“Cod-Bos-Duation-Polis”

As foreshadowed, it’s time for my “Cod-Bos-Duation-Polis” catchup post, which is an amalgamation of Cape Code, Boston, [SB’s] Graduation, and the Indianapolis 500. I have so very much to cover, in fact, if I were to cover all of it in my traditional fashion it would probably end up being one of those 10-15 thousand word long posts. While I probably have time for that, I figured I’d try something a bit different. At first I thought I’ve revisit my haiku style, and while I’ll most certainly try that out again, I thought that I’d mix things up and challenge myself in a different way.

One common critique of my writing is that I am way too verbose and that I need to improve my concision. If you’ve followed Dinosaur Bear for very long then you’ll have noticed that I rarely make anything short. For a personal blog, this is fine, plus it’s my blog so my rules. However, why not challenge yourself from time to time? So, this post is going to be an exercise in concision, and I’ve actually modeled the post after a presentation style called “PechaKucha” or more commonly, the 20×20 style. Essentially this boils down to 20 slides, each displayed for 20 seconds each. The result is an exactly 6 minute and 40 second long presentation. There is an even quicker presentation style than PechaKucha, called “Ignite,” which features the same number of slides (20) but each slide only lasts for 15 seconds, resulting in a total time of 5 minutes. That said, for this first attempt I am going to go with the more lenient PechaKucha style.

You probably get where this is going. Rather than having 20 seconds to present, I am going to limit myself to 20 words max per photo. There is no requirement that I use all 20 words, but I cannot go over 20 words. As with all my posts, the applicable text for an image will appear below the image. Also, these images might not be in perfect chronological order, that is a result of different devices being used to the take the pictures and me being way too lazy to fix 100s and 100s of images (I did that for Santa Fe and it took ages), but generally speaking the timeline is correct. With that said, here is my 20 word introduction:

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We traveled to Cape Cod, then more family visited Boston, then SB graduated, then we saw the 100th Indianapolis 500.

The adventure began with an early morning car rental and then we were off to Plymouth, Massachusetts.

Plymouth Rock was a rock, and there is no way its even the right rock, but it was still interesting.

We of course had to get sandwiches in sandwich, which was something explicitly requested by Tristen.

Delicious Sandwich sandwiches fueled us for the coming adventures in Cape Cod.

The first lighthouse we visited was the Highland Light, you could even climb to the top!

The staircase was just a little bit steep and spirally, but still nothing like the Bunker Hill Monument.

The views from the top were quite good, and it was a wonderful day in the Cape!

The ocean was fairly calm, and its deep blue only lightly contrasted against the clear blue skies.

Naturally we had to spend some time at the beach, collecting shells and skipping rocks!

We also left a few friendly messages in the sand!

We did a fair amount of small-town exploring (and food eating) as well.

All in all it was a great first day in Cape Cod! The Pilgrim Monument is seen above.

After a long day we settled in for bed, but not before getting in a quick hot tub session.

The next day we boarded a ferry to Martha’s Vineyard. Her name was the “Island Home.”

We were departing from a place called “Woods Hole” (above) and heading for “Vineyard Haven” on the island.

They loaded all sorts of stuff into the ferry, including a FedEx truck and a semi.

We were on one of the earlier ferries, but that just made for some pretty morning scenery.

Despite the overcast skies, the weather was actually pretty nice and the ride was smooth.

It wasn’t that long of a trip, all things considered, but I spent most of the time topside anyways.

Upon arrival, one of the first things we did was find a trail, which was harder to find than hike.

Although not super arduous, the trail was still very pretty and it wasn’t busy at all (again, hard to find).

The trail led up to the head of a ridge, which had some wonderful views of the vineyard.

From there we headed to Aquinnah, where the incredible Gay Head Lighthouse and cliffs reside.

The boys were pretty excited about the plethora of lighthouses on Martha’s Vineyard.

They also liked all the harbors and fishing vessels. Tristen fancied himself a captain, of course.

They even made some new friends along the way, including this pink owl who really was a captain it seems.

