Bay to Bay

We have left on our 40th anniversary trip. We expected to travel, but not in a small commuter propellor plane- do they still have these?  This was an uncertain surprise, but I was pleased with the outcome. The plane flew down the Sacramento River and across the Delta along the proposed tunnel route, or if good sense prevails, along the Delta Corridors!  Because the plane moves slowly (120 miles per hour) and low (10,000 feet) I had a perfect view of the Delta rivers- Sutter, Steamboat, False, San Joaquin, Mokelumne, Middle and Old.  It looks just like my large wall map- but with more colors.  I saw all the spots that I have been investigating this year for the drought barriers and for the south Delta salinity studies.  I'm sure I was the happiest traveler on the little plane!

Then we flew up the south Bay and over the yet-to-be-restored salt ponds and landed safely.  We then rode a real plane from San Francisco Bay to Boston Harbor, from sea to shining sea!  

And then we rented our car and drove to Concord, where the colonial days are still remembered.  We are staying at the Concord Colonial Inn that was first constructed in 1716, and has been an inn for many of the years since.  We are on the road that Paul Revere used to ride to warn the troops that the British were coming.  We will be driving back into town past Lexington where we lived with Jeremy for six months while I finished my dissertation about reservoir models (that nobody else read) living in my professor's colonial house-while they were in Vienna on sabbatical.  And we will pass through Belmont where I lived my first year, and past MIT where we lived for our first two married years in a large dorm room as student tutors (dorm parents) in Baker House.  And across the Charles River to Boston Town. First we are going for breakfast in the dining room of the inn. We can almost believe it is 1775 and there is trouble brewing along with the coffee.

We explored the Concord and Lexington sites where the minutemen and the British soldiers first shot at each other.  It all started at the north bridge over the Concord River (small stream really).

After hearing the story of that day in a few films and seeing two of the taverns where the militia waited and talked and wondered what was going to happen, we may have it straight.  

We drove by the house in Lexington where we lived for six months with Jeremy.  The houses are very distinctive and so New English.  Everyone lives along the roads that criss-cross through the countryside like a spider web.

We drove into Boston on surface streets to go by Belmont and Cambridge, but it was very crowded, and the roads in Boston are very curvy with splits  every half mile- you have to already know where you are going.  Somehow we found our way into Boston and ate dinner at a famous restaurant on the fish pier called the No-Name.