) so we just wandered the beautiful harbor:

There was a boardwalk/trail along the harbor and we walked a half mile or so, until we came to a small cover where the kids could go down and touch the ocean. For Callie & Brynn, it was their first time touching the Atlantic. Brynn was more interested in the "fardrant" we found on the boardwalk.

We got back in the car, and continued driving up the coast. Around dinner time, we started looking for a place to eat. Drove through many beautiful small towns (Camden, Belfast, etc.) but none had any restaurants except pizza places, and we'd just done that! Drove over a scary old bridge high over the river near Bucksport. Just barely room for two lanes of traffic, with no room for error. There was a much nicer, bigger bridge under construction right next to the old bridge - I imagine the locals will be very happy with the extra room on the bridge! In Bucksport, we found a McDonald's and stopped to eat. Kyra loved the decor on there and took pictures with Darrin's camera.



We finally drove onto Mt. Desert Island just about sunset. Had a beautiful sunset view over the water as we crossed the bridge. (No picture because I was driving.) Found our hotel and checked into our rooms for the night. Brynn was cranky & pulling on her ears, and more than happy to go to bed.

Day 4 - Maine!

This was Sunday, so we started out by attending Sacrament Meeting at the local branch. It was a very small branch - but they did have a chapel! Only 6 rows of pews, and the fact that they were all sparsely filled meant that this was an amazingly big crowd! A far cry from our large Utah ward, and the kids were surprised. They had to ask for help from any visiting priesthood holders to get the sacrament blessed & passed to the "large" crowd (I'd estimate 50-75 people, max. The branch president cornered us in the hall & tried to recruit us to move into the branch, offering help finding land to build on and a job. Tempting, but we declined.

After church we drove into downtown Bar Harbor and found a park overlooking the boats. Had a picnic lunch in a gazebo there (or as Brynn said a "Zagbego") and watched the ships all around. One really caught Kyra's eye - the Margaret Todd, a large schooner with 4 masts. Kyra just read "Treasure Island" in school and is interested in all things relating to sailing ships and pirates right now.


There were some old cannons that used to be on an island defending the harbor. They'd been moved to this park, so now they looked like they were attacking the harbor. Quite the switch. The kids enjoyed playing on the cannons.

We walked down to the rocky beach at the harbor and let the kids explore. They found two dead, intact crabs, pretty rocks, and lots of mussel shells. We were able to walk under the pier used for the Margaret Todd.

After a while, we decided to drive into Acadia National Park. We went first to aplace called "Sand Beach" because it is the only beach with actual sand in the whole area. The fog was bad when we were there.

That's Darrin & the girls out there, just so you know. We were there for a few hours, the fog moved out, then in, then out. Kyra found a rock that was perfect for sunbathing:

Not to be outdone, Brynn had to get in the act and find her own "laying rock"


When we were finally tired of Sand Beach, we went to Thunder Hole. This is a narrow neck of water in a very rocky area. When the waves come in, they make a large BOOM! that can be heard way off. We were there when the tide was at its lowest. I thought it was pretty impressive, Darrin said it was nothing compared to how he has seen it. We walked dow right next to it (on the left in this picture) and looked down into it. Kyra used up nearly a whole roll of film trying to catch the perfect picture of the spray. Darrin said we should try & come back when the tide was higher to really see it.

That night we ate at a waterside restaurant called the "Chart Room" Darrin ordered 2 pounds of "steamers" - steamed clams with butter in them. He'd thought they would be a meal, but really they were an appetizer and came with just 2 pounds of clams. He liked them, but it was a bit of an overdose. I had a delicious Maine Scampi, with lobster, scallops, shrimp, veggies and pasta. The girls each had clam chowder and shared crab cakes. Brynn ordered mac & cheese but wouldn't eat it. She started acting sick so Darrin took her back to the car early.

Brynn's ears were clearly starting to bother her, and the congestion and runny nose were much worse. We were starting to worry about her flying home with a full-blown ear infection. We went back to the hotel and Darrin took the girls swimming in the (cold!) hotel pool.

Day 5 - Rainy!

Woke up to pounding rain outside. Decided to visit the "Natural History Museum" at the University of the Atlantic. It looked promising, with a large whale skull (like at Pt. Lobos) outside. Also a fire hydrant. But inside was disappointing. It was about the same size as our house, and (as Callie put it) "Just a bunch of dead animals" - apparently one of the required courses of study there is taxidermy, and student projects are all displayed here.

They did have a very nice tidepool touch tank, where the kids got to touch all kinds of creatures - even more than at the big aquarium in Boston!



