After a nice breakfast, Randy and Valda drove us around Boston to see what’s changed since Steve left. Most of the expressway downtown has finally been removed - which was the point of the Big Dig. South Boston has continued to evolve and Vignoly’s giant convention center has sprung up.

After a quick stop at Fanueil Hall for some tacky souvenirs, we swung through the MIT campus in Cambridge and walked around Gehry’s new computer center. We also drove by the new dorm by Steven Holl (which supposedly still does not have a C of O due to design flaws) as well as some of the “classic” MIT buildings by Sarrinen and Aalto.

After a stop back at the house, we headed out to Schenectady to Steve’s parents for the last home-cooked dinner we’d have for months. In the evening Steve and his Dad applied the vinyl stripes to the CR-V.

We started to consider adding the stripes right after we bought the car. Several times since then, we’ve pulled into parking lots and found two or three other identical black Hondas. They’re everywhere! So that helped clinch the decision. Even though they ended up finishing the last bit of the stripes by flashlight while being eaten by mosquitoes, the racing stripes look good and turned out well.