I Went to Massachusetts (Part 3)

Once settled in Newburyport, we went to a wedding at the Willowdale Estate which is in the Bradley Palmer State Park in Topsfield, MA. It was fantastically pretty. I kind of expected to see teensy fairies helping the bride** with her dress instead of the usual ladies. The bride is a family member we don't get to see often, and we had only met her fiance once before the wedding - their wedding ceremony just made me want to get to know them better. I can't even remember all the bits but it was great. For dinner we were seated with 4 other couples who were about our age (well OK, younger, dammit) and who all knew each other. They seemed to be very nice people but I discovered that my conversational skills are VERY rusty. I am socially awkward anyway*** and I didn't improve on my skills that night.

**Here I would like to mention that while the bride wore a beautiful, very demure full-length lace dress that had belonged to her mother, with long sleeves and a high collar, her shoes were something else. They looked like this:

Awesome.

***Here, because of the word awkward, I would like to mention the web series The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl, it makes for hilarious and sometimes painful viewing.

We also went to a labor day BBQ, and saw friends we have not seen in a long time - in one case 13 years! Jeez. We had a good time. We ate good food. Some of it was farmer's market produce and I was jealous of it.

I need to figure out how to grow tomatoes!

As usual what seemed like plenty of time in the planning turned into nowhere near enough time - I loved seeing everyone and again regret not being able to magically translocate for visiting purposes.

Eventually we made our way to Boston for a few days, and stayed in Back Bay, which was a fun location for a short visit.





The gorgeous weather gave over to wind and rain for a few days, which may have been remnants of Lee that had moved north. At the same time, we were watching the formation of what eventually became Hurricane Maria, which forecast track showed as "headed right for us". It was not forecast to be a strong storm by that time, and so we just kept hoping. We did wonder if we'd have to postpone our return flight to SXM, which was scheduled for early Sunday, September 11th.

On our first night in Boston we took ourselves out to a restaurant called L'Espalier, where we had a wonderful time. A seasonal menu is offered, with several courses, along with an optional wine pairing. I don't remember details of all the courses, but I do remember there was an emphasis on using local products - we drank several wines that are from the New England area. I'd love to tour those vineyards! OK I am getting crazy now. But not really.

Thats it for now! Next up - some Boston pictures :)