Yesterday was a pseudo Daddy Day, and a full one at that. Megan has been in New Hampshire for work since Friday evening and Caleb and I have been doing our best to maximize the father/son time as well as the great weather. (Click on the photo to the right to see all of the images from our adventure.)

I’ve been considering a stint in graduate school sometime in the next few years and have been itching to check out the UMass Boston campus. Always ready for a new adventure venue, Caleb eagerly agreed to check out the campus. A short Red Line ride and shuttle bus transfer and we found ourselves on the campus…all alone (well, almost). I had hoped to find at least one random straggler wandering around the campus just itching to answer my questions, but alas, we had the grounds all to ourselves.

…Until we discovered the Mini Cooper concert/ race/ carnival/ extravaganza in the back of the campus. Sheesh. If only they had car seats installed in the test cars. There was a very cool looking course that you could race a Mini around, and at least 5 or so cars were screeching around caution cone corners. Maybe next time.

Leaving the UMass campus we found ourselves wandering around Copley Square, the Hynes Convention area, the Prudential, and eventually, the Symphony area. In case you are wondering, the Borders Books in Copley is very sweet, and the two guys standing at the front to answer book questions can indeed direct you to the nearest music store (not for CDs, but for guitar strings).

(If you clicked on the photo above and looked through all of the images and want to check out some of Stoller’s work, look no further.)

Our neighborhood is great. Every day there is something unique happening.

On Friday we were treated to a very special road construction exercise. It seems that a rectangle of street outside our building was ready to be ripped up (by a massive, massive machine) and then replaced moments later with fresh asphalt. We can’t figure out exactly why the road needed to be torn up, but at least the timing coincided with the start of Caleb’s afternoon nap…

Click on the photo to see the noise up close and personal.

Here’s a map of the walking route we took this past Friday. We started at Boston University (the red marker) after exiting the Green Line. Click on the map for a larger view.

Yesterday was one of the more physically intensive Daddy Days we have had for some time. When asked, Caleb said that we should go to Central Square. Not content with our normal route of a walk to Park Street to catch the Red Line over the river, I decided that we would take the Green Line to BU and walk to Central Square instead. The weather was perfect and I figured it would be a good way to see a part of Boston neither of us had explored much before (Cambridgeport). Click on the photo to the right to see all of the images from our adventure!

The weather was indeed beautiful — sunny and not too hot — and perfect for a long afternoon walk outside. The walking portion of the trip, essentially BU to the North End, via Central Square and the Mass Ave bridge on the way back (instead of the more direct Longfellow Bridge) was just under 6 miles long. Roughly 5 of those miles Caleb trudged from the comfort of my arms or shoulders. (What’s a stroller?)

We learned a few things along the way, namely that Boston is beautiful in the summer, and the park along the Charles River (adjacent to Storrow Drive) is simply made for running/ strolling/ taking everything in.

Megan took some great photographs of Caleb and his friends the other day. They were hanging out in the playground next to our apartment enjoying the fantastic weather. Caleb did a few tricks on his skateboard for the camera and is really getting a hang of his balance. It helps when there is nice cushy rubber for him to fall on (the green/ gray/ black ground cover in the photos). Click on the image to the right to see all of the photos!

I just finished cleaning off our tent this afternoon and officially ended the experience by putting it and our sleeping bags away. I toyed with camping out in one of our bedrooms but decided to let the experience stand as is. While I am pretty down about the various unexpected challenges we had to deal with, there is a lot that went well. (Click on the image to the right to see all of our camping photos.)

First and foremost, Caleb had a great time. That was my nearly singular aim, and I think I can say, mission accomplished. He didn’t mind sleeping in a tent, or getting a bit dirty, or even dealing with the mosquitoes or rain. He clearly didn’t appreciate the latter two if you asked him about them, but neither seemed to slow him down much. I look at camping as a way to get out of the hustle and bustle of life and slow down a bit. Caleb seemed drawn to the same (we sat near the fire on our first night and listened to the forest and its many noises) and seemed also genuinely energized to be having the semi-roughing it experience.

In retrospect, I’ve decided that I shouldn’t be too hard on myself for deciding to leave a day early. Indeed, it continued to rain throughout the day and into the day we had originally planned to leave. Without the proper rain gear, and having to consider our dog’s comfort level as well, avoiding the rain was the proper move.

On the upside, we had a lot go in our favor. There were only a handful of campers in the campground aside from the three of us (perhaps five campgrounds out of 90 were occupied, perhaps due to the weather… ) so we had a considerable amount of peace and quiet. Despite the rain, our tent kept us very dry and comfortable. It also helped keep the mosquitoes out and offered a spot for Caleb to go to the bathroom so we could avoid the rain (the rain fly creates two fairly roomy vestibules on either side of the tent — Caleb managed with some finagling to be convinced that the option was far more preferable than running through the rain roughly 300 yards to the bathroom). Nadine perked up the second day and I figured out how to keep the mosquitoes off her without too much bug spray on her fur. We had the opportunity to visit a very cool museum and talk with a friendly person for a bit. And, perhaps most importantly, Caleb wants to go again, and soon (a not-so-certain outcome with kids, even after an ideal camping trip).

