Sunday, July 13, 2014

Canoeing the Charles and a disappointment

Our last Saturday in Boston!  It started with Rusty running 18 miles and ended with all of us in our beds, totally spent. 

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Next we were off to the MIT museum.  This was really fun!  Robotics, Holograms, and kinetic art held us captive.  Ice Cream at Toscanini’s rounded out the morning.
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We had a fun afternoon in store.  Canoeing on the Charles.  It was a spectacular, sunny day, perfect for being on the water.  Or, in the water, as we spent most of the time splashing and playing in the river. Come to find out, swimming in the Charles is prohibited, and carries a $200 fine if caught.  Oops…

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Last on the agenda was the Water Fires in Providence, RI.  We thought it would be fun to hit one more East Coast state, since it’s only an hour away.  But, with Sweet, Sweet Freedom having been returned a few days before, we needed to take the train.  Earlier in the day we’d had a family discussion about our plans.  Josh didn’t want to go boating, and I wasn’t sure I had the energy to go to RI, so we decided if Josh could have a good attitude boating, I could have a good attitude about RI.  He was so excited to go, and kept talking about it all day.  We set off with what we assumed was plenty of time to catch the train.  Of course, we are always slower than we think, and we ended up missing the subway at Harvard Square to take us to the trains at South Station.  We knew that now our timing was going to be very, very tight.  But Josh kept saying, “We can make it!  I just know we can.”  We got to the station and ran to purchase tickets.  Tickets in hand we ran to the platform.  I spotted our train and started running as fast as I could, the kids and Rusty trailing behind.  The train starts to move….I’m almost there.  I can see the conductor and I put my hands together in a begging position.  He shrugs his shoulders and the train speeds away.  Blake and Josh are immediately in tears and Blake says, “That conductor is the biggest jerk ever, right Mom?”  And Josh’s little faith was totally crushed.  He kept saying, “I was so sure we would make it.  I kept hoping the whole time!”  My heart hurt for him.  The other two were ready to call it a day and headed back home.  Josh said that if we rode to the end of the Orange Line that would make him feel better because then he would have been to the end of every subway line.  So that’s exactly what he and I did.  IMG_5123

We set out today to shatter our step record.  I don’t know how we’ll ever top this:

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