Becky's photoblog

I had about an hour to kill before our pre Yom Kippur dinner, and I needed to clear my head after a long week, so I took a walk around the Fenway neighborhood and found myself wandering through the Fenway Victory Gardens: “the oldest continuously operating Word War II Victory Gardens in the United States, spanning 7.5 acres with over 500 gardens.” Who knew?

The gardens are part of a park that’s about half way between Boston University and the Gardner Museum … two places that are a 15 minute walk apart, and where I have spent a lot of my time in the past 8 years … and yet I have never wandered yet another one of Boston’s incredibly little hidden gems.

The Fenway Victory Gardens are truly beautiful and bizarre. It’s one little secret garden after another along narrow dirt paths, each garden with it’s incredibly unique and often strange qualities. You can feel like you’re alone and lost (in a good/peaceful way) among the endless rows of gardens, and yet you can hear traffic not too far away, you can see nearby apartments, and you can see nearby landmarks such as the Prudential Tower. The contrast made this oasis of calm and quiet even more beautiful. In many cases, it’s clear that the gardens are not just places to grow plants and produce, but also places for peaceful personal reflections. Many of the gardens featured wandering paths, sitting nooks and an enormous variety of personal touches.

Brian went to MIT’s annual Great Glass Pumpkin Patch while I went to a lecture at the Gardner Museum. I was bummed to miss out of pretty shiny things and family time, but it was a great lecture.

Here’s my photoblog post from when we went to this together last year.

Photo by Brian D.

So good to catch up with the beautiful Fiorentino family at the Harvard Fall Festival!

Lovely day for a wedding at Brooksby Farm in Peabody … I had the honor of assisting the wedding photographer!

We wandered through the Boston Arts Festival in Columbus Park (a favorite open-air art market, which we he hadn’t checked out in a few years) before heading back to the car and heading up to New Hampshire for the evening. A little dose of inspiration in the middle of a lovely day!

We checked out the Feast of St. Anthony, an annual weekend-long festival in the North End. It was really fun!

Melissa couldn’t believe that we had never been to any of the Boston Harbor Islands, so we made a last-minute plan to fix that right away. We packed a picnic, hopped on the ferry from Long Wharf (which stopped at Spectacle Island) and spent an absolutely perfect Saturday afternoon wandering around Georges Island.

Most of the island is what’s left of Fort Warren, a civil-war era fort which is now mostly grassy fields, big empty rooms, creepy dark stair wells, and upper ramparts with amazing views  in all directions. We could see Boston, Quincy, Hull, and Boston Light on Little Brewster Island. There were tons of families out there because it’s a fun and inexpensive way for kids to run around and explore, and for adults to relax along the shore with amazing views. We got our exercise in, and we also sat for a long time and read our books. Perfect afternoon! Thanks, Mel!!

We had such a lovely day trip up to Portland a few weeks ago and we decided to try it again … Maine is only an hour and a half away! We decided to drive up to Ogunquit because we just wanted to walk around and get some exercise some place scenic. I remembered the beautiful scenic path along the water near Perkins Cove (the Marginal Way), so we headed there. SO bummed to find that it was so crowded with tourists that we had to completely abandon the idea … there was absolutely nowhere to park the car! So annoying because I could see glimpses of the stunning scenery as we drove around, and I was itching to get out of the car and take a long a walk but we were actually stuck.

After some whining (all me), we decided to continue north along the coast to see what else we would see, and we drove through a quieter, less touristy, residential neighborhood of incredible oceanfront properties … and then, suddenly there was a parking spot! We hopped out at Wells Beach, and walked along the shoreline listening to that wonderful irreplaceable sound of waves crashing on rocks.

After we walked a bit, we decided to take a risk on a tiny little shack of a restaurant called Wells Beach Lobster Pound. It didn’t look very promising from the outside, but we were pleasantly surprised! We brought our food across the street and enjoyed incredible clam chowder, fried clam strips and a lobster roll on a ledge overlooking the ocean. Absolutely perfect!

Second date-night in a row this week! Delicious dinner in Mission Hill with Deanna, then a lovely walk past the gorgeous Mission Church to her car.

I had the day off, so I ran an errand at city hall (such an ugly building!), then I decided to wander around the North End. It’s such a lovely neighborhood, especially during the day when the sidewalks are not packed with long lines outside of every restaurant. Unfortunately, the sky was gray so the photos aren’t great, but it was a lovely afternoon for wandering. Of course, the North End is right by the harbor so I was able to find a quiet bench and watch the sailboats go by for a while. Great view of the hotel where we were married!

The morning after Brendan and Courtney’s wedding, we decided to wander around nearby Salem before heading back to Boston. We hit the gorgeous Turner exhibit at the Peabody Essex Museum and then we wandered around the touristy part of Salem – gorgeous views of the harbor, and a lovely lunch!

They’re about to repave Baystate Road, which means I get a clear shot with no cars in the whole block!

