Boston: Epic weather with some lessons learned

Like most stops along our journey, Boston had its ups and downs. We learned some new things to apply to future travels, we had some good times, and we had our fair share of grumblings (which we try to keep to a minimum!) Here are our highlights from Boston 2018!

Sipping bubble tea like a boss

Itinerary: 7 nights in Saugus (northern suburb of Boston)

The Boston Marathon is awesome, even when the weather is nasty! We had ridiculously rainy, windy, and cold conditions for this year’s race. This city puts on such an amazing race, from the race organization, to the fans that braved the weather, to the citizens of Boston who proudly welcome all the marathoners to town, it is a fantastic event to be part of. My race didn’t go so well; I dropped out around mile 8, but this wasn’t surprising or too disappointing to me given that I’d been wrecked from the Umstead 100 the weekend prior. It was worth giving it a shot and I’m fine with the outcome, though it would have been great to run down Boylston St again!

Lesson Learned: When traveling during a busy time like Boston Marathon week, the options are often to pay a ridiculous amount for lodging in a good location – $300/night or more, or pay too much $120+/night for something farther out and not so nice. We have been operating under the travel premise that a week in one place is ideal. For situations like this, where lodging supply is scarce and demand is high, our new MO is to stay for only a couple days, and to pay up for premium location. It sucked being a 30 minute drive from nearly everything, having to drive everywhere, and being in a kind of crappy part of town, and still feeling like we’re overpaying for it! So going forward (already thinking about Berlin marathon), we’re aiming to pay up for less time in a more ideal location.

We got to hang with family and friends for much of our Boston time – awesome! While we whined about having to drive to do all this, we had so many good people to meet up with during our week in Boston. Paavo got to play with his cousin Miles as we spent two evenings with our cousins Kate and Matt and their 1.5 year old son. Paavo was loving it and of course scoping out every toy in their house. Dionne and Joel stayed in the same hotel with us so we got to spend lots of quality time with some of our best friends, and Paavo got his “DeeDee” time. We hung with TRRs Alan and Dan – always awesome to hang with these guys. And we even got to do lunch with a friend from Bogota and his family. So cool to keep nurturing that relationship!

Waiting for Matt in wet, windy Boston marathon conditions. Good thing we packed jelly beans to make the day better!

Lesson confirmed: Our leanings toward avoiding the crappier weather places was confirmed. While it was spring in Boston, it was just coming out of winter, the wind was still chilly, and the gray skies reminded us that there are places out there with warm weather and blue skies. We’re continuing to target those places!

We continued to find the parks and play areas for Paavo. Julie scoped out a park near our hotel, we rocked the Boston Science Museum and the Harvard Museum of Natural History. We spent some time down near the Boston Commons where we did playground time and Paavo got a taste for riding an old school Merry-go-Round.

Food was good in Boston with lots of vegan options, including numerous all vegan restaurants. We ate well in Boston! Veggie Galaxy took the cake and we paid up to stuff ourselves on Monday evening after a cold wet day outside for the marathon.

All in, this was a good trip. We were not so keen on our lodging or the cold winds of the Northeast, but we soaked in all the friend time, cool kids stuff, and the good food. We were worn out from this week, largely because there was so much to do – tough to complain when life is so full of goodness! Next stop is sunny California and a “rest week”!

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