Boston in summary
A quick summary of my trip thus far (since I fly home early tomorrow morning, I doubt much will happen after this anyway):
Tuesday 5/12: arrived in Boston late; didn't do much except run some errands with my sister.
Wednesday 5/13: had a quiet day at home reading while my sister was at work. Went to the North End of downtown Boston (called Little Italy) for dinner/dessert in the evening.
Thursday 5/14: drove out to Lexington and Concord, toured the Minuteman visitor's center, and visited the Old North Bridge. Also visited the Sleepy Hollow Cemetary, as mentioned previously. We were going to walk around Waldon Pond, but we ran out of time... oh well. We also did a little bit of everything at the Boston temple, which is a very pretty but quiet temple - quiet compared to Provo, anyway.
Friday 5/15: drove out to Newport Beach, toured a mansion (Astor's Beechwood) where everyone acted in character like it was the 1800's (they asked me if I owned a yacht - I told them there wasn't much use for one in Utah, but that I might consider purchasing a small sailboat instead). Following that, we walked along the cliffs on the beach and gazed out over the ocean. We stopped at a podunk seafood diner that came highly recommended in Tiverton, RI, where I tried the really, really delicious crab cakes... so yummy! On our way home, we stopped at the Wrentham outlet malls and spent a few hours window shopping. I did break down once and buy something... a new potato masher like Mom's! But it was only $2.50 so... no complaints there. :)
Saturday 5/16: drove to Lincoln and went to the DeCordova Sculpture Park/Museum (except the museum was kinda lame... good thing it didn't cost extra or anything). The outdoor sculptures were actually pretty cool; we enjoyed wandering around something like 75 acres looking at the sculptures placed strategically in various places. (We didn't actually wander throughout the whole park, just about a third of it, I would guess - the third with the most concentrated number of sculptures.) We enjoyed a picnic lunch outside, as well. We discovered a bird sanctuary close by, but alas, we poked around so long at the sculpture park that we didn't have time to check that out. In the evening, we attended stake conference, after which we went out for ice cream and then went grocery shopping.
Sunday 5/17: went to the Stake Conference regional broadcast from SLC. About thirty minutes into the broadcast, the smoke alarm went off, so we evacuated - as I walked out, I thought I smelled smoke, but for some reason did not feel very panicked at all despite that. I can't decide if that was the calming influence of the Spirit, or if my reality did not include the possibility that buildings might burn down, but... I'll take it as a blessing. As I walked out the door, I looked up and noticed some flames around the eves of the roof, and smoke coming from the steeple as I got further out. Thus, I logically concluded that this was no false alarm. The chapel (the first to be built in Boston, incidentally, and a very quirky and architecturally charming building that many held dear) was indeed on fire.
Apparently it began in the attic, which made it difficult to put out quickly. After the firemen arrived, they chopped a hole in the roof, but by that point it was nearly too late - shortly after that, the hole was filled with high flames licking the sky. It didn't take long for it to spread, either, and within half an hour the roof collapsed, then the attic floor, and soon the chapel where I had been sitting not one hour previous was a roaring inferno, emanating heat I could feel from across the entire lawn in front of the church. I saw the damage afterwards - virtually nothing survived in that room. 22 firetrucks, 80+ firemen, and 2 hours later, the majority of the flames appeared to be out. Everyone was grateful, I think, that the fire didn't spread to the surrounding houses - we had been worried for a while that it would.
We left around then and found out soon after that virtually the only room that was unscathed was the Institute library, which housed a large collection of valuable and rare books, some worth at least a quarter of a million dollars apiece. The members who were still there (which I am guessing was at least half of them) got together an assembly line and rescued everything they could from there. Only about 20% of the books were water damaged, and none were burned - a true miracle, considering there was a steady stream of water from a fire hose squirting through the steeple to prevent it from burning and toppling, and that stream of water landed on the roof above the library. Oh, and it was squirting hundreds of gallons of water for upwards of 3 hours. Impressive, huh? I think that was a faith promoting experience for a lot of the ward members.
Anyway, while we were at home we cooked a delicious meal that we had planned Saturday. Butternut squash soup (with cream cheese in it making it extra rich and yummy), potato salad, corn on the cob, and marinaded, panfried chicken, with angel food cake topped with strawberries and lemon sauce for dessert. We were cold and hungry from standing outside watching a building burn down, so can you really blame us? Plus I don't get the chance to cook with my sister very often.
Afterwards we went back to the church to rescue the car, which had been blocked in by fire trucks when we left earlier. Upon our arrival, we found people still there clearing out salvagable items, so we helped load it all into cars before heading back home to change into something more sensible than our Sunday clothes. We returned with leftovers from our meal to give to people who didn't get lunch or dinner and then helped out some more. All in all, a pretty eventful day...
Monday, 5/18: After a lazy morning, we walked to Mount Auburn Cemetary and poked around there for an hour or two. We climbed a tower tall enough to render a pretty impressive view of Boston, then discovered a small, quiet pond. I saw 8 chipmunks and dozens of birds. It was quite a pretty place - tons of trees everywhere. Then we drove to Nadick and went shopping at the mall there. We got dinner to go from Panera Bread, which is like Kneaders - delicious sandwiches and delicious bread. I'm still stuffed. Now my sister is at FHE, which I opted to skip since, let's face it, I'm not really that interested in meeting single people in Boston and doing singles ward activities. I'd rather talk to rhb online. :)
Okay, so that wasn't all that short, but oh well... I might as well add pictures in too!
Old North Bridge - but not the real one. This is a replica they built when they discovered the remains of the old one 90 years ago or something. I felt cheated.
The cliffwalk along the beach in Newport, RI - it was so pleasant listening to the waves and watching them roll in over the rocks.
One of my favorite sculptures... we tried to figure out what it reminded us of, and came up with: intestines, DNA, and a rearing sea serpent. I really don't think any of those do it justice, so feel free to share your impressions.
The church burning (photo courtesy of Luke, a member of LP1, a ward that met here - all of my photos are on my phone still). Pretty scary, huh? This is after the roof collapsed and the chapel is burning like crazy.
A cool tree we found at Mt. Auburn Cemetary - it just screamed for someone to crouch under its canopy of branches. There was even a hole just the right size to crouch in.
More pictures will be on facebook soon, but there's a taste of what my trip was like. It will be good to go home tomorrow, as fun as it all was... a week is a long time to be gone.