.... liberty and justice for all.

Good day!

I believe our favorite thing this week was being reminded/re-educated about the bravery and determination of our founding fathers, and how tremendous it is to live in a free country. As I am finishing up this posting, it is turning out to be really long. But we DID see a lot this week .... we are in the birthplace of the nation, after all!

We did have that delicious lunch at Mabel's Seafood in Kennebunkport, Maine, last Sunday. I had something called Lobster Savannah, which was simply scrumptious with scallops and shrimp baked with parmesan inside a lobster, and the lobster tail and claws boiled in the usual way. I'm told this was Rachel Ray's favorite when she ate there.

We circled back around Orchard Beach, when I saw this sign for a local salon. I thought it was SO funny, I had to share it with you:

MILEAGE:

Buster: Old Orchard Beach to Boston/Foxboro to Cape Cod:

198 miles

Bella: 450 miles

Weekly total: 648 miles

Total mileage for trip so far: 8,335 miles

State count: 12 states, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine. Massachusetts is the latest



Monday, September 14

We had an easy drive, at least at the beginning, from Old Orchard, Maine to the Boston suburbs. We stopped north of Boston in Danvers where we had determined that there was a Costco. We had just about exhausted our frozen chicken and fish from our Costco stop in Michigan, so we were due for a restocking. It is so tempting to buy more .... produce, fruit, etc ... but it is obvious our storage capacity is limited, so we try to keep it to frozen items and maybe a DVD or two.

You won't be surprised to learn that the campground opportunities close in to Boston are not easy to identify. While it may not have been the closest, Normandy Farm campground in Foxboro was certainly one of the nicest we have encountered. Nearly 40 years ago, a long-established farm family turned some of their land into a campground and they have kept improving and expanding. They have a beautiful site, with three pools (one indoor and nicely heated!), great laundry and other facilities, etc. We really enjoyed our stay there. We DID NOT anticipate that driving in on a Monday would present any problems, though we did have a vague knowledge that the Patriot's football stadium was in Foxboro. Well, last Monday night, the Patriots (and Buffalo Bills) were on Monday Night Football. We drove down State Route 1 at 2:30 in the afternoon, but hit bumper to bumper traffic into the stadium. We didn't know the roads (or have a detailed enough map) to plot another route, so we just sat with them for 60-90 minutes. I actually think my iPhone can do this route plotting, but I don't know how to work it (I'm sorry to say). We were able to adjust our antenna to see the game later than night, though we opted for the US Open final with Federer and ? del Portro (from Argentina) and saw the upset. That evening we also plotted our strategy for the Boston area.

Tuesday, September 15

Gary, Liz and I were actually in Boston three years ago for a meeting I had, and Liz remembers being at Frog Pond in Boston Common, and a few other things. This time we wanted to focus on the Freedom Trail.

Even though I am walking and doing steps better all the time, we decided to get a City View Trolley ticket so we could jump (not literally!) on and off the trolley at the spots we wanted to see. We boarded at the Public Garden in Boston Common.

We drove by the Massachusetts State House, saw the Granary Burying Ground, where Benjamin Franklin's parents were buried, and drove by the Old South Meeting House and the Old State House (below).

It was here the jubilant crowds surrounded the balcony to hear the reading of the Declaration of Independece on July 18, 1776, and in front of which the Boston Massacre had occurred six years earlier.

Our trolley tour swung us by the harbor, and we got off to take the included Harbor Cruise, which we really enjoyed. Here we saw John Hancock's Counting House where trading and wharf life centered in the 18th and 19th centuries. The Counting House has been converted to the Chart House restaurant, and it was here we took our dinner this evening.

Boston Harbor remains very busy, more with pleasure and tourism these days, as well as being a Coast Guard station for search and rescue vessels.

It was also really windy on the harbor cruise:

From the harbor, we hopped back on the trolley which momentarily dropped us near North Square and the home of Paul Revere. He lived here during the Revolutionary War years and was a renowned silversmith. We are learning quite a bit about him as Liz is reading the Newbury winner, Johnny Tremain, and filling us in on a lot of details of the time.

It is a short walk from Paul Revere's house (on left below) to the Old North Church (on right below), in whose steeple, you know: "one if by land, two if by sea". We learned much more about this as we visited Lexington and Concord later in the week.