That's our very own, very brave Callie holding a large moon snail - she said it was "The slimiest thing ever invented!" They also got to hold or touch big sea stars, all kinds of crabs, some sea cucumbers, sea weed, etc. They loved it and spent pretty much all their time there.

Then we went to lunch at a great place - called Jeannie's Breakfast & Chowder House. This was pretty much the only restaurant that Callie & Brynn ate very much. They both pigged out on french toast. The rest of us had sandwiches or soup (or both) and the food was good and reasonable priced.

It was still raining, so we just looked around the shops a bit until Brynn's doctor appointment. She just had fluid (no infection) in her ears, so the doctor recommended we just keep using the decongestants and hope the fluid drained before we flew home. (It did, she was fine)

By then it had cleared up some, so we headed out to see more of the park. We visited Thunder Hole again, but this time the tide was too full and it was just sloshing around. Didn't even take pictures.

Drove down to a place called Otter Cove. It was beutiful! Here are a few pictures:





There was an old stone bridge that was built in the 1930s - it connected the ocean to a small pond. The daisy picture shows the pond, it was taken from right by the bridge. The watermarks on the bridge make it looks as though the water is much higher, and that the bridge is reflected, but truly the water level was very low when we were there. There was a good 50 feet of seaweed piled up along the shore, we couldn't even get to the water because it was far too slippery to walk on. (You can see some in the foreground of the bridge photo) We let the kids wander the rocks and look for sea shells. We let them make designs out of the shells and they just left those. Callie was fascinated by the living mussels that were everywhere.

We drove the entire scenic loop that day, stopping at a few other places that looked interesting. Drove to the top of Cadillac Mountain and were rewarded with this view:



It was disappointing - all the things I'd heard about how great the view was from there and all I could see was fog! We took this picture, the only picture we got of the whoel family together on the trip. I cropped it here, so you can't see how terribly off center it was. But using the timer while the camera is perched on a rock doesn't always work so well.



That night we ate at a place called the "Lighthouse Restaurant" - it was great! There are places all up & down the roads out there called "Lobster Pounds" - outdoor restaurants where they boil up the lobster in big outdoor pots and serve it on picnic tables covered in newspaper. Most of them are located where they have a good water view. We'd planned to get lobster at a place like that, but the rain forced a change of plans. We ended up here instead, it was similar to a lobster pound, but indoors. Darrin & I ate lobster, it was delicious, the best lobster I've ever had.

Kyra & Callie thought we were gross to eat something that looked like that, so they had bacon burgers. Callie complimented the owner/waitress, saying it was the "World's Best Bacon Cheeseburger". Brynn still had no appetite, so all we fed her was corn on the cob and chocolate milk. If you ask her, this was the best meal of the trip!

Day 6 - Our last full day in Maine

Started out the day driving to the Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse - it is beautiful and one of the most photographed lighthouses in Maine. I enjoyed taking pictures of it. The kids enjoyed climbing around on the rocks.


Somewhere there I lost my new lens cap, AND the gizmo that was supposed to keep me from losing it. (Rolling my eyes.....)

There was a large fog bank just barely offshore, and we could see boats going by, but just barely.


Next we drove to a place called Seawall, a naturally formed sea wall of fist-sized rocks. Had a picnic lunch there - shared a table with a French Canadian family. (We couldn't understand a word they said!)

Tried once again to visit the top of Cadillac Mountain, it was worse! The kids had fallen asleep in the car, so we didn't even wake them, just drove back down. Neither Kyra or Callie would believe that we'd gone up there.

Went into Bar Harbor, shopped some more, bought Mom her birthday present, and ate at a restaurant in downtown Bar Harbor. They had the best clam chowder I ate the whole trip. Yummmmm.

That evening I took Kyra & Callie out to sail on the Margaret Todd:




It is a large sailing boat, the only four-masted ship in Maine. We took a two hour sunset cruise. It was very windy (great for sailing!) and there was a fog bank out over the Atlantic, so we couldn't sail out that way and stayed in Frenchman's Bay. Kyra even got to help raise the sails!


We had to take this picture to show Brynn that even big ships can have fire hydrants! (Brynn and Darrin returned to sand beach while we were on the ship. They had the place to themselves, found the purple pail we'd seen at Thunder Hole washed ashore, and made sandcastles, played in the waves, and wrote "Brynn and Dad's Beach" in the sand.)

Day 7 - Driving to Boston

Our return trip to Boston was (surprise!) very rainy. But we were lucky that the important things did not get rained on.

