Our "mis"adventure

Our weekend has been an excellent “mis”adventure of sorts. On Monday we received a letter from the president that we were invited to a senior missionary couples’ conference for Friday in Manchester at the mission home. We were overjoyed also to learn that we could attend the temple on Saturday. We changed the plans we’d had and decided to do two things extra. First, we would visit one of the most famous quilt stores in the US located in Center Harbor, New Hampshire. Okay, I admit—it wasn’t Garth’s first choice. And we decided to visit the Freedom Trail where most of the historical sites are located in Boston.
Friday morning early we started out for Manchester. We had programmed our GPS which we affectionately call the Old Biddy for Center Harbor and, as a precaution, I had printed a route from the computer. The constant rain of Vermont was pouring the entire day drenching everything which made driving difficult. Center Harbor is in the White Mountains and we traveled a winding mountain road to get there. Understand that when you travel in this part of New England, especially Vermont, you are traveling on tree lined freeways. The trees are so thick and heavy laden with leaves that you, literally, can see nothing but trees in every direction you look. In this picture, you’re looking through the windshield and the rain.

Center Harbor, the home of Keepsake Quilting, is located on a huge beautiful lake called Lake Winnipesaukee which has several littler finger lakes around it. We were astounded by the large number of motorcyclists we saw in that area and learned later that there was a motorcycle gathering of over 50,000 bikers in the area. By the way, Keepsake Quilting was a quilter’s haven and well worth the effort to get there for it had been an effort. Garth slept in the car while I shopped.
Our conference was wonderfully uplifting and interesting. We especially visited with our friends the Longhursts who work in New Hampshire and the Jacklins who work in Maine all doing the same thing we’re doing. We all had dinner in a lovely home and I snapped this picture of President Jensen and his lovely wife.

On Saturday we headed for Boston. Another “mis”adventure. The address of the temple is 89 Frontage Road which the Biddy didn’t recognize as a valid address. I’d once again copied the address from the internet so we finally made when we finally spotted the Angel Moroni on top. It is a very lovely temple and we enjoyed our session very much.

Now the “mis”adventure began. First of all, we forgot to eat at the temple. The only redeeming thing about this was that it was a beautiful day as you can see in the picture of the temple. In fact, it was 83 and muggy! I didn’t remember the address of the Freedom Trail but figured it was right in downtown Boston so we could get to it easily. One thing about me as a navigator—no sense of direction at all. And, uncharacteristically, Garth has lost his as well.

We did make it to Boston, but there was so much traffic, so many people and absolutely no parking that we only found the Old South Meeting House. We were also very uneasy about the whole thing. We never got out of the care. We put the Biddy on Home and were out of there in ten minutes. President Jensen had suggested that missionaries should stay within their mission boundaries and we will abide by that counsel.

We ate in Lowell, MA which is an historical, quaint town of cobbleston streets and ivy-covered buildings. It is the home of the New England Quilt Museum which was across the street from the Subway where we ate. Always the good sport, Garth accompanied me on the tour. They were featuring the work of an art quilter named Radka Donnell but we didn’t care a lot for her quilts except that they were beautifully displayed. We loved the old traditional quilts which were part of their permanent collection.
All in all, it was a wonderful and relaxing trip especially since our director had visited us on Wednesday and Thursday and given us new and more difficult directions for our work. We are truly blessed to be here.