Day 1 - Go North, No East...Which Way?!

Here begins several posts detailing our trip to the Great White North...well, it wasn't so white, luckily it didn't snow...but it was definitely wet! So if looking at someone's vacation photos doesn't really interest you, then move along...there's nothing to see here. But if you want a peek into what it's like to travel with me or you find "train wrecks waiting to happen" fascinating, then stick around and see what you learn.

Day 1
We took a direct flight from Austin to Boston because I like my outgoing and destinations cities to rhyme. That's just the way I roll. No wonder I've never been to Timbuktu. Ha!

What an easy flight...no layovers, no changing planes, no losing luggage along the way. And there was TV so I got to catch up on this reality phenomenon called "Jon and Kate Plus 8". I've decided there is NO way I could have 8 kids. I would be bald from pulling all my hair out. I don't have that kind of patience. Or coordination. Or sanity. I'll have to gain sainthood in some other way I guess.

We landed in Boston around 5pm, picked up our bags and headed over to the car rental agency where the fun began. When I say fun, read hell. My advice, sign up for the express check-in for any rental agency you decide to use. The 5-minute online application is so worth it when compared to an hour and a half of waiting in line. Ugh. We're losing light, people, and I've never driven in this city. More importantly, I've never driven to Vermont and New Hampshire from here which is where we were headed once we got a car. In the interest of time, they gave us the first available car which was the size of a small cruising... freighter...that looked like it had scraped the sides of the Panama Canal on it's way to the rental agency parking lot. Hmm. So I went in to see if I could get something a little less...conspicuous. Finally, with GPS device in place and a printed out Google map with directions as back-up, we head out of the airport area and are immediately faced with...a toll road. Luckily, this was at the beginning of our trip, so I had cash in hand. J got this shot of where the tollroad was leading. Sumner Tunnel. Underwater. Perfect.
Obviously we made it out okay...and the traffic wasn't too bad yet AND I didn't hear about this event from only a few months before until we got to my aunt's house. That might have made me a tad nervous. Sinkholes and underwater tunnels should never be in the same sentence.

We drove over the Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge for the first time. This is one of the few shots we have of it sans rain. And blur. Considering J shot it from a moving car.

We finally got out of Boston proper, stopping for some fast food before getting too far out since we had almost three hours of driving ahead of us.

It's a good thing I had a GPS because I had no idea where we were and it's not like Texas where you can see miles ahead of you on the horizon. There are these obstacles that make it difficult. I think they call them trees. Some were as tall as buildings...and that's not a typical exaggeration.

In fact, somewhere between Erving and Northfield, Massachusetts Joshua happened to mention that he was a little nervous about driving through this forest of gargantuan trees "because anything could just jump out of those woods without warning." In my experience, you can't say something like that because THEN IT HAPPENS. Without warning but almost as if on cue, not even five minutes after he uttered those words, a deer came bounding out of the forest depths. Jumping across the two-lane highway we were on, where I was driving white-knuckled through the dark of night. Whoa. I was fully awake after that and needless to say it took me a while to settle into slumber when we reached my aunt's house. I wonder what the rest of the week will bring?