Boston! Only two hours away from "Old Man House." I went up to Boston twice while we were staying in Connecticut; once with Melinda for a YSA conference one weekend and the other just to meet up with a friend from back home for brunch.
The YSA Conference was fun because we got to meet a lot of people and make new friends while also being in a great city.
The conference was at MIT and so we felt very smart walking around campus and sitting in classrooms listening to speakers.
The evening activity of the conference was a 20s themed dance at the Boston State House. (Yay for connections with Governor Romney) This was by far the best dance I have every been to; most likely for two reasons. 1- Melinda makes an awesome dance buddy and 2- We danced as if we didn't care what people thought and we couldn't have been happier.
Sunday after church we stopped at Walden Pond on our way home to Connecticut. This was a beautiful stop! Walden Pond is famous for the writer Henry Thoreau who lived their for 2 years and wrote a book about his experience. As we walked around the pond we pulled up quotes by him and read them as we walked around the pond; which gave us a laugh but was also fun to do.
"If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the live which he has imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours" - Thoreau
"This world is but a canvas to our imagination" - Thoreau
My second trip up to Boston was a quick day trip to visit a friend, Beth who I danced with growing up, while Melinda was at work (haha, we were such a "married" couple). I met up with her at Boston Commons and we found this great breakfast place, Paramount Restaurant. It was one of those hole in the wall places where they had a way too many tables and people in a place meant for a group half that size but I loved it and the food was great. We ate so much, at such a great price, that we had to walk around Boston Commons and the Public Gardens afterwards to walk the food off a little bit.
After Beth left to head to work, I threw on my running shoes and clothes and went for a run around Boston. Such a great decision. I got to see some fun neighborhoods and it was the perfect fall day that it was not too hot. I wish I made time to go for a run on more of my trips.
What is a "Smoot?" you may ask. Well I will tell you. In the 50s there was a fraternity during rush week that had a pledge who after getting quite drunk they used him to measure the distance of the bridge that connects Harvard and MIT; his name was Oliver Smoot. Basically he lay on the ground and they marked on the bridge where his head was (this equals one Smoot) and then he would get up, put his feet on the mark and lay dow again and they would mark the bridge again. It became a popular thing to refer to things as "smoots" and it stuck because today you will hear people refer to distances in "smoots."
Smoots = Five feet and Seven inches
