I am sure you have all been hitting the refresh button on this page for hours waiting for my latest update. Well here it is, sorry to keep you waiting. My weekend was great as always and I was constantly busy doing all sorts of things. On Friday I went out for dinner and then afterwards went over to Yerardi’s in Newton for Scottie’s birthday. I don’t know how I did it, but I found may way their via all back roads, it was a miracle. There were a bunch of people there, mostly people I didn’t know. The place was really cool and even had a bacci ball playing area. I hung out for a while, but my long week was quickly catching up with me and I went back to Salem.

On Saturday morning I attempted to sleep in, but woke up around 8:00. I didn’t do much at home and before long was on my way to Plymouth. On the way there I decided to stop at the Gap for some underwear since that morning I realized I didn’t want to do laundry and was running low. I got some new undies and then went to the clearance rack to see if there was anything good there, and I found a bunch of great non cotton hiking shirts. I grabbed two and went to pay. Unfortunately I was stuck behind a woman who was returning a bunch of stuff and it took forever for the cashier to get through her order. Finally I got up there and the guy almost over charged me by twenty dollars. Forty minutes later I was back in the car. The traffic was bad for a while, but I made it down to Long Pond around noon. Mark and I just hung out doing random stuff until race time. He left early for the race and I just laid down for a nap on the dock. At three I hopped into the boat and went out to watch the race. There was no wind and the boats were barely moving. After the race we attempted fishing, but of course I didn’t catch a damn thing. We went to the BBC to watch the BoSox game, which if you didn’t see it was unbelievable, the BoSox had 21 hits. I drove home afterwards and listened to my LoudDMB playlist and by the time I got to Salem, had almost lost my voice.
Saturday in Plymouth

I forgot to mention on Saturday I was on the phone most of the afternoon trying to plan a hiking expedition on Sunday. After about a dozen calls a plan was formed and we were set to meet in Tewksbury for a hick up Mt. Monadanock, the second most climbed mountain in the world. So on Sunday four of us met at the Park and Ride, down from the seven who originally planned to go, but for one reason or another things didn’t work out. We drove up to the mountain in two cars. When we got there a big “no dog” sign made our hiking party of four split into two groups of two. Jennie and Brett went to another park that allowed dogs and Lauri and I stuck with the original plan. The hike was a lot mor difficult than I thought it would be with some very steep sections. I made it more challenging by vowing that I would not use my hands and I succeeded. It was a nice five mile hike and it took about three hours. On the way down my phone rang and it was Amy. She needed a ride back to Boston so we met in Jaffrey after the hike and drove home. Amy and I went back into Boston to prepare for dinner, I love the Back Bay Shaw’s, it is so big and there are always so many young people. Mark S., Brett and Jennie came over for dinner. Once again the food was fantastic especially the dessert of grilled pineapple topped with blueberries, blackberries and raspberries.
Mt. Monadanock Hike