In-House In-Laws
Randy’s mother (who I affectionally call Mrs. Randy) arrived bright and early Saturday morning. Poor thing, her flight departed Roanoke, VA, at about 6AM. She arrived in Boston at 9:40AM, and we pretty much kept her busy straight through until today (Monday).
After giving her a quick tour of our home (which she loved…yay) we got burritos for lunch (she loved them), then explored Mount Auburn Cemetery for a few hours (she loved it). Craving her first Costco experience, we brought her there (she loved it) before returning home with just enough time for her to prepare her famous baked macaroni-and-cheese (which we all loved), then drive up to Woburn for a BBQ at our friend, Linda’s house.
The barbecue was great, and the weather was damn near perfect (nice and cool for August). We got home about 11:30PM. Rand and Chris went straight to bed and I stayed up with Mrs. Randy until about 12:30AM.
We woke up on Sunday and at about 11:20AM we drove down to Newport, RI, to show her the cottages. Unfortunately, this weekend was also the Newport Folk Festival and traffic was a complete nightmare. Thanks to GPS, we managed to take some side streets, avoiding the downtown area completely on our way to the mansions. It’s funny, as we drove through the working-class parts of Newport and Middletown Mrs. Randy kept explaiming “wow – look at that house” or “that ones beautiful”….and this was miles from the mansions. I don’t think she knew what to expect.
By the time we reached the mansions I think she was speechless. We toured three mansions yesterday (The Elms, Rosecliff, and the Breakers (of course). We also walked around a harbor for a while before popping into the Newport Grand Casino (her first experience at a casino). I lost $40 rather quickly. Mrs. Randy lost $10 even quicker. Then Randy, the bastard, put in a $20 bill, “pulled the lever” just two times then won $30. He cashed out, went to a new machine, put in $20 again, ran it down to about $5 then won another $17. Long story short, he came out $45 ahead and bought us dinner.
We didn’t end up driving back to Boston until 9:30PM and then got caught in the most hellish traffic jam I’ve seen in years. Again, thanks to GPS we pulled off at the first exit we could (which was still 30 minutes after the jam began) and took side streets from Brockton to Route 128. All said and done, we didnt’ get home until just before midnight….more than 12 hours after we left the house.
I think Mrs. Randy deserves some rest today.
5 Comments
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Newport and Brockton all in one day. Talk about both ends of the spectrum.
I really miss New England.
ive done alot in the past week, why havent you?
hint hint
Breakers and Risecliff are two of the great ones; but next time I go I’m going to have to discipline myself to hit a couple I’ve never seen and Elms is one of them.
So much “love” in the first couple of sentences — I just , ah, LOVED IT! 🙂
Hey, Will! The Elms is nice, but from what I recall from previous trips, I really loved the Marble House. You should check that one out if you haven’t already. We were there at Christmas and some of the rooms were decorated (with class) to hilt.