Puppies In Planes and A Week In The States

It is now November 2022. We have just spent the last seven 7 months on the island of Vieques, Puerto Rico, which is in the Caribbean. We are leaving the island with a few tears as we say goodbye to many people we have come to love and will sorely miss.

But, this is the end of only 1 chapter in the book of our adventures, AND as we leave the island we have this amazing little distraction – a tiny puppy called Iain.. While here on Vieques, we have been walking the dogs for the Vieques Humane Society and we offered to transport a pet needing to be taken to USA. We were thrilled to hear, four days before we were leaving, that there was indeed a little puppy that needed to go to Boston to a foster family to wait for his forever home.

A very welcome distraction indeed! And the best little travel companion. Iain was so chilled, he took to the car ride, ferry ride, trip to dinner and another long car ride to San Juan airport, all in his stride. We arrived at the airport at 9pm, our flight was not leaving until 5am, so we had a very long wait. The time went by very fast with Iain to keep us entertained. He was so popular, everyone wanted to give him a pat. So, we were able to, mostly, kept him awake. When we finally got onto the plane, he was so exhausted, he just went to sleep in his carry cage under the seat in front of me. When he woke, he sat on my knee and snugged back to sleep again – until the steward discovered him – ooops! “He must be in his cage for the duration of the flight” – but look at this little face!! Cant he just stay on my knee?

We arrived in Boston 4 hours later. Iain’s foster family were waiting and fell in love the minute they saw him, and then he was gone! We have heard since that he has found his forever home already and is a very loved member of the family. It was so cool to have been part of that story!

We have a week here in the north east of America. A few days in Boston, a few days in Kennebunk then back to Boston to fly out to Jakarta. This part of the trip was primarily for seeing friends. We were so lucky to be able to borrow Pam’s car to drive up to Kennebunk to see Joan. It was perfect as it meant we could take her out and about while there. We got to see part of the New England coast too, which was so beautiful.

It was so much colder than what we had been used to, we only have hot weather clothes with us! So as soon as we arrived in Boston, Pam and Kim opened up their wardrobes and said go for it! Fleeces and sweaters, jackets and thermals! Girls! you are life savers!!

We had one spare day so took the train up to a small town called Salem. As it is Halloween next week, this was quite a timely visit to the home of witch trials and superstition. The whole town is dedicated to the “scary” . More than 200 people were accused of being witches between 1692 and 1693. 30 were found guilty and 19 were executed by hanging right there in Salem. It was the deadliest “witch hunt” in the history of colonial North America.

Pam and Kim live in central Boston, but they have a holiday home at Cape Cod, would we like to go? Hell yes!! The four of us pile into the car and travel the 2 hours to the Cape. Wow! We were so lucky to have this opportunity! Cape Cod and Provincetown are so beautiful and we were blessed with perfect weather! We ate so much and drank far too much! We had so much fun. Their house is right on the beach. There are oyster farms along the coastline and Chris managed to find some rogue oysters in ankle deep water. They were immediately shucked and eaten with a cold beer to wash them down. It was a beautiful warm day. It still really amazes me how this part of the world can get so very hot in the summer time and then turn around and be frozen solid, snow up to the window ledges and frozen water pipes come winter – it is so hard to imagine.

It is only days before Halloween and there was a “Tea Party” on in Provincetown the weekend we were there. So we, all four, dressed up in kind-of-scary but really it was just kind-of-crazy-pretty – yes even Chris! It was so much fun dressing up and doing fake face tattoos, we had a ball! Some of the costumes people were in were amazing, there had been a lot of effort put in and it was so much fun! It was a different story in the morning-we had all sorts of hilarity when we tried to get the tattoos off our faces! Then …. more oysters, more wine in the sun and then back to Boston – we have a plane to catch!