We embarked on the final leg of our vacation in the morning. We bade goodbye to Nancy (with promises that we'd return here, too) and after a brief pause for photos, we headed off towards Boston again to drop off the car and catch our shuttle to Boston.
Our trip took us through New Hampshire and down 89 towards Boston. It was a pleasant drive. It turned out that the Babe needed a larger size of knitting needle for the shawl she'd been working on, so we stopped at a store in Manchester, NH. Actually, we first stopped at a visitor's center on the freeway near Manchester and got wuuuuunderful service from the two people on duty there, who looked stores up in the phone book, drew maps, and gave us first-rate directions to a Michael's. We got there without any problem, the Babe got her needles, and we continued towards Boston.
We dropped the car off without any problems, caught the shuttle to the airport, and checked in. We then needed a bit of lunch and a chance to sit down and so we ended up lunching at--ta-daaaah!--Yet Another Legal Seafood. Shucks, if it works, don't fix it. We had a lovely lunch without lobster this time and played some more honeymoon gin. (Note: Despite my strong desire to have some again after 15 years without, I never did order bluefish paté. Next time, next time....)
We got to Philadelphia in short order and were met by Sarah, our favorite Ph.D. candidate (and the Babe's oldest daughter; I'm sure those two facts are somewhat connected) and Narda, who is Sarah's favorite Ph.D. We drove back to their house, a lovely old townhouse in a pretty part of Philadelphia. We ate dinner and then Sarah and Narda introduced us to a game that they were very fond of called Settlers of Catan (a great game series created by Klaus Teuber) which proved to be exciting and very addictive. We stayed up until the wee hours playing, then all went to bed and fell over.
The next morning, we had breakfast and decided that we were going to go out to buy the one of the expansion sets for Settlers of Catan. This took us over to Collingswood, NJ to a game store that had the expansion sets. We purchased the Cities and Knights expansion set and then scampered back to Narda and Sarah's place to read the rules and play the game with the expansion. The expansion set proved to change the game dramatically, but it was still a lot of fun. We stopped playing Settlers of Catan for a while so that the Babe and I could teach Sarah and Narda a game that we'd just learned from one of the Babe's sisters called "99," a simple card game that allows for a lot of "screw-yer-neighbor" tactics. We got to bed at a more civilized hour this time because we had plans for the next day.
We went to the Farmer's Market (that's not the name of it, but that's kinda what it was) in Philly. There are actually a zillion other things there including a bunch of really great food things, though. One of our first stops was a novelty store, where the Babe demonstrated one possibility for Halloween.
We moseyed around for a few hours, smelling things and tasting things and looking at fun stuff. It was a riot of color and activity and delightful smells and sights.
I actually didn't get a lot of photos of Narda and Sarah while we were there, but I snapped one shot of them at the market.
After the market, we walked through a public swap meet nearby, then walked about half a mile towards our ultimate dinner location, a very good Caribbean/Cuban restaurant that Sarah and Narda had eaten at before and liked. It was beastly hot and humid, so we stopped at a café and had cold liquids and rested our feet and enjoyed the AC for a while. We went to dinner and we all ate way too much, then headed back to the house and (unsurprisingly) played still more Settlers of Catan.
The next morning, the cats were being exceptionally silly, so I got a number of pictures of them. Narda and Sarah have two cats, actually: Rooster, who's a young obnoxious cat at the moment, and Mojo, who's older and bigger.
Rooster was playing "zoomcat" and was romping around the bedroom and attacking the blankets, the air, and most anything that moved… or didn't, for that matter. The rug, for example, had been lying there minding its own business when Rooster figured it needed to be taught a lesson.
Rooster squared off at one point with Mojo, who played along briefly but clearly doesn't think of Rooster as a real threat.
The last time we'd been in Philadelphia to visit (a couple years before), we'd gone out to the town of New Hope, PA, a delightful arts colony full of shops and little places to explore. I'd bought another Stetson out there, the Babe had bought some lovely dresses and wraps, and we'd all had a lovely day. This time, we decided we'd try a couple of other places nearby, so, after a sumptuous breakfast at Narda and Sarah's favorite breakfast place, we hit the road for Doylestown, PA for an autumn festival.
The center of the town (about 6 blocks by 3 blocks) is nothing but booths and activities. In addition to which, there were lots of established shops on the streets to look in. One of the activities for children was "scarecrow stuffing."
As each scarecrow was finished, the contestants would line them up near the scarecrow-stuffing tent.
It was a bit strange, really, seeing all these humanoid figures slumped against the wall, but there were moments of affection and romance as well.
Despite everything going on, I actually didn't take many other pictures there, but I've always been a fan of good street theater.
Twigby the Autumn Elf was working the crowd (and occasionally mugging for pictures). He obligingly posed for another shot.
There was still a few hours of daylight left when we were done and we made one more stop: Peddler's Village in the nearby town of Lahaska. Peddler's Village is an area of maybe 1/2 square mile with close to 200 shops in it. I was looking for a leather shop to buy a new wallet (my old one has lasted about 23 years, but it's getting to be kinda manky). While we found a really nice leather shop, they didn't have anything quite as... slabby as the wallet I've got now. The wallets they had--which were a real bargain and quality items to boot!--were clearly not strong enough to stand up to more than a couple years of the normal abuse I put wallets through, so I passed.
We went home, played still more Settlers of Catan, and then went to bed. Narda went off to work early the next morning. We spent the morning with just Sarah (yes, we squeezed in one more Settlers game), then we cabbed out to the airport. We got in to Boston on time, spent a little time hanging out at Logan Airport, then caught the flight to Seattle, then home to Eugene. It was a very long day of travel.
It had been a wonderful vacation and a delightful way to celebrate our third anniversary. We were glad to be home and glad to be sleeping in our own bed again at last.
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