Boston

Yesterday we were able to get about half of the Freedom Trail completed, so today we were targeting the 2nd half.  We knew what we were doing this time so before we left home I dismounted the truck’s antenna and we cruised on out to the Braintree station.  We go in to pay for parking but this time I’ll do it myself.  I insert the ticket and it says I owe $7.  I insert my credit card, it sucks it in then spits it out saying it can’t read it.  I try it again…sucks in, spits out, no read.  I carefully look at the diagram and realize that I had the stripe pointing the wrong direction.  I insert the card the correct way and after a bit it says “Rejected”.  It is then that I notice a separate card reader that is probably where I should have slid my card to make the payment.    Oh  crud, I think I just jammed my credit card into the ticket slot instead of the credit card slot and now its eaten my card!!

I go to find an employee to help and there she is.  The same kind woman who helped us yesterday recognizes us and says “oh hi!  You’re back…can I help you?”  I explain to her that I put my credit card in the wrong slot but then she assures me I did it correct.  She presses the “Need assistance?” button on the machine and a crackly voice comes on “yeeees”.  She explains that the machine ate a card.   It takes several calls to get someone to arrive and during our wait Carol asks about our day yesterday, and our trip and she talks to the kids.  Eventually someone comes and opens the machine to find….no card.  She says “are you sure you don’t have your card?”  Come on, do you think I’m that dumb?  I humor her by pulling out my wallet (a rubberband around my cards) to prove that my Discover card is….hey…wait a minute….how did my Discover card get in my wallet?  Am I really that dumb?  My brother is a magician….I have never had the skills to do any slight of hand until this moment.  I’m so good in fact that my hand was even quicker than my own eye!!  Seriously, I have no idea how that all went down.  But here is the cool part.  Carol was awesome!!  She was so much help both days.  She was so kind and genuine and interested in us that we just had to get a photo with her.  Thank you Carol for all your help!!

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When we left New York everyones allergies started acting up. Everyone started talking about Mass-a-a-chusetts! Bess me! So sorry, but thats what happened. All through Massachusetts we were sneezing. Boston was a bit of a letdown. I thought the freedom trail would be a bit better, but it was just a lot of old buildings. I liked Paul Revere’s house the most. We went to bunker hill and climbed the monument that was there. It was so high you could see the ocean blue. Here’s a fun fact for ya: the bunker hill monument came before the Washington monument. The designer of the Washington monument lost the bunker hill contest so he entered a design that he knew was a winner. Smart guy. I liked the first cemetery we went in even though the clock right next to it struck twelve noon when we walked in. That was creepy. John Hancock, Mother Goose, and Mr. Revere are buried there. We got a tub of Ben and Jerry’s icecream to share, and it was delicious. We took the train to and from Ava every single day except for a rainy day and the night we went to Mom’s cousin Courtney and her husband Ty’s house we had tons of tacos, we played with the two dachshunds, and we watched TV. That was a fun night. That pretty much wraps our visit to Massa-a-a-chusetts! Bless me.

See you in New Hampshire,

Caden

We had a full 3 days scheduled in Boston and the first day we woke up to cold and rain.  Since we hadn’t really had any down days for awhile we decided we were due so I worked, Steph ran errands and the kids played Legos.  All three of them played all day with all the Legos.  It was really fun to hear them playing together and to have them come out and show their latest designs to me.  They were preparing for some epic battle which they finally had at the end of the day.  It left their room a total disaster…a minefield for adult bare feet….but they had fun.

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I was looking forward to Boston!! One of my cousins lives there and I was overdue for some Courtney time! And I remember enjoying the Freedom Trail. We did that on a family trip when I was in middle school I think.

We have been running like crazy and are starting to wear out, so I was actually happy it was going to rain our first full day in Boston. The trip from NYC was long – I’m not even driving and I was worn out. I needed to tackle the laundry and get groceries. Turns out they are not the same direction from Wompatuck State Park. So that was my afternoon. But we all enjoyed a “day off.” It’s amazing how much work site seeing is! 😉

I was so excited to spend the evening with cousin Courtney and her husband Ty at their cute house!It was definitely the best part of Boston! I wish we could have hung out more, but I’m soooo thankful we got there before they had to leave for their trips! Ty made us an amazing Taco Tuesday spread! Court made us the yummiest strawberry rhubarb crisp – yumm!! A big taste of KS right there! And I got 2 more loads of laundry done! That was the most fun I’ve had doing laundry in the last 4+ months! 🙂 The kids were in heaven – they got to see Court and Ty, play with 2 dogs and watch TV! The only part we did wrong? – we didn’t get a pic with Ty!! Grrrr – next time!

The kids loved the train rides in and out of the city. Huck covers all of that very well in his posts.

The Freedom Trail was mostly fun. Since we are sloooowing down and we were staying quite a ways out of Boston (but still the closest possible in an RV) we decided to do the Freedom Trail over the course of 2 days instead of cramming it into one long day. It worked for us!

We were disappointed by a couple of things. 1. Because of graduations, etc. we couldn’t see the big main hall in Fanueil Hall. That was very disappointing. And because we weren’t there on a weekend there weren’t the colonial characters out and about that we had expected. Oh well. The Paul Revere House was of course the highlight for that day.

The second day we started up at the Old North Church. We had good timing and a good time there! We just happened to be there when a volunteer was giving a presentation. He did a great job and added facts that we would have missed otherwise. At the Battle of Bunker Hill we climbed up to the top of the Monument. We also got a private presentation as a school group didn’t show up on time, so the ranger talked to us instead. This was super helpful as we needed to get going over to the USS Constitution and get home early to pick up Ava’s new leg from the UPS Store. We enjoyed the USS Constitution. Dacen really wanted to tour the WWII Destroyer as well, but we had already toured one in Texas and we needed to get going.

The only other thing I really wish we had done was go to the Charlesbank Park and Esplanade. Well, I guess there is always next time! I think I need to go visit my cousin sooner rather than later! 🙂