Beyond Bringing Up Boys

I look down and wonder how the Fitbit step counter climbed so high. . . . Here's how it happened: What a beautiful morning as we climbed out of Atlanta and banked north. The Jet Blue pilot must have been headed home, because we made the trip in 2:05. Boston fog greeted us. Having been in Boston just 3 months ago, some of the sights were quite familiar: One of the highlights of the day was going with Zac and Danny to the Boston Public Library. The front of the library has a PBS station in it, so we listened to music and an interview. The biggest surprise was a beautiful fountain area in the middle of the library. It was so lovely that sometimes it is used for weddings. We also spent an hour at Boston Common. The diversity of the park was as beautiful as the landscape. We watched two wedding ceremonies and listened to some plaintive music performed by an elderly Chinese man. A little girl beside us fed crabapples to several grateful ducks. The day itse...

Boston.  Very early in our trip planning, we began to realize that staying in Boston had a pretty high price point. Not only was there the cost of the room, plus associated taxes and fees, but there was usually a daily parking fee also. With a family of five, almost any hotel room would have been pretty close quarters too.  We like each other, most of the time, but should we push that??  No, we didn't think so. Here's what we would recommend: Rent a house outside of the city through VRBO or Airbnb. We chose this charming little cape cod in Waltham , MA, which is about 30 minutes east of Boston.  Purchase the pass for the T (That would be the subway and bus system governed by the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority - but everyone simply refers to the the system as "the T").We drove about 15-20 minutes from Waltham to the red line in Alewife and rode that into the city.  Start with an   Old Town Trolley Tou...