Creative Exploration to Canada & New England - Boston!

Waaaay before we ever set foot on the ship, there'd been chatter about finding a way to get to Absolutely Everything, a scrapbook store outside of Boston.   Patti (who works at the store, and was on the cruise) stepped up and made the arrangements, and we had our dream excursion all set to go!
Now, before you start thinking that I should have been sightseeing instead of finding yet another way to spend my money, I should point out that I have been to Boston many times and though it is one of my favorite cities, I didn't feel the need to see the sights again.  And I REALLY wanted to visit what people have described as the best scrapbook store in the world!
And I had another motive.  One of my online friends lives in the area and she was planning to be at the store when we arrived.
At about 9:15 we left the ship and found the area in the terminal where we'd be meeting our bus.  
No, this is not the bus we rode.  Hah!  I just thought it was cool looking.

 Milling about, waiting for the bus to arrive:

 No guessing which group Wendy and Maurene belonged to:

 Stephanie (AKA the Mad Woman of NJ) and our list mom Gloria:

Our bus was right on time and we are off!  Don't know (or maybe I did know and just don't remember) what bridge this is, but I love bridges and think this is a beauty:

 We were lucky not to run into any of the notorious Boston traffic, and arrived at the store in under an hour.

I only took a couple of photos inside the shop, but trust me.....it does have absolutely everything!  

Clara and I, meeting for the first time after being online friends for quite a while:

The store was huge!

The following shots were taken in their BATHROOM!

Kate, the owner came on the bus before we left to thank us for coming.  She thought I wanted a photo of her breasts, but honestly, it was the necklace I was interested in.

We were back in Boston before 2, and our very cooperative driver dropped some people off to do a little sightseeing.  The rest of us were taken to the ship.

After a nice lunch with Pat, Lori, Wendy and Maurene we went up to Dizzy's Jazzy Lounge for drinks and a free scrapbooking event.  Well, truth be told, we went up there for drinks and the free pack of paper.   Because we hadn't already bought/received enough.  Hah!

That night Pat and I had dinner at Portofino, the Italian specialty restaurant.   It was just lovely, and the food was wonderful.

I didn't take pictures of the food (too busy eating it), but did manage to catch Pat just as she was about to catch me.

And we enjoyed another beautiful sunset while dining.

Tomorrow is our final day at sea, our last class with Tim, and our farewell cocktail party.  Sigh.......