Meem had requested a photo of John Belushi’s grave and I wanted to see it too.

I really enjoyed walking around all the small, classical New England coastal towns on the vineyard.

The one thing I probably enjoyed even more were those classical New England beaches.

It was still too cold (for me) to swim, but I was mainly there for the scenery anyways.

One thing SB wanted to see where the “Gingerbread Cottages” in Oak Bluffs.

Valentino was pretty fond of this one, for obvious reasons.

I really wasn’t sure what to expect, but those houses were really cool and had a neat history.

Not much to add here, other than that I think this is probably good advice notwithstanding rabies.

As the sun set on the island, we got some dinner and prepared to sail back to Cape Cod.

We didn’t sail on the “Island Home” on the way back, but instead the aptly titled “Martha’s Vineyard.”

The weather was just as magnificent in the evening as it had been in the morning.

It was really cool to have finally had a chance to visit Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard.

The next day when we returned to Boston we went to the Samuel Adam’s brewery (again, for SB and I).

And the day after that, once the whole group was in town, we toured Taza Chocolate (again), also fun.

That night we all gathered in Little Italy for good food and even better company (also beer).

The next day we took an early morning “Duck” tour, which turned out to be really good.

Most of the enjoyment came from our driver (helms-woman?) Flo, who I honestly remember more than the tour itself.

The tour was also the third time I’ve been on the Charles, but obviously the first time in a “duck.”

Our duck tickets also included a free tour of TD Gardens, and the brothers were interested. So we went.

The highlight of the tour for me was seeing where the zambonis live.

Though it was pretty cool to see the arena almost entirely empty (seen here in graduation mode).

After lunch I gave a Harvard tour, which was much more fleshed out than my last one was.

The next day it was down to Boston College for SB’s graduation! She is now a graduate.. graduate?

SB got her MSW in Social Work, as you could probably guess from the above photo.

The BC graduation has two parts, the morning “college-wide” ceremony, and then the school-specific ceremonies after that.

SB is somewhere in that photo, walking out onto the field for the morning ceremony.

The morning exercises were very, very hot. They are in the football stadium and thus in the direct sunlight.

The afternoon social work-specific exercises were much more personal, though BC had sorely prepared for the crowds in my opinion.

Crowds and heat aside, SB’s social work graduation was in a very pretty area of campus!

After she was a Master, SB gave us a tour of campus, with some help from Wikipedia.

The next day family began to trickle out, but not before Zinnekan’s waffles (Meem) and Fenway Park (Dad).

At Fenway we got food and drinks at the Bleacher Bar which is actually “inside” (under-ish) Fenway Park.

There was a game that night (against the Rockies no less!) but we got out before it got too crazy.

After all the family had departed, it was just a few days later that we were headed for them!

We were headed back to Indiana (above) to see the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500.

Of course we also had time to visit with family and see the area (because so much changes).

The boys joined us of course, and even made some new friends, such as “Gund” the brown bear.

Of course the big event was race day, and we had pretty decent seats right in turn 2 (Southeast Vista).

Darius Rucker sang the national anthem, and it was awesome to finally see the flyover in person.

It was SB and I’s first time ever going to the Indy 500, so making the 100th running was way cool.

After a lifetime of hearing about IndyCar sounds, I have to say, they exceeded my expectations by miles. Totally awesome.

A rookie, Alexander Rossi, took home the win – while literally out of fuel (he coasted across the line).

Afterwards we headed home with the masses, because I was due in Montana the very next morning.

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And there we go, I ran through a massive amount of material in a series of 20 word (or less) blurbs. The downside is that such a style cuts out a lot of details, but that’s half the challenge – selecting what you do want to include. Feel free to check my counts if you like, and if you find an numerical error I will give you the illustrious prize of being mentioned in a comment that maybe even 1 or 2 people will read! 😀

So now I’m cleared to get started on the Bozeman Check-in series, so with any luck you’ll see those start sometime within the next week.

Until next time,
-Taco