boothbay

boothbay, maine. birthplace of jessica davison, my soon to be sister. we stayed with jess' parent's nan and chip.

there house and spot in pleasant cove is lovely.
we celebrated todd's birthday with a kayak around the cove, followed by a sail.



in fact, it was todd's first sail!

there is 3,500 miles of coastline in maine, because its coast is made up of bays and deep inlets and rivers and coves.
nan
captain chip
the winsome
to round out our mainer experience, nan and chip took us out for lobster.
birthday lobster of course.
we spend so much time driving and trying to figure out what comes next, getting to the next stop, it is such a treat to get to stay in one place for a bunch of days.
especially somewhere like this!

what happened between mid and east

we took a ridiculous and crooked path to boston from chicago.chicago to pittsburgh
two hours south to fallingwater
(which is really something to see)

to buffalo, where tyler my very talented and smart brother built these gigantic wind turbines,

to niagara falls,

all the way to boston!
see the bricks? boston!




paul revere and samuel adams are buried here.

"Like loving a woman with a broken nose, you may well find lovelier lovelies. But never a lovely so real."

i bet you all know that i love chicago.
chicago has some serious magic because it is in the midwest and thus untainted by being coastal. it doesn't really care about being super cool, so it just is.
we went to wrigley field and saw the cubs clobber the giants. cubs fans have serious team spirit, unlike anything i've ever witnessed before.

we stayed with katie and gabe. did you know that we all lived together in italy? i love katie something fierce, and for the past 2 years our friendship has existed exclusively in the internet.
when we lived together, we cooked ridiculous meals and once had a christmas tree that we decorated with fake money and left up until about march. now they live in a big beautiful apartment. buddies in real life are totally rad.
this is their street. you walk from the train and you can almost see the newspaper men and bankers commuting home to their nuclear families in the 20s.







my grandparents are from the southside of chicago. after the war they moved out to california, and the rest is history.
in the winter when lake michigan froze, my grandma's dad would drive their car out onto the lake and spin donuts.
this is the church where my grandparents were married.
during the war, after my grandpa was taken as a POW, my grandma would come here every day and light a candle for him.
when i visit these mini personal monuments, it is like a fountain of unlimited enthusiasm is uncorked in me.
it is pretty great.