Thursday morning, Rosana's roommate Danny had a cancellation at his work, allowing him time to drive us up to the Ft. Lauderdale airport. Had he not, our day would have been much longer getting up there by train. Rosana and I had a direct flight to Boston, where The Eric Lantz picked us up to take us to Worcester for Christmas Eve.
Christmas morning was very nice. The Eric Lantz got me the exact MP3 player that had been stolen the previous week, so my the next few months of traveling look to be less quiet. After Rosana, Eric, Dick and Mom opened presents we had a good breakfast. Getting ready and cooking a few things took us until about noon, when some relatives started showing up. Dinner, Yankee Swap, and a walk at the mill park up the street rounded out a pretty good day. My relatives, and The Eric Lantz left in the evening, and we went to bed shortly after.
On Saturday, Rosana and I chatted with Dick and my mom for quite a while. We left the house after lunch and headed to my old workplace, the Blue Hills Trailside Museum. We checked out the SNOWY OWL, TURKEY VULTURE, RED-TAILED HAWK, and GREAT-HORNED OWL that they have on display outside, as well as these "wild" MALLARD.
After walking through the grounds and talking to a few of my former co-workers, we hiked to the the top of Great Blue Hill. While there was snow on the ground, which at times was decently deep, the temperature was mild and the trails were pretty well blazed.
In the evening, Rosana and I met up with Jerry, Alison, and Bill for sushi in Quincy Center, then played a game of bowling at O'Lindy's.
This brought us up to the time of the 12th annual Christmastime Spectacular of Gaiety held at the Shea household in Weymouth. After boozing and chatting for a while, the party moved to the ever-famous Panda Palace in South Weymouth, which Mark and Matt Shea tore the roof off with their karaoke version of an Elton John song.
Sunday morning after breakfast, Rosana and I met up with Bill and Marin. We headed to Cumberland Farms (the literal farms) in Middleboro to do some birding. This place has had quite a fall, with birders posting such rarities as LARK BUNTING, and the super-rare BROWN-CHESTED MARTIN. Most recently on a CBC, birders noted 5 LAPLAND LONGSPUR. We walked the muddy roads lined with post-harvest cranberry crud, but had no luck locating any. We were treated to an AMERICAN KESTREL, SONG SPARROW, WHITE-CROWNED SPARROW, and an immature RED-TAILED HAWK.
In the afternoon, the four of us ate some lunch with Jerry at Weymouth House of Pizza. Rosana and I then got some tea in Southie, then headed to the Needy Visions round-robin style show and photo shoot at their practice space in Dorchester.
After the show, Rosana and I stayed at Steve and Meg's place. In the morning we got some breakfast and made some IPA beer with the home brewing kit Meg had gotten Steve for Christmas. It was neat to learn how that works. Last night, Rosana and I headed back to Worcester, where we got some Thai food and retired fairly early. This morning we've been getting ourselves ready for another Eastern MA adventure to come.
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