New England Vacation

Well, Saturday morning when we woke up to 8 inches of snow, we were skeptical about the start of our vacation. Once we finally plowed our way out of the parking lot, we made our way (slowly) to the airport. Once we got there, we were surprised to discover that all flights were right on schedule. This did not prove to be true. We spent quite a while waiting in the airport getting to know our next door neighbors who were ironically on the same flight as us to Chicago. So, 2 hours later (1 hour after we were supposed to leave), when we finally took off, we were very relieved. When we got off the plane for our connection to Chicago at 9:56, we literally had 4 minutes to run to the other side of the airport to catch our 10:00 flight to Providence. Amazingly...we made it. Sadly, our luggage did not. It caught up with us about midnight.

Waiting for take-off in Louisville

When we arrived in Providence, we got our rental care and drove straight to Cape Cod (about an hour from providence) to visit with Jared's Uncle Bob and see the Cape. Uncle Bob had some AMAZING, authentic New England Clam Chowder and Lobster salad waiting for us when we arrived. So, we ate lunch and chatted for awhile before heading out on the cape. Let me just say, Cape Cod is one of the neatest places I have ever been. Everything is so beautiful and it just seems that the Cape has a different, slower way of life. Here are a few of the sights we saw:

This light house is still guiding ships at sea after many years of service

This is a draw bridge, but not just any draw bridge. It is a draw bridge created for trains to cross. So, most of the time this bridge is as you see it. But 2 or 3 times a day, the top part lowers down for trains to cross. The bridge is operated with 2 small engines and an amazingly engineered pulley system. Pretty crazy!

Anyway, we got to see lots of other neat things. But, since it was pouring rain for most of the day, we didn't get a whole lot of pictures. We do want to say THANK YOU Uncle Bob. We had a blast!

Jared and Uncle Bob

On Sunday, we went and saw a few sights in Providence. Then we drove up to Newport, RI (home of America's Cup, the Yacht Race). We spent most of the day there before driving over to Boston to spend the evening. I won't bore you with all the details. But, here are some pics. We saw quite a lot of historical churches and schools. Enjoy:

PROVIDENCE, RI

Capital Building

View of the City from our hotel window

A random sign that we found confusing, but quite funny

The first ever Baptist Church in America

Brown College

NEWPORT, RI

Providence, the first Episcopalian church in America

A New England Fish Market

The Pier

Rocky Beaches

Newport is known for its mansions. This is one of the largest.

Another beautiful mansion

Some sailors taking advantage of the windy day

Now these next few pictures are in Boston. I want to take this time to inform you that the mid-size vehicle that we ended up with from Hertz was a Kia Rondo as seen below. They call this an SUV, but it is really more like a sporty mini-van. Being that Jared is a lot better at reading maps, he was the navigator for the trip and I was the driver.

In case you were wondering, this is how I felt about driving a mini-van in Boston.

Jared, my loving husband, with a supportive (but obviously terrified) smile.

Okay...Moving on!

BOSTON, MA

Harvard

MIT

Berklee College of Music
(this is where we went to the Paul Potts concert)

The first church of Christ, Scientology

Paul Potts singing his signature song Nessun Dorma

One of the things that inspired our trip was the fact that Paul Potts would be putting on a concert in Boston on that weekend. Now, have no fear, Jared and I did not move to Kentucky and become closet opera fans. But, we LOVE Paul Potts. If you haven't heard of him, he was the winner of the 2007 Britain's got talent. Check him out on Youtube. He is amazing.

I know this is a really long post, but we wanted to show you all some pictures from our trip. We are so fortunate to have been able to take some time away from life to go on an "adventure" together. We really had a great time!