I always go to Boston for Rudy's birthday in March. However, this year Sarah did not have time off for Rudy's birthday weekend. However she had time off the weekend before her own birthday which is a week earlier. So I decided to go then.
This year it made sense to take the train. I made the decision to drive to Orange County, NY to do research on my Carey and Cooley families....then take the train to Boston for a long weekend....then train to Connecticut to visit Greg and Mary Jo.....and then train home.
A great deal of serendipity happened to change my plans. First Greg ended up having to come to Huntington for the Thursday morning before my long weekend in Boston. It made no sense to drive myself if I could ride with him instead. So I gave up the first part of the plan to do research in Orange County, NY. Greg and I had lots of fun on the drive and ended up stopping in Harrisburg, Pa.
I learned a new trick that Mary Jo and Greg have been using for a long time. Hotwire! It was great
As we got close to Harrisburg, Greg told me to go to Hotwire and look for a room. He said that if it was 3 start or 3.5 star the room would be OK....So I found one that was 4 star and $69. Of course, by the time they add fees it was more like $84....but that was still a good price for the hotel that they put us in.
Greg got up early and hit the road as he had to make a 3:00 plane in NY. I ubered to the train station and was able to get on an earlier train than I had booked. I had just worried that we might need to drive a ways for some reason to the train if we didn't actually stay in Harrisburg. Train station was easy and trip was easy .....I got in close to on time.....Sarah picked me up and we went to a very nice Italian restaurant that Rudy particularly likes. Great evening! Great weekend!
One of the hight lights was a birthday party for Sarah and Rudy on Sunday night.
We divided into teams and each team won one round....lots of fun with pizza and beer and great friends!
Much of the time was spent just hanging out. Another highlight was the afternoon of Exploding Kittens at Sarah's apartment and the great meals that Sarah cooked for us! Wonderful weekend!
Sarah drove me to see her hospital and I took a few photos:
Sarah had to be back at work on Wednesday, so I booked the train between Back Bay in Boston and Stamford Connecticut where Greg and Mary Jo were planning to pick me up. It is a very easy train trip from Boston to CT....and I booked as late as possible to be in by dinner time. Then I spent the day at NEGHS working on my New England ancestors. I would never have believed that I had Great Migration ancestors without having found a dna match with Mike Tillman. Mike and I still do not know which ancestors we have in common, but it was because of his match that I discovered my Cooley family and the other families connected to Cooley who lived in Connecticut as as early as the 1630. Check out my main blog (marshamoses.blogspot.com) for genealogy part of this trip.
Greg and Mary Jo and I ate that night at a wonderful, very small, family run Italian restaurant that was delicious and fun!
The next day I drug Greg and Mary Jo to Fairfield, Ct....and I have written about the research done there at:
http://marshamoses.blogspot.com/2020/02/cooley-family-in-fairfield-connecticut.html
and
http://marshamoses.blogspot.com/2020/02/cooley-family-in-fairfield-connecticut.html
and
http://marshamoses.blogspot.com/2020/02/fairfield-connecticut-and-my-cooley.html
and older posts at:
http://marshamoses.blogspot.com/2020/01/arm-treatment-2020.html
and
http://marshamoses.blogspot.com/2019/08/cooley-coley-and-other-close-families.html
Greg and Mary Jo were great sports and helped me find things! I decided I couldn't drag them the other places that I might do research so we did tours of Westport and a lot of hanging out the next day. Mary Jo already had tickets for a film festival at her club in New York City for Saturday, so our final plan was for all three of us to go to NY on Saturday and I would spend the night and take 6:45 train back to Huntington from NY. Mary Jo was unable to get us tickets as the event had been sold out for weeks. So Greg and I went to Chicago at the Ambassador Theatre. First we took the tour of her club: The Explorer Club. It is housed in a beautiful old building that had been the home of the Singer family (Singer sewing machine). Really the entire place was wonderful! Greg and I Ubered to the area on Broadway near the theaters and walked around until we found a fun place for lunch to hang out until the show started.
So the photo of me above must have been while standing on Broadway looking south towards Times Square and fairly near the Ambassador theater. Funny story about our tickets. We used TodayTix to get our tickets. A young person meets one near the entrance to hand you your tickets when you get to the theater....and the price is good.....but our seats were not so good....and the place was sold out so no chance that we might move,. But honestly the seats turned out great....we could see everything absolutely fine. When the show was over the two men who had sat in front of us invited us to join them up front to meet their good buddy, Ryan Silverman who was the actor who played Billy Flynn. Lots of fun as I took photos of them! Great afternoon. Then Greg and Mary Jo and I met at
We ended up eating in the lounge and by the end of the evening I had had my share of Mojitos and the food was yummy!
Used Hotwire to find my room for the night.
Room was fine and all went well.
I used the Red Cap service to get on the train! It is wonderful! It was great in Philly and in NY! Unfortunately it was not available in the Back Bay. I am a huge fan of the Red Cap service with Amtrak! Rest of trip was uneventful.
