I promised in a previous post that I would be writing about my recent trip to Massachusetts. I almost forgot to do it, but even though it’s a little delayed I’m finally getting around to it. For the most part I hadn’t seen any of my family since Christmas of 2019 before COVID. As you may recall my mom and sister did drive down from NJ and surprise me right before this last Christmas. I only got to spend about 90 minutes with them though and they were the only family I’d seen for a year and half.

My sister recently took a new job and moved back to Massachusetts with her family. Since all the adults and my eldest niece were vaccinated my husband and I decided to go up over my sister and my’s birthday (yes, we do have the same birthday one year apart). My parents decided to fly out from Arizona and we also got my cousin and her husband to come from St. Louis.

It was really great to get to spend time with my family again. My sister has a really nice pool and backyard area in her new house so we spent a lot of time hanging out by the pool. We also went hiking in a place called World’s End one day. I expected there to be some really dramatic vista or something given the name, but there wasn’t really. Although at some point you do get a nice view of Boston from across the water. My husband looked it up and apparently at one point they were planning on building a nuclear power plant there, so maybe that’s where the name comes from. We stopped on the way home at some place called the Lobster Pound and got lobster rolls. Being my family we also played a lot of cards while I was there.

My nieces are getting older and are now at the age where they don’t care that much about hanging out with me while I’m there. They were mostly off doing their own thing. I know it’s an inevitable part of growing up, but it’s still a little sad.

One day we’ll probably fly up when visiting, but I’m still not ready to get on a plane so we decided to drive up. It took us around 7 and a half on the way up with two stops and about 9 on the way back. My nephew once told me that Connecticut is the worst based on drives they used to make between NYC and Rhode Island. I am now inclined to agree with him. Connecticut is the worst. It’s long and the traffic is terrible. Also if you want to easily get food and use their service centers your choices are pretty much McDonald’s and Dunkin’ Donuts at every stop. For the few places that had additional offerings it seems like they didn’t survive the pandemic as the Qdoba at the one we stopped at on the way up was closed and the Sbarro at the one we stopped at on the way back was closed.

I would up eating McDonald’s for the first time in 16 years and remembering why I never eat McDonald’s. It only barely has a resemblance to actual food. It was not good at all. Coming home I decided to just get a milkshake and I couldn’t even drink that. It just tasted like chemicals to me and I thought it was disgusting. If you like McDonald’s I guess you do you, but I honestly don’t know how people eat it or why they choose to go there when they have literally any other option. We’ll probably be driving back up there at Christmas this year as well and I might pack myself food because it seems like all my other options on that drive are terrible.

I’m very happy that we’re finally at a place where I feel okay seeing family and friends again. I hope it stays that way.