the summer camp has ended and it was straight into helping to clear out my grandpa’s house. there was a family friend looking to rent it. dad and i had been working at it in bits and pieces for months. it was slow going with only two of us. . . but reinforcements were on the way. there were cousins headed to college and cousins moving into new apartments. . . in their wake aunts and uncles arrived in incredibly relieving shifts. suddenly truck loads were being moved hourly, as opposed to weekly and monthly. extra sets of kitchenware were sorted out for use. favorite furniture was claimed and distributed. it was rushed and dirty, but i got to spend a decent amount of time with some of my aunts and uncles.
i thought i had another week, i thought i’d get to see the cleaning through to the end, but i didn’t check the calendar closely.
the plan made earlier was to do this one ride with my brother. the museum of science along with communities within boston set up a scale model of the solar system. each planet was set in a different part of town. there was a plaque along with each planet where you could make a rubbing on a special ‘passport’ that you could turn in, once completed, to the museum of boston for some sort of discount. dan mapped a route, back and forth, that would be around 60 miles long. i planned to visit over labor day weekend.
surprise #1- labor day weekend was a week earlier than i thought. i figured i had another week to gear up for the ride, and another couple of days to relax after helping to clear out my grandpa’s house.
surprise #2- dan tried a bit of the ride out. . . and found that the solar system bit was no longer in existence. too bad. .. had it been up, the title of the blog would’ve been something like, ‘cycling the solar system’. . . catchy, eh?
that ride being scrapped, we planned to put together whatever came easily. my dad and uncle had the house work under control, and i made my way to boston. my brother and a few of my friends had some extra time off. . . loose plans to hang out. . . good thing it was all kind of loose- time did not play nicely.
dan and i spent the mornings on his favorite ride through the esplanade. a really pretty ride- and good for the metro-challenged rider (me). we tried to do extra laps to make up for the lost longer ride. we kept putting off longer rides in order to catch up with people, but nothing ever gelled too well. . . not for lack of trying. who knew there were going to be green line jamming sox games every day i was there? along with the sox games a couple other problems cropped up and we missed a chance to hang out with friends on saturday and sunday. we got some riding in, and caught tropic thunder and hung out with dan’s roommate and coworker. kinda fun. . . and tropic thunder was a RIOT! hey, why not try to plan another meeting on monday? well, monday we planned to meet up with our cousin to help her move in to her new apartment. yay. . . more moving.
the plan to help move was for 2pm. dan and i did a morning ride and missed the call that noon would actually be more helpful to our cousin. we left to catch her around 1, on our bikes. . . remember me?. . the metro-challenged rider? well, riding got us there faster than public transport. . . what with another sox game in play. plus, it turns out all the moving that was being done that weekend was helpful. it slowed down traffic a lot. it also created obstacles. . . big truck, ornery people, and furniture type obstacles. so i wasn’t swift or slick. . . but task accomplished. we got to my cousin’s just in time to have missed all the heavy moving. totally not planned! we stuck around to help her and her girlfriend put together a completely complicated desk- it had way too many parts. it did give us some time with them and our aunt, uncle, and her sister. again, another visiting window of about and hour or two. meanwhile another friend who wanted to see us was being held up in town by the sox game. after a bit we hopped on the bikes to catch up with him. . . for another hour long visit. we did decide that i should stay another day so we could actually get together properly.
that night was trivia. (made it just in time.) one of my favorite things about visiting with dan. dan, his roommate, and i didn’t end up doing well. . . but if anyone else could’ve seen the semi educated guesses that we nailed out of nowhere. . . and the number of times we came so close. . . well, it was an impressive game, even though our score sucked.
tuesday gave us a chance to meet up without all the obstacles. i went for a morning ride after dan went to work. i cleaned up and then felt how tired the whole weekend had left me. we had been on the go from early morning through late evening each day so far. all the short visiting windows and running around to get to them. it all hit me hard. so i napped before meeting up with our friends. we had a nice time at dinner. sadly the evening was cut just a little short as work pulled away one of our friends. however, it made it an early night to get in and play some wii rockband. because we had been so busy, dan and i hadn’t had a chance to set down and play. the game is pretty damn fantastic.
all and all a pretty great visit. . . though something of a whirlwind. i got to do all the things i hoped, the riding, the trivia, the visits, and the wii rockband. . . it just took a little longer and involved a bit more running around than i anticipated. oh well.