We took a swing inland through Bangor & Agusta on the way back, mainly so we could stop in Vassalboro. This is a small town just outside of Waterville & Winslow, where Mom's dad's family is from. I had tried to find out ahead of time the address of the cemetary where they are buried, with no luck. Mom's records said "North Vassalboro Cemetary" and when I googled it, nothing. (Except our genealogy site)I contacted the Vassalboro Historical Society, who referred me to the County Clerk, who would only say "Come in and I'll see what I can do."

So armed with only the address of the Vassalboro County Clerk, off we went. Arrived at the clerks office, and was told there were TWENTY-SEVEN cemetaries in the town of Vassalboro, and none of them were called "North Vassalboro" - Sigh. She handed me a list of cemetaries and a big fat binder to look through. It was just as tough someone had walked through the cemataries row by row, writing everything down. There was a cemetary that was called "North Vassalboro Village" the pages for that cemetary were about an inch thick, but I started in as fast as I could aware of Darrin & the kids waiting in the car.

I was getting frustrated when another employee came over and said "Here- we just got this back" - it was an INDEX! Some kid - as an Eagle Scout Project - had gone through the big fat book and produced an alphabetical index! (Thank you, thank you, thank you!) and so I was able to get the information quickly. It was North Vassalboro Village, which was right around the corner.

We drove over there and wandered around until we found them. (There was no plat info - just which cemetary, so we had to wander quite a bit) Found some other Reynolds, probably related somehow, but we don't know how. Darrin got pictures of them anyway.

I won't post the headstone pictures here, but you can see them on our genealogy site under "What's New" - scroll down to "Cemetaries & Headstones"



After the cemetary adventure, we drove to the one and only picnic table in the town of Vassalboro. It is between the Historical Society's office and China Lake. Ate a picnic lunch and let the kids run around a bit.



Then we drove to the town of Bath to the Maine Maritime Museum (Try saying THAT ten times fast!) It was an interesting museum, all about shipbuilding in the 1700 & 1800s - It was interesting, but by this time it was pouring down rain and much of the museum is in a series of small builings (the buildings used for shipbuilding, all restored) and so we were dashing from building to building in the rain, forced to choose between running in the muddy paths or on the wet grass. We kind of sloshed through it all. (Pictures are coming of all this, but they are not ready yet.)

The kids really loved a model of a 1950's tugboat. They could steer, blow the whistles, and operate the ham radio.

Then it was off to Boston. We made a pit stop in New Hampshire, just so the kids could say that they'd done more that just drive through. Took a picture of a fire hydrant there, for our series to be called "Fire Hydrants Across America" (So far we have Utah, Washington, Colorado, Massachusetts, New Hamshire, Maine, Texas and Virginia.)



Ate dinner at a place called "Friendly's" which is mostly an ice cream place, but they had food, too. The kids loved that they got Sundaes with their kids meal.

Drove into downtown Boston and checked into our hotel. The room was very small and cramped, we had to stack the furniture in the corner to make room for Brynn's rollaway bed.

Day 8 - Going home!

We woke up to another cloudy day. Here's the view from our hotel room. We stayed at the Marriott Long Wharf, which really is right on the harbor.

After getting Dunkin' Donuts for breakfast, we headed over to see if we could ride the Swan Boats before the forecasted deluge began. It took two differet trains, plus a walk of a bout a block & a half to get there from our hotel. We arrived at the public gardens and never felt a drop. Fortunately, the weather must have scared off everybody else, because we were able to walk right on a boat without waiting!

We saw a few real swans, lots of ducks, and even some ducklings. (Yes, we made way for them!)

Then we walked over to the statues of Mrs. Mallard, Jack, Kack, Lack, Mack, Nack, Oack, Pack & Quack. Brynn wanted to to be a "Cow-duck girl"



After that we wandered around the public gardens and Boston Common, looking at things like fire hydrants, bugs on the sidewalk, etc. It was a lot of walking, but when Brynn got tired of walking, she just switched to jumping:



We took the T back to Quincy Market, where we ate Pizza on the steps of the building and watched a great street performer "LuckyBob" while we ate lunch. Shopped around a bit, then returned to the hotel for our van & luggage.

We had a little extra time, so we did quick drive-bys at the Old North Church, USS Constitution, and Bunker Hill before we drove out to the airport and flew home. The trip home was exhausting, Brynn pooped her pants on the plane (and airplane potties are not easy places to clean up a mess like that....) and everyone but me slept.

We arrived home at midnight Utah time (it felt like 2 am to us, though!) and just went straight to bed. Kind of surreal to spend most of the day so far away and sleep in my own bed that night.