Boston Marathon...part 1

For the next couple weeks, my family and I are on a family vacation up and back to Boston. The most important and exciting part of the trip are a wedding this Friday. Heather's brother Kirk is getting married to a wonderful young lady named Maura. The all love uncle Kirk and are incredibly excited to welcome aunt Maura to the family!

We spent the last 2 1/2 days driving the 1,482.7 miles from our home in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida to where we are at for the next two days...Plymouth, Massachusetts. We got to enjoy the ride in our rental van, which offers plenty of space. Mini vans were too expensive, but for some reason a full size van was 1/2 the price. Go figure!

On the way, we saw/experienced lots of cool things:

• A flock of turkeys in South Carolina...plus eating lunch overlooking giant Lake Marion
• Giant cotton fields in North Carolina
• Fall started in Virginia...not a ton of leaf change but that's where I started noticing it
• Going through a tunnel under the bay in Baltimore
• It was fun crossing the Delaware in...Delaware. We felt like George Washington
• Wow...what a view of New York City as we drove up the New Jersey Turnpike
• New York City is pretty big...seriously!
• Connecticut has some awesome rush hour traffic...and I like the fact that the welcome center is almost 10 miles after you get into the state...northern Connecticut is beautiful
• Rhode Island is beautiful, but pumpkins are really expensive...and big. $66 for a gourde the size of Jude (see above)!
• Massachusetts is really historic and pretty...Today's forecast is rain all day, but we braved the weather and saw where our nation got started...a rock. Plymouth Rock to be exact...1620 baby! Plus the Mayflower is here...actually, it's the Mayflower II, but still pretty sweet. We got soaked, but bring it on...we are used to rain being from Florida. Lunch with uncle Kirk at Uncle Al's Pizza Restaurant overlooking Plymouth Harbor was awesome.

Plymouth reminds me of St. Augustine, only colder. Beautiful historic buildings, cool restaurants and shops, and great ocean views, plus a cool harbor. I can't wait to explore it more when the rain lets up a little bit.

Then, tomorrow it's off to Boston for the weekend. After that it's a leisurely trip home stopping in several spots to take in all kinds of stuff. Bottom line, family time is the best time. I love it. What a cool blessing. Thanks God for creating all this amazing stuff and these amazing people to experience the amazing stuff with.