Jim had a conference in Worcester, Massachusetts for most of the week of the 15th and had to fly in and out of Boston. Colleen and Avery paid for a ticket up and decided to hang out nearby and visit Grandma Woods in Manchester. We came a day early and left two days later to see the
Boston Marathon (and watch our friends run it), and to visit NH and other friends up there.
We landed Sunday and hung out with Grandma Woods and her dog Bella.
That night we got some posters ready for our friends who were running the race and prepared ourselves to be in certain locations at certain times to see our friends pass by.
We had originally planned three locations, at mile 4.5 in Framingham, at mile 14 in Wellesley, and around mile 21 in Boston (and possibly catch the T to the finish). The plan was for Grandma Woods to babysit Avery while we went. At the last minute that morning, Avery demanded to go with us. That may have helped save us from experiencing the tragedy later that day as you'll see below.
We got to Framingham in time to see our friend Anna Savage from DC pass by, and even her boyfriend Jason who ran by 20 minutes before her. Colleen held up the sign we made
It got so many positive comments, in face a lot of runners came over and got their picture with the sign. (For those that don't know, the unicorn symbol on the sign is the official symbol of the Boston Marathon.)
We then packed up and headed farther in to mile 14 in Wellesley. We saw Anna come by again, ahead of her goal pace of 7:30 per mile. We then saw Colleen's friend Becca, one of our neighbors (Christine Stephen) and one of Colleen's high school friend (Lindsey Mason) pass by. Also a lot of people who saw the sign back in Framingham loved to see it again! We were ready to pack up and move into Boston to see the runners at Heartbreak Hill around mile 20. There was a T stop there that we could catch to the finish if wasn't too crowded. Well Avery was demanding to go back home to Grandma's as she said she didn't want to see runners anymore. Who can blame a 2-year old, it's probably not too exciting for her. We did love the spirit and enthusiasm of the race though. Most races, even big races, you get pockets of fans cheering. Well, even out in the 'burbs it was packed solid of cheering fans and blaring music, so a runner would get a full 26 miles of solid crowd support.
We drove back to Manchester NH and when we went inside that's when we heard the news that 10 minutes prior explosions were reported at the finish line. The local news was trying hard to figure out what happened, and we immediately texted our friends to make sure they were safe. We heard back from everyone that they either finished and had left or were a few miles short of the finish and got diverted away safely. We also got a lot of calls, texts, and facebook messages from friends and family around the country making sure we were safe, since we had just posted pictures of us along the course. If we didn't have Avery with us demanding to go back to Grandma's, we probably would have headed to mile 20, and possibly to the finish. Luckily we were nowhere close to where everything happened. Colleen has more info on it in her blog on
Live Free and Run
It was hard to believe what had happened since we were there at the race, and Jim had to find a way to get ready for his hour long presentation the next morning at the conference. All week long while they were figuring out who did it, the atmosphere was a mix of both sadness and fear of more attacks while the suspects were at large and unknown.
On Thursday afternoon, after Jim's conference ended, we all met up in Boston when Jim turned in his work rental car, and explored the City. The police were everywhere and you could feel the City was on edge and in mourning. We walked over to
Boston Common.
And we did manage to see some of the great sights like the famous "
Make Way for Ducklings" statue. Someone had put spring bonnets on all the ducks, cute!
We also walked around the Boston Common and saw the pretty ponds, boats, and bridges
We took the
T trains, which of course Avery pointed out that our train at home has an "M" for Metro and this train had a "T".
and went to
Faneuil Hall where Samuel Adam's statue was
And we bought Avery the Make Way for Ducklings Book for a memoir.
We took a
Duck Boat tour of the city, learned a lot about the extensive history of the area, and had fun when it went into the water for a boat tour. If you've never been on one, it's a vehicle that drives around on the city streets and also goes into the water to act as a boat. You get a lot of neat trivia fun facts from the driver too. Click on the link above to see what they look like.
Avery LOVED it, and was glued to the window.
The driver even let Colleen drive, and look how close we were to the famous
Longfellow Bridge!
Back turned as we continued towards the bridge! We were safe of course, but she did get to steer the boat all the way under the bridge. Cool!
We also got to meet up with Christine who lives in Boston. She was the Maid of Honor at our wedding and a great friend. We went to a pub downtown and had the Sam Adam's 26.2 brew
And we saw a few more sights before heading back to Manchester for the night.
The next day, Friday was another crazy day as the city of Boston and surrounding towns were on lock down. Early that morning, the suspects had killed one officer and injured another and the police were trying to locate them. We were glued to the TV for awhile but realized that they weren't making much progress and we needed to get out for a bit.
We drove to Portsmouth and had a yummy lobster-roll lunch by the tugboats and then Avery had some ice cream
And drove up and down the seacoast while Avery napped in the car (We were going to go to the beach until she fell asleep on our way after lunch).
Then that night Colleen and her good friend Amy met up for dinner in Manchester and talked for 2-3 hours. Too bad they didn't get a picture together that night, but it was nice to hang out uninterrupted like that.
Later that night the whole ordeal ended when one suspect was killed and the other eventually arrested. We could now feel relieved to go back to Boston and hang out for the final day of the trip.
We went down Saturday to the
Boston Museum of Science and was overwhelmed with how big and fantastic it was. After 4 hours there we hardly got through half of the museum before we had to head out. Avery loved the giant grasshopper
And being a scientist complete with safety glasses:
And pretending to be animals such as a chipmunk and beaver
Jan got to experience a hurricane
We saw a science magic show, saw many different exhibits in the various wings of the museum from space to dinosaurs, and from geology to mathematics. We vowed to come back for more another trip. Avery cried when we left because she was having so much fun!
We liked all the signs on the highways that said "WE ARE ONE BOSTON",
and had a safe trip back home. We feel so strongly like others that we want to run the Boston Marathon some day, maybe next year in 2014!
