Due to the proximity of my departure and my limited days with family and Stella I am determined to make the most of each moment. I kicked it off right by staying in Boston for a week and traveling with Stella around New England for the weekend. This weekend I met up with Melina and Alex at her new apartment for dinner. It was a great dinner, she invited Frank since Andrew was on vacation in NH and we had a nice "family dinner". Melina is really a great hostess and she made all the fixings: eggplant parmesan, breaded meat, salad, and chocolate covered strawberries. Also, everyone seemed excited to see Stella again and we all just picked right back up in terms of relationship when we were in Colombia. I loved having dinner with them all because I see them as some of my closer friends and a group I really want to be a part of. I know Stella felt the same way because she was complaining why we didn't do this earlier and vowed to stay in touch with Melina even after I leave.
That night we stayed at Amparo's and were woken up to a filling breakfast. Amparo made arepas and Stella even made one. We were headed out that morning nice and early (9am) for Misquamicut Beach. It was the first nice beach day of the summer, rumors of 90 degrees and we didn't want to miss the chance. Our 1.5hr drive quickly turned to a 2.5hr drive due to all the traffic; it appeared that the whole world had a similar idea about the beach. Also, Misquamicut was packed, imagine the old pictures of Coney Island, we only had enough space for our towels and that was pushing it. Even with the disaster of traffic and finding space in the sand it was amazing to get out and just enjoy the sun, good company, and cold water. I went out with Stella in the waves which were about 6ft and we even went for a 3mile walk.
That night w
e went to Mystic, CT and a KOA campground. True, it is not real camping, we just show up in a car, 
pull out a tent, and sleep, but it was better than nothing. I knew it was camping because I have the bug bites to prove it. But, we didn't even have a campfire, instead we went into Mystic to get dinner and walk around. We were both surprised how touristy it was, even at 8:30 at night we could not get a table at any restaurants and we ended up with an okay meal at some cajun restaurant.Already we were having a pretty jam packed weekend. We drove from Boston to Melina's for dinner, we forded 3hrs of traffic on the Masspike, went to Misquamicut, and camped. We debated just staying at the campsite until late morning playing horseshoes, miniature golf, or going for a walk, but I wanted more. I figured we did so much, we might as well go for it all. That morning we got up and raced towards Point Judith to catch a ferry to Block Island. I already had one bike on my car since I was moving home and we figured we could just rent another for Stella on the island. The ferry was relaxing and it was great to just have some time to relax.
Once on the island, which is absolutely beautiful we made a beeline for the nearest bike shop. It was already getting pretty late, about 1pm, and we wanted to cover a lot of ground and some how get back to Boston that night.
We asked some locals for advice and found that we could cover the botton half of the island in a few hours. Only a 
5-10mile ride, but we wanted to stop a lot to look around and enjoy the route. Along the way we found a huge organic garden that attracted Stella's eye. The garden had every type of vegetable and it gave me some great tips and guidance for my own garden or project in Nicaragua. We then trekked on to a lighthouse and were too cheap to climb to the top. Figures that they are trying to build a wind farm off the coast that will power the whole island and it is no surprise that it will be one of the first in America, while Europe as a couple hundred. From there we kept on biking in the slightly overcast weather until we saw two cute little boys selling lemonade. We figured why not and starting talking to their dad who was reading "The Tipping Point". We started off mentioning how we both read that book and a few others he listed off. He then told us of a good beach down the road that is usually void of tourists and a nice spot to check out. Stella loves just walking and we figured it would be a good spot to ditch the bikes for a little and just walk along the coast. The beach was in fact hidden and here is a picture of the crazy trail to get down there. I didn't realize we were going to have to bounce down a ravine and jump over some rivers to get there.
All in all well worth the reward at the end of the path. I was able to go hunting for some crabs by the rocks and Stella was able to do some yoga. Also, we got a good view from the shore.
What a weekend it was, we did it all and were able to get back to Boston by 8pm and we missed all the horrible rain everyone was talking about. Not a bad start to my farewell tour and I have CT to look forward to for the next week and then it is off to Mt. Washington the next weekend .
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