Lobstah and Beantown

I keep telling myself that all I want is a quiet vacation - read a book or two, sit on the beach in quiet contemplation, stroll through cool quiet woods. But it appears I have a bad case of FOMO. Monday we had no agenda, so I said "Take me to Red's!" If you haven't been to Red's Eats in Wiscasset Maine, you really are missing out. They have the biggest, best lobster rolls you've ever seen!

These are pure heaven - no mayonaisse, no celery, no bed of lettuce - just lobster, with a container of melted butter to pour over it. *drool*

Wiscasset is quite a way up the coast from where we were staying, but we left early and would have been there right at the height of the lunch crowd, so we stopped at L.L. Bean's flagship store in Freeport on the way up. That meant we hit Wiscasset about 1:30, but the line was still ridiculous for a Monday. But it's always like that. We stood in the hot sun for an hour before we could order. I will give Red's credit - they pass out umbrellas to customers waiting in the sun. 

After lunch we decided to visit the ocean again, this time at the Cape Elizabeth Lighthouse. The lighthouse itself is nothing to write home about, but the rocks on the coastline there look like petrified wood, and shatter into this amazing pattern that looks like wood chips under your feet. 

I really didn't pack properly for this trip. While the forecast was for a couple of days in the 80s early on, it called for cooling off by Monday and several days with highs in the upper 60s. They lied to me. Bigly. I didn't bring any shorts, thinking that for a couple days, I would just deal with being too warm in jeans. But it has been in the upper 80s ever since we got here Friday. And yesterday just about pushed me over the edge. We walked about 7 miles around Boston in that heat. In case you're wondering why I didn't just go buy some shorts - it's late September. You don't buy summer clothes, even on clearance, in New England in late September!

Maxine had to drive to Boston Tuesday morning for an interview, so we planned to pick up Will and drive him to Boston with us, meanwhile picking up the dresser that belonged to my grandfather. However, you know what they say about the "best laid plans". We spent about half an hour futzing around in the heat trying to squeeze that dresser into the back of Greg's Subaru while still leaving enough room for suitcases and for Will. We finally gave up and took the dresser back upstairs, and resolved to come back for it Wednesday morning before we leave. After all, as Greg said, it would seem silly to leave without it just because we had to back track 60 miles when we already drove a thousand for the purpose of picking it up. Well, when you put it that way...

We started our day in Boston at the Holocaust Memorial. I have always loved that memorial - it's not a static slab of stone with names carved on it, it feels like a living, breathing representation of the sorrows and the horrors that we need never to forget. To see the individual numbers etched onto pane after pane of glass, and to realize that each number represents someone who died in the Holocaust, can be difficult to wrap your head around. It has always been a moving place to visit, but expecially so after it was recently vandalized. The broken glass has not yet been replaced. But walking through the corridor over the grates emitting steam is still a disturbing experience. And although I know I have read this plaque before, in light of recent events, Eisenhower's words speak loudly across the years:

"The things I saw beggar description. The visual evidence and the verbal testimony of starvation, cruelty and bestiality were so overpowering as to leave me a bit sick. I made the visiit deliberately, in order to be in a position to give first hand evidence of these things, if ever in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to propaganda."

On a lighter note, we visited the harbor,

and the Green Dragon, which although it isn't the original buildling, it's the approximate site and recreatiion of the tavern where many of the organizing events of the Revolutionary War were planned. The Boston Tea Party was organized there, and Paul Revere was sent from the Green Dragon on his "Midnight Ride".

We had tickets for the Red Sox game last night, and decided to walk to Fenway from Kendall Square. Now normally that would be no big thing. But when you're dressed for apple picking on a crisp fall day, but the sun is beating down on the pavement and the humidity is outrageous, it's a recipe for extreme dehydration. But by the time we reached the river, the sun had set and we were rewarded with this view:

And then this one:

Today we leave for Webster, New York to visit Greg's brother and the Corning Museum of Glass. I wish I could sleep in the car!