So, all in all, it was far more fun and successful than perhaps I convey when harping about the few discomforts. Perhaps we’ll try again next weekend…

Yay! Another Daddy Day post! (I think I am almost caught up now.) The photos to the right (click on the image to see them all) are from the end of May. Caleb took a late and rather long afternoon nap, so we ended up heading out on our Friday adventure pretty near to the end of the day (we left the North End around 4pm I think).

In talking through our options with Caleb, he picked Harvard Square as our destination. We made a pit stop at Megan’s office, which is on the way to the Park Street Red Line station, because I forgot to ask Caleb to use the restroom before we left our house. A short ride across the river and we romped around Harvard Square for a bit, taking in some dinner, and checking out Eastern Mountain Sports for skateboards (they had none).

On our way back, we decided to take the scenic route along the waterfront and took our time moseying home.

Wow! I am really quite behind on posting!

Check out some of our photos from a Daddy Day adventure we took back in April (click on the photo to the right to see them all). Sheesh! Where does the time go?

We walked to the Seaport District from our house on this trip and Caleb started asking me to take his photograph in various spots. I think the red Ferrari kicked off the trend (I asked him if he wanted a shot of it with him in front and he said yes, of course) but it was fun taking photos of him. He asked if I wanted a photograph of myself a few times, so some of the shots in there are his. Good times.

Boy am I glad we left yesterday evening instead of trying to stick it out last night. It is sunny and beautiful in Boston (and our tent is finally dry — it’s been hanging in the shower since last night) but not so much in Bear Brook State Park. Here’s the hour-by-hour weather forecast:

Caleb and I decided to come back a day early from our camping drip due to the somewhat “wet” weather. It started raining during the middle of our first night, and kept up for pretty much all of the next day (yesterday). We checked in at the office yesterday morning to inquire about the weather and were told that the sky would clear up just after noon. Noon came and went, and we decided around 4pm that we had enough of the weather. We still had a great time and made the clip below early yesterday morning (around 6am) when Caleb finally woke up:

Truthfully, it was a pretty difficult camping trip, at least from my perspective. Camping is somewhat laborious anyway, but add into the mix a two or three year old boy, a huge dog, some rain, and endless mosquitoes, and I would think even the most seasoned camper (which I am not) would get a bit dissuaded.

Caleb seemed to have a fantastic time, especially on our first day (setting the tent up and hanging out before bed). The mosquitoes clearly bothered him but doses of bug spray at least helped keep them at bay. The rain was another story — Caleb very much wanted to go hiking on our second day (as did I), but every time we ventured out, it invariably started raining too hard to continue (sans good rain gear including waterproof hiking shoes).

Nadine had a really hard time though I think she really enjoyed hanging out in the tent with us. I had put flea/tick/etc. junk (Frontline) in her fur the day before our trip (which always tweaks her system a bit) but still ended up having to put bug spray on her to keep the mosquitoes off. I doused her collar and then put it back on her but then I found a bunch latching on to her stomach and the bridge of her nose (poor girl!). She also seemed to think that we were moving and more or less refused to eat (even carrots, one of her favorite treats). I kept finding her “burying” her food bowl (a stress-induced hoarding/rationing behavior — she would nuzzle her bowl with her nose into a corner of the tent as if to cover it with dirt) and she continued to refuse food until we returned to Boston last night.

Trips to the bathroom were also a bit of a challenge. I opted to bring Nadine as leaving her in the tent — to potentially tear it to shreds trying to chase a passing deer — was likely a poor option, and didn’t want to expose the car to more mosquitoes than necessary (three to four managed to always enter no matter how briefly the door was open). So the three of us piled into a stall (which was thankfully one of the cleanest bathrooms I have ever seen at a campground) and made do (umm… no pun, however slight, intended…).

For fun, which we managed to create/find/sustain despite the above, we hiked (per our several, though abbreviated and wet attempts), made fires (the second one was freakishly extinguished by the rain just 5 minutes later), skateboarded (well, Caleb did “tricks” while I watched), explored a bit, read stories in the tent, visited nearby Concord (about 30 minutes away — our morning adventure while waiting for the sky to clear up), and took a detour into the nearby Camping Museum (which was awesome!).

All in all, Caleb and I are ready to take another trip (Nadine not so much). The next time, we’ll hopefully have better weather, and will perhaps choose a climate not so mosquito friendly…