Day 4 of The Big Trip

Well, it's day four, and we all hate each other. Drew spread peanut butter in Alex' hair today at breakfast; "I didn't like the way she looked at me." Alex knocked Brenna into the pool before she had her floaties on. Brenna pushed Braden down a flight of stairs. Braden bit Valerie on the nose and drew blood. Valerie made me sleep in the hallway because of my night terrors.

None of that is true! But admit it, you all thought it was possible, didn't you? In actual fact, we are getting along very well. A few things are clear by now:

1. I don't believe Brenna is ever quiet for more than 45 seconds at a time. Seriously--that's not an exaggeration. Even when she is under punishment of death, like when we're in just crazy Boston traffic going through a tunnel at 70 mph while looking for an exit that has to be coming up in the next 10 seconds even though we can't see it yet. Valerie bought each of the kids a CD player with headphones for those times when we need it be quiet for a few minutes...Brenna sings along. She also asks for a piece of gum about twice per hour.

2. Braden has done well in the vehicle, especially when he's asleep. He's fine-tuned his sonar, so just as our other three kids did, he has an amazing knack for falling asleep about 25 minutes before we get to wherever we're going. He doesn't want to each much of anything outside of french fries and waffles.

3. Bringing the spray and the Readers Digest for the bathroom was genius. Now that makes me feel like I'm at home!

4. People from Indiana get excited about the littlest things.

5. Everyone from the city is in a hurry. We were at a light in Buffalo, and I was first in line--again, little things excite us. The moment the light turned green, and I mean the first millisecond, the guy behind me began honking. As it turned out, he made it past me, but we both got stopped at the next light. And he was first. So guess what? That's right, baby. When that light turned reddish-green, I just stood on the horn. Valerie was horrified, but I thoroughly enjoyed it, and the kids thought it was funny too.

6. When it comes to hotels, we really don't care too much about the comfort of the beds or any such thing. It's this: do they have waffles or B&G for breakfast, how warm is the pool, and how big is the TV?

I mentioned in an earlier blog that we switched hotels after we got to Boston, so I won't go into that again in any detail except to say this--we are very happy with our current location. The room is great, the area is just so much fun, and (again, small things rev our engines) we get to ride the elevator a lot. It also has underground parking. I will say, though, that the breakfast stinks. Bagels and cereal. Hrrumph. Not one single blessed artery-blocker.

After getting settled in yesterday (I'm writing this post about Wednesday, day 4 of The Big Trip on Thursday evening) we walked about town a bit. There wasn't really a lot to do necessarily, but it was a very pleasant afternoon and Medford is definitely the kind of town that feels homey in spite of the fact that it's on the outskirts of a huge city. To this point I have to report that Boston seems like a place I could enjoy visiting over and over again. It was only going to be about $500 for the whole fam to take the Amtrak round trip, which was my original plan for our mode of transportation for The Big Trip. We completed out walkabout of Medford at Papa Gino's--fantastic pizza. I may have a new favorite. I should also mention that one of the first things we came to was a cemetery that made me say, "Some of those stones look really old." Uh, yeah. Understatement. The oldest stone we found was a man who died in 1625. There were a bunch from the 1600's and 1700's. Many of them, from the dates, probably were killed in the Revolutionary War. A fellow came through and said there were several burial sites from one family that came over on the Mayflower whose descendants still live in Medford today.

After supper I got on the computer and punched up directions to a local Best Buy because our digital camera was acting funny, and we absolutely want lots of pictures of The Big Trip. After looking through the various options we made a command decision to invest in a new SLR camera for our anniversary present, so we bought a nice Canon EOS. Massachusetts has these crazy things called rotaries where traffic enters somewhere on the circle, goes around, and exits at any of the two or three other streets that connect with the rotary. There are similar accident-makers all over the place in Quito for those of you who have made that trip. Eventually, almost by accident we found our way back via a stop at the grocery store to pick up some soy milk for the boy. At times the traffic/rotary situation was so disconcerting that we were laughing like Bob Krohn was in the car. At one point I yelled this, "I don't want to get back on 93. I can do this!"

Much to my chagrin the Red Sox are out of town this week and pretty much all of the next two weeks as well. I would be willing to pay a lot of money for a couple of tickets to Fenway Pock. By the by, I know I spelled the word park wrong. I chose to spell it as these good people say it. I do enjoy the accent in this part of America.

We're having fun. Thank you, Uncle Eli.