Introduction

We’ve been preparing for our move from Boston to Portland for about a month. Our condo sat on the slowing south end condo market for about three months before our buyer came along. The next month was a flurry of activity, preparing for the move. Just to add some excitement to the activities, we decided to purchase a vehicle and take a road trip across country back to Oregon. We ended up purchasing a 2006 Nissan Xterra, and then faced the registration dilemma. Having sold our place in Massachusetts, we didn’t want to register the vehicle there, especially since that would force us to pay sales tax on the vehicle as well as an exorbitant registration fee. We ended up convincing the Oregon DMV to send us two temporary trip permits of 21 days each. Since registration and plate delivery in Oregon can take up to four weeks and our temporary trip permits would get us to Oct 22, we had just enough time to take the long way back to Oregon, including a stop in Colorado for the week of October 8th for a work related training..

Leaving Boston turned out to be much more difficult that either of us had anticipated. We have developed friendships with great people there. Our WINO club members are people with whom we have shared many bottles of exquisite wine, to-die-for food, long conversations, and lots of political arguments. We thank Otis (now long gone) for introducing us to Gilles and Karen, Moshe and Cindy, Judy, and other members of the Blackstone park dog owners club . . . which later was distilled into the WINO group. We will treasure our memories of wine and Averna fueled conversations that continued long into the morning hours; our introduction to Unicum (which “tasted great in Hungary!”); catching Thom’s condo on fire; fourth of July parties on Thom’s roof; walking down Mass Ave at 3am for the “fresh air;” leaving poor, inebriated Mike to find a cab and his way home to the wilds of Brighton in a rain storm at 2am; finding out that Sue was pregnant; meeting Jayvin; waiting for Gilles to spill wine on himself, again; being impressed once again with Jim’s snappy attire and acumen for identifying the best antique watch repair shop in Boston; listening to Moshe sing “Coward of the County” in a tremulous vibrato out in the garden at 2am; learning how to prosecute a deal, reupholster a chair, and the value of really good cornishon hand carried from France; learning that Heather secretly was a professional tuba player . . . or was she?; and finishing it all off with one more chartreuse.

One of the highlights of our time in Boston was winning awards in the Mayor’s Annual Garden contest. In 2005, we placed third in the decks, patios, and terraces category. In 2006, we placed second in the small yard category. In Boston it always helps to know someone and we thank Thom for introducing us to the contest, hosting the judges (which Moshe’s help) the first year when we happened to be in NYC on the day of the judging, and introducing our garden to Suzanne in the Mayor’s office. We hope that the new owner continues to love the space and care for the garden with the attention it needs.

We already miss our Bostonian friends, but plan on doing our very best to maintain those relationships. Those friendships made life in Boston pleasurable and memorable. Thanks guys!

We wanted to share odd commentary, trivia, and photos of our road trip from Boston to Portland and chose this forum to do so. We look forward to sharing with you all and will do our best to update this daily. . . . pending wifi availability!