Just 24 hours after I return from my road trip down the Oregon Coast, Jane and I turn the luggage around, pack Jordan’s things (half our house contents and life possessions) into the car, and take a 3-night getaway in Gloucester, on Cape Ann. The weather is still fairly snowy and miserable at this point in mid-February, and Jordan has had a run of upper respiratory viruses from daycare (which he dutifully transmits to us every other week), but we are determined to go out as a family and try new things (even if just an hour from home) now that Jordan is reaching a more robust age and size for traveling. We’ve rented the top floors of a little house on the edge of town, a lovely space with several bedrooms (for us and Jordan), a loft (for getting away from Jordan?), and a full kitchen, which I use to cook up a succession of nice pescatarian-friendly dishes for the family (a full ratatouille and Provençal cod baked with olives and peppers on one night, and on another, a salad of seared calamari, peppers, scallions, topped with a sesame vinaigrette and parmesan).
During the day, we make some tiny forays out into the biting cold to walk around Good Harbor Beach and explore Gloucester’s maritime waterfront. Since Jordan is still sick (and in fact fevering on and off during most nights of the trip), we scrap our original thoughts of taking him around Cape Ann, instead limiting our time in the frigid outdoors. We mostly spend the long weekend playing with him in the house (walking around the house with him holding our fingers with his two little hands, and pulling up cozy fireplace music streams on Youtube on the big television screen in the loft). On our last day in town, I sally out to explore Stage Fort Park and get a takeout platter of fried seafood from Seaport Grille on the waterfront, which Jane and I share for lunch. In the evening, we return with Jordan to take golden hour photos of the Gloucester skyline and show Jordan the climbable tractor structure in the park’s playground (he has developed quite the affection for large vehicles and working trucks in the past few months). Then the following morning, it’s a frenetic pack, drive back to Boston, and unpack to get ourselves settled back into routine life at home.
