The rest of the April road trip

I dropped the ball on continuing with the posts in a timely manor. So, instead of trying to write anything decent, I'll pretty much just make this a post of unedited cell phone photos with very minimal writing. Once I actually work on the SLR photos, I'll put them up on flickr.

Boston, Massachusetts 

Tuesday, April 18, 2017

The day after the Boston Marathon, my friends & teammates were heading out of Boston, so I was now on my solo vacation. I had no actual plans at this point. I had to be out of my hotel by 11 or noon or whatever checkout time was and didn't know if I was going to stay in Boston or travel elsewhere, but was leaning toward elsewhere. I had just spent a few days in Boston, it was time to explore some more.

In the morning, I went out for a run with my phone in hand, to take a few photos along the way.

It was the perfect morning for a run. It was cool and there was no humidity... why couldn't it have been like this the day before? Oh well.. 

I took one more photo on this run, in the middle of the above photos. I somehow caught this out of the corner of my eye while running. I'm not sure how or why I saw it, but I'm glad I did. 

No more hurting people. #peace #seenonmyrun #bostonstrong

A post shared by Vicki Zandbergen (@vickizandbergen) on Apr 18, 2017 at 6:19pm PDT

After my run, I packed up and checked out, put my stuff in my car, which was booked to stay in the garage all day, so I set out to wander and explore. And.... it got cold... cloudy... windy. 

I checked out Faneuil Hall. 

Then headed out for more wandering/exploring.

I considered getting a cannoli from Mike's since it's apparently the thing to do.... then I saw this line:

I guess it IS the thing to do... but I didn't want to wait.

So... I went to Boston Public Market, where I got a coffee and a delicious vanilla bean donut,

sat and contemplated where to go next.

I decided on heading to the White Mountains. Checked for some options of places to stay, figured out a rough game plan, and then did some beer shopping (also in the market).

** ok.. interjecting here with something sort of funny that just happened. The mail just came, so I went to get it out of the box and in it was this:

That makes me feel slightly better about taking so long to finish up writing about April! haha **

New Hampshire

Tuesday, April 18, 2017

I arrived in Lincoln, NH at some point late afternoon or early evening. Checked into the Holiday Inn Express, was upgraded to a larger room since there weren't many people staying during the off season. Brought my stuff to my room, and walked to Woodstock Inn Station & Brewery to get some dinner and beer. 

Wednesday, April 19, 2017

This was a day of hiking at Greely Ponds Trail and Hancock Notch (with a bit of post-holing... post-holing to mid-thigh!) and just enjoying being outdoors.. until it started raining. At that point, I headed to a One Love Brewery for some food (and a beer) and then called it a day. 

In a shop window.

Wednesday, April 20, 2017

I went out for a short little run from the hotel around Lincoln in the morning and took a few photos. It was such a pretty morning!

My plan for this day was pretty loose. I would most likely cross into Canada at some point, but planned to stop several places on the way to do more exploring.

First stop: Franconia Ridge, Falling Waters Trail.

2nd stop: Littleton (for no real reason, just wanted to wander around a town with my camera)

3rd Stop: a lake in Vermont that looked pretty from the road. 

4th and final stop before Canada: Newport, VT.

I walked around by the beach for a bit and then to the East Side Restaurant for some food, since I hadn't had anything since breakfast. After this, it was time to head to my parents' house where I would stay for the night before driving back home to Kitchener. Actually, I think I stayed two nights. 

So there you have it. I can now get back to more recent/current posts... just in time for ENDURrun to start this weekend, the one time of year when I consistently blog. :)

April, the month my blog has ignored.... until now. (Part 1 of.... I'm not sure yet)

Nothing eventful happened the first couple weeks of April, so I will start this mid-April. Actually... this post will likely be about one week. We'll call it "Boston Week."

Thursday, April 13th
I took this day off work. I had some things I needed to do before leaving for my trip, so I wanted to be sure I had time to get those done and then drive half way to Boston without feeling rushed. Starting a vacation week frantically is never fun, so I wanted to avoid it! It worked.

When I arrived at the border early evening, it took all of 5 minutes to get through (including my wait behind other cars), so that was a pleasant surprise! Quick and painless. Nice.

On the other side, I drove for a bit, then stopped to get some food and a coffee. Ate and drank the coffee while driving, and arrived at my hotel at a decent hour. I had some time to hang out and watch tv for a bit before hitting the hay.

Friday, April 14th
Got up, had some free breakfast at the hotel, and then hit the road. Almost ran out of gas.... (long stretch of highway with no gas, got off the highway, arrived at a gas station with my car saying "1km to empty" on the display.. talk about cutting it close!) got to Boston early afternoon.

Checked in to my hotel, turned around, walked toward the elevator, and someone I knew came out! I wasn't expecting to run into people I know so quickly! Talked to Lumi and her daughter for a few minutes, then threw my stuff in my room, and headed to the expo.

I was SO happy that I got there on the Friday because there were no lines. I walked straight up to get my number and the same for my shirt. I didn't have to wait behind a single person!

Obligatory number pick-up selfie (sent to the teammates)

The expo itself was great, too, it didn't take too long to check it all out because I could actually walk around freely. I got my Sam Adams 26.2 beer samples, and walked around with looking at merchandise that I was most likely not going to buy. I ended up buying some nuun since I forgot mine at home, and got a sweet Boston bottle from them. I did swing by the North Face booth for a very specific item, which I now know is called the "Stow and Go" bra. I just called it the bra with the pocket across the front. I bought one, then quickly looked around the rest of the expo and headed back to my hotel. On my way back, I ran into more people that I know. :)

Got to the hotel, changed into running clothes, and ran to the Runners' Choice pop-up shop where I was going to get my free gloves, watch the live show of Super Secret Mystery Meeting, run with them, and then eat pizza and drink beer. It was a lot of fun.

Perfect night for a run with @supersecretrw from @runnersworldmag

A post shared by Vicki Zandbergen (@vickizandbergen) on Apr 14, 2017 at 4:43pm PDT

Saturday, April 15th
Val arrived Saturday morning, so once she got to the hotel, we headed out to a coffee shop

for coffee (obviously) and a little something to eat. After caffeination had occurred, we walked over to Boylston where we watched the 1km and mile races. When Val went to get her number and go to the expo, I headed to the Strava pop-up for my free socks, then did some shopping for a visor at the New Balance store, since I only brought hats and the forecast was looking to be hotter than expected.

Once all of that was done, we headed to Rock Bottom for some beer and food.

In the evening, I wandered around and ended up at Harpoon where I had one beer and then walked back to the hotel.

Sunday, April 16th.
Coffee, then run with Val.
Post run sandwiches.

Post run. Pre-sandwiches.

Afternoon patio beer with Emily and Garret in shorts and a tank top... in April. I'm usually a jeans kind of girl unless it's really warm out... It was hot. 

We decided to check out the pasta dinner, but when we saw the line for the pasta party winding around the building outside, we walked past, went out for dinner, sitting on a patio, in the nice hot weather. Well... nice for sitting on a patio.... not so much for what the next day had in store.

On the "way back" (it was a little out of the way to find a store that was open), we shopped for some post-race beer, and headed back to the hotel to get to bed at a decent time.

The purchases.

The photo that happened when I was going to take the above photo, but accidentally had the phone on front-facing camera (I didn't accidentally take the photo, but laughed when it was on front-faced and then had to take the photo).

That's enough for this post... I'm going to stop here. There will be more coming soon. I will write a race day post, and then I'll write about the week post-race.