From there, it is another short hop to the USS Constitution. Liz asked us, "What is the second S for in USS?" and unfortunately we didn't know. So she asked a sailor on board: United States SHIP. There you go. The USS Constitution is the oldest battleship in the world; it is considered to be still in active service. It is maintained by the Navy and they deliver a very nice tour. The main deck is currently being refurbished, so it has a roof on it just now, which will be removed when the new deck is done. It has been in nearly 50 battles and never defeated, the most famous of course with the HMS Guerriere off Nova Scotia. She was so sturdy the British captain said, "her sides must be made of iron." Of course, they are wood, but her hull was fortified from Paul Revere's copper foundry, also with 44 cannons on board. It was a great tour.

We finished up our Freedom Trail day with a stop at Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market, and then our dinner at the Chart House. We learned a lot. And I was particularly pleased my knees held up so well. I did get some sitting breaks on the trolley, but all in all, I was on them for about 6 hours. It was today I knew I was better off having the knee surgery before the trip .... here, about 8 weeks into the trip, I am definitely more functional than if I hadn't had it. I'd have been whining and moaning A LOT if I'd tried to do 6 hours on those old knees.

On Wednesday, September, 16, we inserted a low key day. I had my Wednesday morning work on the phone and computer with Women's HealthSource, which actually is always a nice break (read: I get meaningful conversation with other humans outside my family!) On that note, we are getting along quite well for the close quarters that we are in. We get out a lot! Gary took advantage of this time to have an RV mechanic come to the campsite to do some work on our bedroom heating system, the locks on the cargo doors, and the ice maker. Buster IS complex! It did put us behind a bit, as we had planned to go to Concord and Lexington on Wednesday, so we just made a really early day of it on Thursday.

Thursday, September 17, we drove away from the campground just after 7 am because we wanted to try to beat the Boston commuter traffic as we made our way north from Foxboro to Concord. Concord was also a mail stop, and we pulled up in front of the post office at 8:30. It opened at 9. So we had a nice breakfast at Helen's. We had minimal mail at Concord but did get our rent check from the Chung's, so that was welcome!

Then we made our way to the Old North Bridge, at the western edge of Minute Man National Historic Park, which is celebrating it's 50th anniversary. Apparently, in the late 1950's local Concordians noticed that suburban sprawl was starting to occupy Battle Road including motels, ice cream stands, etc. The road still exists where the British regulars had marched out to Lexington, engaged forewarned (by Paul Revere and William Dawes) colonists, and shot and killed 7 colonists. The British moved on to Concord, destroyed some ammunitions supply depots, and saw that about 400 colonists had gathered on the hillside over-looking the North Bridge. Someone shot first (it's not clear which side DID shoot first), but it was here that blood was first shed as troops fired upon each other. These were the shots "heard round the world." After that the British retreated all the way back to Boston where there were multiple skirmishes on Battle Road ... the road of retreat. These sites along Battle Road are now being acquired into a National Historic Monument, and it is really interesting to see just where these encounters took place. See below the little hill across from Old North Bridge (and behind the Minute Man monument) where the colonist patriots gathered.

We learned a documented interesting twist to the Paul Revere story. You may remember that actually two riders were sent out to warn the colonist patriots after the lanterns were hung in the belfry of the Old North Church. Paul Revere had the shorter ride, being rowed across to Charlestown, where he was given a horse to ride out to Lexington and Concord. William Dawes had the longer route and rode via Boston Neck. He reached Lexington after Paul Revere and they rode on together to Concord. As they rode, they encountered fellow patriot Dr. Samuel Prescott who was returning home from a DATE .... visiting a girlfriend or "courting" the reports say. He hooked up with them, and they were all intercepted by a British patrol before they reached Concord. Paul Revere was captured (and released later the same day as the British realized they had bigger fish to fry), Dawes lost his horse, and it was Dr. Prescott who actually got through to Concord to warn the Minute Men there. SO, being out and about, wooing and courting ..... it can be a very patriotic thing to do!

Many of you know that Concord is also the home of a number of 19th century authors including Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau. Below is a picture of the house where Ms. Alcott lived, and is the model for the home of the Little Women.

We also had to visit Walden Pond, and purchase an anniversary edition of Walden, another Julie favorite. Somehow, Gary had missed this .... he's immersed in it as I write. The man in the Walden Pond gift shop was surprised that Liz wasn't in school. So he thought she needed a little quiz: "Who is the man who lived here at Walden Pond?" She was better with the Henry and David, than the Thoreau, but was ultimately rewarded with a free button with HDT's picture on it, which she now proudly wears!

