We're back from a five-day trip through New England. It was a crazy trip in a sense--four out of five days involved drives of at least five hours, and all that during one of the busiest weekends of the year, namely Labor Day weekend. So, to be expected, we were stuck in a lot of traffic jams and most of our trips were longer than five hours.

But we really enjoyed ourselves anyways. No work. Barely any cellphone conversations, which was really quite a treat. And we spent some lovely time with people we just don't see often enough.

Ruby was a delight the whole time. She figured out ways to be happy in the car, and just shared in the general grumpiness that comes with too much driving. She didn't sleep enough, so we experienced a few end of day meltdowns, which we otherwise never get, so even that was a breeze for the most part. And, as Amma pointed out to us smartly, the travel and new experiences helped Ruby learn a huge amount of new words, her sentences became longer, and she generally just seemed to understand everything a little better.

My biggest Ruby treat was explaining to her, one evening, as we were strolling through a field on our way to our beds during sunset, how the sun goes down behind the trees and then everything goes dark. Now she'll stand in front of you, and excitedly gesture with both her hands, fanning towards the floor for emphasis, that fundamental fact of life that "the sun is going down!"

On day one we left Brooklyn for Lynn, Massachusetts, where my old old friend Mary lives with her cool husband, John, and their two amazing girls, Ana Lucia and Marie. The four and a half hour trip took six, so we finally arrived at 8pm or so. The next morning, before getting back in the car, we spent time walking up and down the street behind the three girls who were all on their own scooters, walking down to the beach for a quick walk before the tide went out, and changing countless poopy diapers because Ruby had eaten about five packs of seaweed the day before (it was a compromise towards labor peace in the car).

As always we spent way too little time with Mary and John, so we have plans to return later this year for a whole weekend. We can't wait!