Friends and Family, Easter Weekend, April 3-5

  We had an uneventful, but long drive, from Washington, D.C. to Westport, Massachusetts where we stayed with good friends, Ted and Bev for a night.
   We left Washington before 6 a.m. as we did not want to hit traffic around NYC, especially as it was Good Friday. We made amazing time. Thanks to the directions of the Garmin, we avoided two traffic jams, one just before crossing the George Washington Bridge and one shortly thereafter. We pulled off the highway to get gas and, by sheer good luck, wandered into Branford, Connecticut (Exit 54) where we found an excellent delicatessen, Shoreline Deli, which we intend to remember for future trips. (Hence, writing it down in our blog!) They had a great salad bar and sandwiches made to order, too.
    We had a nice late afternoon with Ted and Bev who are recovering from having to put their beloved Scottie dog, Molly, to sleep. We went to the Bayside for dinner, a tradition with us and had yummy fish dishes.
    The next day, we drove to Concord to be with Jecca, Willy, Otis and Henry for Easter. We were amazed to see how frozen the ponds still are and the heaps of dirty snow that are still very evident. Jecca and Willy went out to dinner with a friend, so we got to hang out and make dinner with the boys, which is always a treat. The next day, Easter, we all went into Cambridge to go through Harvard's Museum of Natural History which has the amazing glass flowers collection. Afterwords, we walked to a vegetarian restaurant in Cambridge. Then, we split up. Jec and family went to a nice playground the kids had memories of and Mark and I got lost going to Newton in hopes of finding the museum where I gave a talk in January and where I left some copies of my Cyrus Peirce book which need to be picked up. After wandering lost, we did eventually find it, but it was closed, no surprise it being Easter.
    Later we had a great Easter dinner made by Jecca. Steak on the grill and ratatouille made with a lot of the vegetables they are getting through their CSA. Then, after dinner, Willy treated us to a slide show of his amazing trip to Peru. Wow. His shots of birds were amazing and his tales of the adventure were entertaining. Macchu Pichu looked very impressive. His journey was way too rugged for us, that's for sure. Long, long hikes in high altitude, roads closed due to landslides, boating down a tributary of the Amazon, fairly primitive lodging.....fascinating. A trip of a lifetime, really.
   Then, we had a real treat. We went with Willy and Otis to watch the woodcocks doing their quirky courting displays. We went to a field at dusk. Luckily, Willy has sharp eyes and picked out the woodcocks and was able to shine his flashlight so we could see them. They also make interesting little hiccups during their process. It was very special as Mark and I have never seen them do the display.