Last Day in Chicago

On our way to run some errands this afternoon, Kaity and I stumbled upon what is easily the coolest advertisement i've ever seen on a bus in my entire life:

Turns out the program behind this advertisement, www.drivelesslivemore.com, is exclusively a northeastern Illinois thing, but I still thought it was neat.

Chicago!

Dear Mom,

...here is the view of downtown Chicago outside of Kaity's balcony!

More pictures from chicago day one are here.

In all my years at the Yarmouth Clamfest, I have never run into their mascot, the Steamer! Well, this year we found him and I got a photo with him. awesome!! and of course, congrats to teammate Justin Spinelli for winning the men's race in spectacular fashion last Sunday.

I'm currently wrapping up a short (but long!) work week, and waiting for my flight to depart from Manchester to visit Kaity for a long weekend in Chicago!!

I Go Away for a Week...

... and a huge turkey takes up residence on my car at the office!!

Apparently it was very feisty, and didn't like being shooed off the roof.

Cape Cod

Last weekend I checked off a Wallace family tradition from the summer to-do list - a visit to Cape Cod!

After picking up Grammy and Grampy in Leominster on Thursday, we met up with my dad and headed south for Eastham, Massachusetts. Upon arrival, dad and I set up camp at Nickerson State Park and then made the second-most important stop... to the liquor store! We were just about to head to the beach when i realized twenty minutes later that I had left my wallet on the roof of the car before driving away from the liquor store. ugh!! we raced back to the scene of the crime, and of course the wallet was nowhere in sight in the parking lot, the street, or in the store. while dad checked neighboring stores, i took a jog along Route 6 to see if it had blown off the roof there. Sure enough, 200 yards later, I find my wallet flapping in the wind, with all its cards scattered along in the grass. Amazingly, I found every last piece.

Back on track, we headed to the beach on that fine Thursday afternoon. We did a little swimming, but didn't lay out in the sand for too long due to all the freaking biting flies that wouldn't leave us alone. After leaving the beach, Dad and I continued to check off all the Cape Cod must-do's of a good Wallace family vacation by heading to Arnold's for dinner. After doing the obligatory coloring sheet, I actually ordered my very first lobster. yes - my first!! wallaces don't stop with just a huge dinner, so we got huge ice cream cones for dessert too. Arnold's is the best because they have the real fine shaved real chocolate jimmies instead of the normal ones. SO tasty.

After wrapping up a late Thursday night at the drive-in theater in Wellfleet, we woke up Friday morning after a good night's camping out and played some cribbage. and of course, I lost. The rest of amy-and-dad day included bike riding and fishing.

We hit the ocean on the bay side of Eastham at Sunken Meadow beach - the famous scene of Dad's July 2007 "the bluefish were just JUMPING into my boat!!" bluefish massacre. Sadly, it was not a repeat performance, and we came up empty that day. After a pizza dinner with the family, we wrapped up the night with Red Sox viewing, popcorn eating, beer drinking, and four-way cribbage playing with Uncle Mike and Aunt Ricki at their house.

Saturday was more of the same - literally. Bike riding, blue fishin', food eating, and cribbage playing. However, today was a group bike ride to a sweet destination - to see a real life shipwreck washed up at Newcomb Hollow Beach!! After that, I raced back home to head out with dad and catch no fish, again.

Sadly, the weekend in the Cape was quickly drawing to a close. Saturday night was the whole family get-together at Mark and Diane's house for a month-belated celebration of Brad's birthday. Hamburgers, hot dogs, Narragansett Ale, ice cream cake, and engineer-modified tiki torch burning made for a fun night there.

After soaking one up last hour of sun at the beach on Sunday morning, I headed home to Andover, did some biking, some hiking, some dinner cooking, and some sweating in my perpetually hot apartment.

In other news, bike-trainin' has officially begun. I'm aiming to be fit at some point prior to mid-December this year!!

okay okay okay - so I finally have an update. to quote the great e-RICHIE, "if there are no pictures, it never happened."

so, here are some pictures from the James Taylor show at Tanglewood on friday night. more to come later!