On the evening of Tuesday November 23rd I took a redeye flight out of San Francisco to a connection in Newark, New Jersey and then up to Manchester, New Hampshire. I didn’t encounter any security issues (just had the typical metal detector in the lane I was in) and the slight delay out of SFO didn’t impact my connection at all. Upon arrival in Manchester on Wednesday morning I picked up my rental car at the Manchester airport which, upon reflection, was the first time I’ve ever rented a car (partners I traveled with had, but I had never done it myself). My Aunt Meg’s house was an easy half hour drive from the airport and she had a room and comfy bed prepared for me to crash for a few hours. Excellent!
Wednesday night my cousins Melissa and Brad came by, Brad with his wife and two young kids to have an early Thanksgiving dinner. All the typical trimmings, and stuffing with whole cranberries in it that I must replicate in the future since I love cranberries but am not too keen on the cranberry sauce from cans. It was a really great evening, and it was great to meet Brad’s family and catch up with Melissa.
Thanksgiving! After saying goodbye to Brad’s family in the morning, Aunt Meg, Melissa and I headed over to the retirement community where my grandmother lives to enjoy their large catered dinner, and enjoy we did! I was able to spend some time catching up with my grandmother before and after dinner. We also spent some time watching the first half of a movie my grandmother recommends, Days of Heaven – it’s now in my NetFlix queue so I can watch the rest.
On Friday I drove up to Maine to finally see my mother’s new house and to spend dinner with her, her boyfriend and my little sister Annette. The drive up took a little over 3 hours and I was fretting all week that the weather wouldn’t turn out well. I was pleasantly surprised when the forecasted poor weather cleared out early and I found almost my whole drive up not only free from precipitation, but quite beautiful. On the drive up I also took some time to take some photos, including Pedro O’Hara’s American Mexican Irish Cuisine (just, what?), snow (this satisfied my snow quota for the year) and a Moose Hill Rd sign (it was so very Maine). I also got to meet my mother’s pets, which currently consist of a giant macaw (ugh, birds), a tiny tortoise and several cats, one of whom is a fluffy Simcoe.
Unfortunately the seafood restaurant we ended up at for dinner was out of broiled lobster – oh no! My trip to Maine was without my beloved lobster! That disappointment aside, it was a nice dinner and it was nice to see everyone.
Since it was Black Friday I had decided early on to skip my pilgrimage to the L.L. Bean flagship store in Freeport, until I remembered that it’s famously the only thing in Maine open 24/7. Besides I didn’t get lobster, I couldn’t skip the trip to L.L. Bean too, it would insult my Mainerness! I haven’t yet completely traded “wicked” for “hella” after all. Fortunately, 9:30PM on Black Friday at L.L. Bean was, while certainly more busy than a typical 9:30PM, parking wasn’t hard to find and it wasn’t busy enough to be uncomfortable. I was able to browse and buy a couple things (even if I completely forgot to pick up a new flannel shirt). The drive back to New Hampshire was eventless (no moose!) and I was able to get back before 2AM.
Saturday I drove down to Massachusetts to meet up with Mike Rushton, Martin Owens and Paul Tagliamonte, all of whom I’ve known for multiple years via my work with Ubuntu but had only ever actually met Martin in person previously. We had lunch at a local place and then headed back to Mike’s place to see his sysadmin heaven computer room (monitors and computers everywhere!). Mike’s wife arrived shortly after we did and surprised us with giant Ubuntu cookies she had made specifically for us from the bakery she works at – wow! There were no leftovers.
When I got back to my Aunt Meg’s early in the evening I quickly changed and headed back out the door to meet up with my Aunt Elaine, cousin Erica and her 1 year old daughter and my Grandmother at my Grandmother’s again for dinner. It had been 5 years since I’d seen my Aunt Elaine or cousin Erica, and of course I had never seen her beautiful little daughter. The evening was spent with more catching up with all the news of each others lives and then we all headed out shortly after 8PM.
I spent the rest of the evening chatting with my Aunt Meg and packing my little suitcase (in which my stuff + new acquisitions barely fit!). I have to say that it was one of the most heavily slanted reward to stress ratio visit with family I’ve ever experienced, the only stress I encountered was my typical shyness and worries about things not working out. All the visits with family members were short but rewarding and my Aunt Meg was a gracious host who made me feel perfectly at home in her home (unusual for me, but it was clean and safe, she had fresh healthy snacks and I had plenty of guilt-free alone time and schedule flexibility).
Sunday morning I headed off to Manchester for a 1PM flight. Breezed through security (no line! no scanners! cheerful TSA agents!) and took advantage of the airport’s free wifi to catch up on some emails and tasks. Manchester is my favorite airport. Unfortunately I got stuck in Newark with a 5 hour delay after our plane broke and they had to find a replacement. I finally got back to San Francisco shortly before midnight, where MJ picked me up and we went out for some very late, but much needed, dinner. I’m fortunate that I have a boss was sympathetic to my “I will be starting late, I didn’t get home until 2AM” excuse the next morning!