Did you know there are over 3,000 islands off the coast of Maine? We took a little day trip up to Portland Maine, and we saw about 10 of them on a 3-hour cruise on Casco Bay Lines. The cruise is called the Mailboat Run because it brings passengers and mail deliveries to the islands twice a day, and it gives tourists like us the chance to see Maine as it was intended to be seen: from the water. A perfectly beautiful relaxing  inspiring New England day.

We passed Gorges Island, Peaks Island and Little Diamond Island, then our first stop was at Diamond Cove on Great Diamond Island, followed soon after by a stop at Long Island. Our third stop was at Cliff Island, then finally at Great Chebeague Island, then back to Portland for window shopping and an amazing dinner.

We were out of town for Hannah’s grandfather’s funeral, but we were able to visit them a few days later and play with the baby. Sorry for the quality of these photos … it’s a little tricky to get a good photo of a squirmy baby in low light.

Before heading to LAX for a red-eye, we watched the sun set in Santa Monica.

The Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, CA

On our last day in LA, we headed out to Pasadena so I could show Brian the Norton Simon Museum. We had also heard that the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens was lovely, and it was open earlier, so we headed there first.

This place is absolutely gorgeous! Henry and Arabella Huntington amassed an enormous collection of rare books, art, and plants from all over the world, and it was an incredibly pleasant and peaceful place to wander around. In the library, we saw a Gutenberg Bible (among many other fascinating things). In the art collection, we saw the usual array of lovely paintings and interesting sculptures, and the gardens truly knocked our socks off. The rose garden was spectacular, and the Japanese garden, with the lily pads, the bridge and the colorful fish swimming in the pond was really breath-taking!

After a long day, we had an incredible dinner at Frida’s in Westwood Village, then waited in line for way too long for ice cream sandwiches at Diddy Reise … but they were so good!

After the Getty Center, we headed down to see the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. We mixed up the timing, so we only had an hour, but that gave us enough time to breeze through a lovely exhibit on Calder, a Japanese collection of Chinese paintings, and an exhibit of weird modern art, plus one whole floor of the permanent collection … a bit rushed, but a really great hour!!

After wandering around LA in the morning, we headed up to the Getty Center. This was the first of the five museums that we visited in our three days in Los Angeles. As with almost of the museums in the area, it’s an amazing place to enjoy the outside spaces, then head inside to check out some galleries, then pop back outside to admire the view, then head back inside for more art, and so on. We had both been to the Getty before, but never together. The Getty has a handful of my favorites, and it’s like visiting old friends! We could have stayed all afternoon, but we were also eager to head to LACMA.

We started our first full day in Los Angeles by heading over to Burbank to see the area where Brian used to live, then we drove around a bit to see the sites. Up Mulholland Drive for an amazing view of the city, down to Hollywood for the walk of fame (where we saw Darth Vader in front of the Chinese Theatre), we popped in to the ArcLight Cinema because we had heard of it, and because they have a nice bathroom, and we wandered through Amoeba Music (this was all Tuesday morning).

Several months ago, when we booked our trip to San Jose for Sean and Clif’s wedding, we decided to make a whole week out of it by adding on  a few days in Los Angeles. Brian hadn’t been to LA since he lived there for a few months 10 years ago, and it would give us a chance to visit my brother and his girlfriend, and to see the house they bought last summer.

Those two crazy kids got married in private in April, so it turned out that this was also our first time seeing my brother and his wife since they got married! When we arrived in LA, we headed straight to their house. We got a tour of their beautiful new home, and caught up over take-out. I realize now that I forgot to take a picture of them (they probably don’t mind) … I was too busy taking pictures of my niece and nephew: their cats, Ivy and Mosby.

On our long drive from San Jose to Los Angeles, we stopped in Pismo Beach around 1 or 2pm for a late lunch. We picked out Ventana Grill since it’s right on the water, and we enjoyed a delicious meal with an incredible view! Then, we drove down a bit to get a little closer to the public beach. The sand was incredibly soft, and we got our feet wet in the Pacific Ocean!

Back on the road … we arrived at Adam and Celeste’s house in Los Angeles by dinner time.

We spent all day Monday driving down to Los Angeles from San Jose. We took the scenic route to check out Monterey and Pismo Beach along the coast, and to drive along the Pacific Coast Highway … something we have both been wanting to do.

It really is a beautiful country.

Our in time in San Jose and the San Francisco Bay Area was over, and we spent all day Monday driving down to Los Angeles. We took the scenic route to check out some beautiful towns along the coast, and to drive along the Pacific Coast Highway. It really is a beautiful country.

We stopped in Monterey around 9:30am … only an hour in to our trip, but very worth it! Fisherman’s Wharf is a fun place to walk around, and it was awesome to see a big family of sea lions. We could hear their ‘arf! arf!’ from quite a ways away.

We left San Francisco, crossed the bay and headed over to Berkeley for dinner with our cousins. They treated us to an amazing backyard barbeque in their gorgeous backyard garden. They got married less than two months after we did, so the conversation naturally turned to how awesome our respective weddings were.

Same as that afternoon, our time together was over all too soon, but it was much better to spend three hours with them than none at all.