“Remoted” – Day 493 (Thursday)

Overnight, there was cool air and breezes that moved the bedroom curtains upstairs, which is rare and made for perfect sleeping conditions. Usually, the breezes move only through the first floor. A couple windows remained open downstairs, and when I got up this morning the house had naturally cooled from around 77 degrees to 68. I love free air conditioning. It feels like I’m winning in my undeclared battle with the electric company.

The morning house temperature was actually a bit cool for my taste, but there was no complaining. It’s been nice getting to intimately know the house during the work from home days. In the daytime, breezes usually come from the back of the house, and I’ve noticed the gradually warming until about 5:00 pm when it suddenly feels too hot.

Today was a vacation day with an adventure planned to celebrate my youngest niece’s birthday. I swear it was just a few days ago that she was a wee little thing about four years old, tottering around in plastic high heels, satin gloves, a feather boa, and a plastic tiara and I was cooing “Ooh-la-la, Shay-La-La.” Yesterday, she turned 17 and is now 5’10”, and I can’t figure out how this happened. Also, I would have killed to be 5'10" all those many years of wishing I was tall enough and pretty enough to be a model.

The day's plan was to meet at Kimball Farm in Westford for activities and food. According to the website, they open at 10:00, and when we arrived just after 11:00, the parking lots were nearly full. I somehow scored a spot near the front, my sister landed further away. A golf cart arrived and the driver set the "Lot Full" sign as we were congregating.

Kimball Farm was a parental weapon in my house growing up. Once or twice a summer, Mom would utter the magical phrase, “If you kids are good today, we can go to Kimball’s for supper.” The was all it took to guarantee an entire day of absolute sainthood from the three of us. None of us wanted to be the one who screwed up ice cream for supper.

Today, Kimball Farm is far more than just an amazing ice cream stand. There are multiple locations, and in Westford, the menu has expanded to include grilled burgers, fried seafood, salads, and other stuff. In Westford, there are activities including mini golf, a zip line, bumper cars, bumper boats, and a driving range. We arrived and crossed the street to what seemed to be the main pedestrian entrance. I was hard to tell, as the wayfinding signage there is not just lacking, it doesn’t seem to exist at all, and my marketing agency antenna was on high alert. 

We entered via an opening in the landscaping, saw a line of dozens of people and got in it, not fully sure of what it was for and also aware it would get longer before it got shorter. We saw a small trailer with a sign that said “Information” with something else under it about “passes.” A scout went ahead to read the whiteboard mounted at the furthest point from us on the far side of the trailer. 

Mini golf with nieces!

Thirty or so minutes later, we arrived at the service window for the 3- and 5- activity wristbands and to reserve slots for the at-capacity mini golf, which was our activity of choice. Mini golf was chosen partly because it would take the longest of the available activities (cost/value!!) and partly because mini golf is hella-fun.

It was about a 30-minute wait for mini golf, so we explored an unmarked asphalt road that we learned ran along the corporate and private event space and eventually ended at the batting cages and bumper cars. We watched the bumper car action and barely seven minutes after reserving our mini golf tee time, received the text message that it was our turn.

Kimball Special = lunch for two.

Mini golf felt expensive at $12.50 per adult, defined as 12 and older. It was also impressive. The course wound around multiple water features including pools, a stream crossed by a wiggly suspended bridge, and a couple waterfalls, and there was plenty of shade. We spent about an hour on the mini golf course, partly due to waiting for the party ahead of us, and it was an hour well spent. After that we watched the action on the bumper boat pond where some 25 boats spun around and crashed into each other and the people who seemed to be enjoying it the most were two middle-aged dudes, one in a black cowboy hat, the other in a baseball cap.

After the athletics, it was lunch time. We scoped out what people were eating in the picnic tent as we passed through it and the fried seafood looked really good. There was debate about “real food” versus ice cream, and serious consideration given to joining the long line for the grill and seafood hut. Unfortunately, the menu for food mecca was mounted on the building, a long Disneyesque queue away from us. It would have been immensely helpful to have a menu posted the hundred miles away at the end of the line. Perhaps it is an occupational hazard, but I am super sensitive to customer experience, customer journeys, and wayfinding, and this place was seriously lacking in guidance.

The aftermath.

We decided to check out the ice cream line before making a final lunch decision. The ice cream line was virtually nonexistent, so it was an ice cream lunch for the win. Our order was one Kimball Special, one small cone, and one small cup. “Small” is such a relative term, as the Kimball Farm small is larger than the large at many other places. The Special was shared by two of us, with eventual help enlisted from a third, and still not finished. Best. Lunch. Ever. 

It was the perfect day for a Kimball’s excursion, as evidenced by the hundreds of other people with the same idea. The beautiful weather certainly helped, especially for people like my sister who had their vacations scheduled during this week that featured a couple days of monsoons.

When I arrived back home, there was a gross moss and slime covered tennis ball near the fence, the first clue that the gutter cleaning had taken place. The invoice on the storm door handle was the second clue. Hanging out the bedroom window I was able to check the front gutter and it is pristine. Not a single sign of a maple tree helicopter thingy or the sludge previously there. What a day!