Our good friends Anthony and Jodi just welcomed a New Year’s Eve baby – little Alexander!

We’re so excited for our friends and can’t wait to meet the new little guy and hear all about him. Congratulations Anthony and Jodi!

We’re only sad because we live in different states, and wish we lived closer so our babies could be friends, like Anthony and I were as kids living in Chatham, IL. Maybe someday!

The next day, after our restless night at David’s house, we went to Boston, to see our favorite team play Baseball – the BOSTON RED SOX. We had a good time at the game, ate some Fenway Franks, and cheered on a winning game. Yay! That part wasn’t awkward at all.

After Boston, we made our way to Cape Cod, one of my favorite places on earth. Robert and I decided to continue the Vacation of Awkward Experiences by trying something we’ve never done before – stay in a Bed and Breakfast. We chose one on the internet that fit our vacation dates and location on the Cape. It was pretty awkward, especially because it was a clothing-optional inn.

No, not really. Sam and his wife Penny were new B&B owners – have only been in the business for 2 years, originally from New Jersey. They also have a lovely gift basket business if you’d like to buy a gift basket, they are for sale in the dining room.

Sam showed us around the property and to our historic bedroom, in the eaves of the second floor. The bathroom was across the hall from our bedroom, and that was way uncomfortable, but they provided robes to wear when we were out wandering the halls after our showers. Sam mentioned that we may want to make friends with the other guests like the folks from last weekend, who all went out to dinner together for every meal. Not a chance.

The most awkward part of the whole experience was that Sam wanted to control us. That’s why he got into this business. First of all, they don’t live in the “big house”, they live in a coach house in the back of the property. In order to keep tabs on the main house, there are baby monitors all around the common areas, so Sam can hear what’s going on, and come over and talk to you when you are outside of your room.

Every time we came back to the B&B, he popped up and wanted to talk to us. Common questions were: Where were you, where are you going, what are you doing next, how’s your room, when are you coming back, why do you keep sneaking around? We were accused of “sneaking around” every day we were there. We don’t even know what that means!

Talk about sneaking around – Sam even pops out of the bushes late at night. One night when we came back from walking on the beach, around 11 PM – he appeared next to our car to talk to us in the dark. Very awkward.

One Saturday morning, we decided to get up early and rent bikes, so we let Sam know we wouldn’t be joining them for breakfast part of the Bed & Breakfast.

We thought the most awkward way to ride bikes would be to do it together, so we rented a tandem bike and made our way down the Cape Cod Rail Trail – a bike trail made from an old railroad that’s been paved over. Very fun and very awkward, I laughed the entire time. We rode about 8 miles and then returned to the B&B for showers.

Sam and Penny were still in the kitchen, cleaning up breakfast. He motioned for us to come in – they had saved breakfast for us! When we said we’d already had breakfast (along the bike trail) he said “You’re cheating on Penny!”. Oh brother. Good thing we skipped that one too – it was a breakfast Robert would have hated with lots of sauces and souffles.

We like our vacations to teach us important life lessons. The lessons we learned on this one was – don’t stay at a bed and breakfast with stalkers, and always rent a tandem bike when you can.

This summer, we took a great vacation. For those of you regular readers of this little blog, you’ll remember our vacation of last summer: A Vacation the Hard Ways, where we rolled dice while on a road trip to see where we ended up.

This year, we determined that the east coast was where we wanted to be, but since we can’t have just a normal, nice vacation, we needed a theme. This year’s theme was the Vacation of Awkward Experiences. (My brilliant husband came up with that). Again, it was in the car, (the new mini!) and it was road-trip based.

The goal of this vacation would be to challenge ourselves by doing things we’ve never done before – things that may make us feel awkward or uncomfortable. Pulling ourselves out of our comfort zone. Turning over new leaves. Experiencing things we normally would be too timid to do.

We took 2 weeks at the beginning of July and started driving.

The first Awkward Experience we encountered was staying at a friend’s house, a friend we don’t really know very well. I have a really good work friend, David, who I respect and admire. He lives in a gorgeous part of New Hampshire, and invited us to stop by and spend the night at his 1766-built farmhouse.

We had made it to Vermont, and made our way through the narrow state to New Hampshire. We called our friend David at around 9:00 AM, with the plan that we would meet them for dinner around their house and stay at a hotel nearby. We had even researched the hotels. But David insisted that we stay overnight at his house – and since this would be the perfect official start to awkwardness, we said yes.

The country that David lives in is very different than Chicago – lots of giant rolling hills, forests, and even moose-crossing signs. We were very excited about the moose crossing signs – but we’ve since learned that they aren’t out just walking around, crossing streets, disrupting traffic. They are a little more elusive than that – we never saw a moose, sadly. Or a bear. Every person we asked, “Have you seen a lot of moose?” and the response was always “oh, when I was a kid once, I saw one” or “At the zoo”. Very disappointing.

We got to David and Mary’s gorgeous house around 5 PM. It’s pretty crazy to be in a house that old – it felt like staying in a historic site. David made dinner, picked fresh from the organic co-op farm they belong to (it was delicious!), and his daughter introduced us to the goat and two sheep.

The night passed restlessly, as we felt too awkward to sleep. It was nothing that David had done or said – we felt very welcomed. But it was the first time we had stayed overnight at someone’s house who wasn’t related to us. Usually we’re in hotels! So Awkward.

The story continues as the journey does – and as this is the second official day of NabloPoMo – (National Blog Posting Month) you’ll have to wait to see what happens next.

When you get off an airplane, if you’re anything like me, you’re hoping for a friendly, welcoming environment at your travel destination.

You don’t want to feel like you shouldn’t breathe the air in the airport. Or that unidentifiable, possibly toxic items will fall on you from the ceiling. Or to feel like you should maybe start running before the ceiling falls down on top of you.

When I stepped off the plane, I wasn’t prepared for something that looks like this:

When I was traveling to Orlando for my job, I visited the Orlando International Airport last week, and this is what greeted me as I disembarked the plane. The entire American Airlines terminal has no drop ceiling. Nothing covering up the gack above it. No pretty facade. No circulating air. Just gross reality of construction, for all the weary travelers to see:

As my friend Stephen says, I don’t like the way it makes me feel.