RANAD 2016 NEW ENGLAND BLOG:

Hey there, we're going for a one entry blog entry this summer. Why? We don't know. It's just how we rolled this year.
And where did we roll? Exotic New England!!















First stop: The Berkshires.



Of course any trip to the Berkshires in summer must include a couple of shows at Tanglewood. On the Saturday night, we got ourselves a picnic dinner (although our neighbours' looked much prettier), and had a night of John Williams music.



As a prelude to John Williams coming out to conduct the second half of the show, the heavens decided to provide us with a sound and light show of their own. We had a 45 minute intermission and deluge of rain as well as unbelievable lightening during which those of us on the lawn were required to cram together with those already seated in the shed (covered seating)



Although a tough act to follow, John Williams and the Boston Pops were pretty good too.

Unique to this vacation, RANAD actually was only a full RANAD for two hours in Brookline MA. Aaron only joined us after the Berkshires, and Aviva flew off from Logan airport to start school in Columbus before the next leg of the holiday. Damn schooling, it gets in the way.


We went to our house on Tabor Place in Brookline, MA, and reminisced about the early years of RANADishness.




Over the next couple of days in Boston, we visited with old friends from the hood and took in a bike tour.



Next we headed back to Logan airport to fetch Grandmommy (Eva P) and headed to Cape Cod, where we had never been during the whole time we lived in Boston. We went to beach, beach, beach, and beach for 5 days.



Some more friends joined us there and we all swam across Cliff Pond ...including GrandMommy!!





From Cape Cod, we headed back to Logan Airport to drop Grandmommy off for her return flight and headed up to Ogunquit Maine. For Rob and Diane's 25th anniversary, we all spent the night in a KOA Kabin. Last year our anniversary was spent on "The hippy bus" in NOLA, and the year before it was a shack in rural Norway, so this just seemed fitting.




The next leg of the trip was to the White Mountains of New Hampshire, where we scaled it back even further, into our tents.

After 3 days of increasingly challenging hikes for us and our car, we were ready for the final ascent on foot up Mount Washington. Just before that, Rob got himself this t-shirt.

Literally minutes after buying it, a guy screeched to a halt in the parking lot, left his engine running and family waiting, and jumped out of his car saying, "Where'd you get that t-shirt, man?! It's awesome!

For the ascent up Mount Washington we spent two nights in "huts" along the trail. They provided us with bunk beds in communal rooms
and yummy dinners & breakfasts each day (including challah one night).

There we learned about "thru-hikers"; people who take off 4-6 months to hike the entire Appalachian Trail, from Georgia to Maine. Pretty hard core folk: muscled, bushy bearded, and ...pungent. We overhead a story about 2 legendary thru-hikers, one of whom goes by "wild man". Apparently they were both bitten by a rabid skunk this year. Wild Man, who is known to be hard core to the core, refused medical treatment so he could keep hiking. The police became involved and apprehended Wild Man, forcing him to receive rabies treatment. Sorry Wild Man!

Montreal was our last stop. Noah, flew home from here ...NOT from Logan Airport as 3 times to Logan was already plenty for one trip.

Later that day, Rob, Aaron,and Diane hiked up Mount Royal. We came across these Mounted Montreal Police officers, who not only agreed to let us photograph them, but invited us to take a selfie with them. This is NOT photoshopped.



The following day we did a walking foodie tour from China Town up Saint Laurent and ate ourselves silly.

Good thing we didn't need this bowel buddy grenade, which we happened upon later at a drug store.











Here's a small sampling of some of the Americana we saw along the way this year (note the "patriotic popcorn" demo'd by Noah and Aviva).

As always, we love your comments.

Xoxo,
RANAD.