In spite of an extremely difficult week due to the tragic events in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania, caused by terrorists, we still had a good vacation.  We flew from Ft Lauderdale to Boston on Saturday, September 8th.  Cheryl got us started by knocking on the door to the home in Arlington, Massachusetts where Great Grandpa Keefe was born more than 85 years ago.  His older brother, Bill, had written "P___ K____ is a bum" on a support beam in the cellar when they were small children.  Cheryl's telling that story to the current owners caused them to invite us in, and we took some pictures. We then drove up to our rented cottage in Wells, Maine.

We visited with our Aunt Mary (Great Grandpa Keefe's sister), our cousin Betsy, and her son Matt, in Hampton Beach, New Hampshire.  We drove up to Rye, NH, and met our cousin Susan who was returning with her boat "Uncle Oscar".  She gave us four live lobsters which we later enjoyed that evening at our cottage (along with fried clams).  We drove to the top of Mt. Washington in New Hampshire, but because of no visibility (too much fog at the top) there are no pictures.

On Tuesday, everything changed with the horrible terrorist acts, but we were determined to keep our appointment to see our Uncle John (Great Grandma Keefe's brother) in Concord, NH.  We were almost an hour late for lunch due to blocked highways resulting from a traffic accident, but they waited for us, and we got some pictures.

Cheryl took advantage of Susan's offer to go whale watching, and she went out on the "Granite State" a boat operated by Susan's son Peter.  She said she saw a small whale and a 20' shark.

We had to leave two days early, on Thursday morning, due to not knowing if we would be able to get our return flight from Logan Airport in Boston on Saturday the 15th.  We drove our rental car from Maine to Florida, staying at Motel 6 in Hagerstown, MD and Jacksonville, FL.  We stopped briefly in Central Florida, where the great grandparents were able to see four of their six great grandchildren, Bonnie's daughter, Hope, and Susan's three sons, Ryan, Nathan, and Christopher.  (It was Chistopher's first time seeing his great grandparents). All in all, considering the unpleasant circumstances of events of the week, it was a good trip.