After a fast lunch, we experienced one of the expected frustrations of this experience: we got lost. Our maps are state maps, and so don't have a lot of detail sometimes. I suppose we could get better at working the NAV in our car (this day's eperience may motivate that!), but we couldn't figure out where to get on the interstate to make our way to Sturbridge. Then I (the navigator this day) missed the off ramp on the Mass Turnpike and we had to go 15 MILES to another off ramp to turn around. With a 30 mile careless detour, moods were a little grumpy when we pulled into Old Sturbridge Village at 3:30 pm (they close at 5). Fortunately, we knew that we could return a second day for our admission price (within 10 days) which we plan to do.

Below find a scattering of pictures from there: milking a cow, making a piece of pottery on the wheel, the Cooper's Shop, the Tin Shop, the beautiful farmstead modeled after an 1830's village, a stagecoach ride and a very handsome rooster.

On Friday, September 18, we headed southeast for our Cape Cod week-end. We decided we weren't going to try to see everything, or much of anything for that matter. We just wanted a little down time. We had some lovely and unusually warm weather, so Liz had fun playing with her parents in the pool.

This series of pictures reminds me of something I forgot to include in a previous blog ..... about my very sound husband! He was sitting waiting for Liz and me in a St. John's, New Brunswick, shopping mall, and a lady walked right up to him and said, "You know ..... you have very nice looking legs for a man your age .... no bulging veins!" He, as he should, took it as a compliment .... and she just backed up what I've been telling him all summer ..... "You look great in shorts!"



On Saturday, we headed to South Cape Beach, near Falmouth. It was breezy but a beautiful sunny afternoon. While we didn't swim, Gary and Liz played in a sand and I took a tremendous beach walk.

(sorry for the shadow in the beach pic!)

Sunday, September 20, was the day we decided to go to Martha's Vineyard. We were camped in Falmouth, near Woods Hole, so took the ferry from there. Any of you who have done this know there is no parking at Woods Hole, so it took us a little extra time to find the correct parking and shuttle lot. We were told some 35+ weddings were taking place on Martha's Vineyard this week-end.

The 45 minute ferry ride was beautiful ... about 10 o'clock on a bright Sunday morning. Everybody was in a good Sunday mood, and enjoying themselves. We had reserved a car at Oak Bluffs, and explored the rest of the day.

Then Liz took a ride on The Flying Horses carousel, the first merry-go-round in the country, and did have some luck grabbing the brass ring!

Above left are the cliffs at Gay Head, and on the right is one of the Gingerbread Camp Meeting houses that were an interesting part of Martha's Vineyard history early in the 20th century.

Finally, we moved on to Plymouth today, Monday, September 21, and saw, of course, THE ROCK, the Mayflower, and a very interesting restoration called Plimouth Plantation. There are neighboring displays: one of a native Wampanpaog extended family who had been asked by the chief, Massasoit, to be a liaison with the newly arrived Europeans; ....and then the 1620 European settlement which was understandably crude, but with folks in costume telling us how life had been that first year. After nearly 100 arriving in December, 1620 (their sailing had been delayed as the original vessel was not determined to be sea-worthy), only one-half survived that first year. We were told they DID have enough food, but had no shelter, and died, really, of exposure. They had been weakened substantially after lying around on the Mayflower for about 67 days during the crossing, and the weather prevented them from establishing shelter, so they spent the winter on the ship. It was a really interesting afternoon.

The Wampanoag encampment had native people descendents staffing it, and we saw young women weaving and another giving herself what she said would be a permanent tattoo: she was using obsidian/charcoal with a sharp edge embedding it into her forearm (see photo).

(look carefully and you can see 1620 engraved on this rock, which is housed on the Plymouth shore, and is apparently 1/3 to 1/2 its original size)

Then, a "colonial" instructed Liz on how to whistle with grass between her fingers.

This evening, Gary and Liz went on a 90 minute walking "Ghost Tour" of Plymouth. They met at Plymouth Rock at 7:30, and with four others followed a guide around town while she told spooky stories and legends and took them by the graveyard. Liz loved it!

It was a busy week, but really perfect for the first week of school. We did do some reading, and spelling, and writing, and math, but just living and seeing things first hand taught us all a lot more. One of our problems may be where to put interesting books we pick up at these very memorable sites. It felt like this week was alot of what this trip is about!

Until next time ....

Julie, Gary and Liz