Plymouth

 While in New England we spent a morning in Plymouth, Massachusetts (state 28).  We visited Plymouth Rock and then the Pilgrim Hall Museum.  The kids love it when museums have scavenger hunts, and the Pilgrim Hall Museum had a good one.  The kids spent there time there fact-finding so that they could receive a prize.  I had another mission.  My cousin Pam does genealogy and she can trace our family back to a father/daughter pair, Stephen and Constance Hopkins on the Mayflower.   If the research is accurate, Constance is my 11x great grandmother, and Stephen is my 12x great grandfather.  One of the artifacts at the museum is a beaver hat attributed to Constance Hopkins, so I was particularly keen to see it.  They had many other interesting items on display at the museum including a piece of the Plymouth Rock that you could touch.  I enjoyed this opportunity to learn about the history of our country and our personal family history.

A Day in Mystic

 We spent our third day of vacation in the town of Mystic.  Mel joined our trip on this day, and we were all thrilled to have her with us.  We passed the morning and early afternoon at the Mystic Seaport Museum, the largest maritime museum in the U.S.  There was so much to do here.  We toured several ships- including the Charles W. Morgan, a whaling ship.

 The term "museum' is a bit of a misnomer.  It is actually a working shipyard.  We were able to enter a variety of shops and speak to craftspeople who were actually employing ancient and modern aspects of shipbuilding.  We spoke at length to a sailmaker and learned a ton about making and repairing sails.  We also spoke to someone who was worming a rope and learned about old school printing.  We didn't go to every craftsman because there was only so much learning that the kids were willing to put up with.  Still, I thought it was very neat.

 As I mentioned, this is a working shipyard.  The major project that was going on during our visit was the restoration of the Mayflower II- which is usually found in Plymouth.  We were able to go behind the scrim and view the progress being made on this ship. 

 One of the things that was on my to-do list at the seaport was to participate in the "dead-horse" ceremony.  Back in the day, sailors who were planning to go out to see were forwarded one month's salary to settle their debts and purchase supplies for their time at sea.  Because of this, they were essentially working for free for the first month.  They would sometimes celebrate the end of this time period with a ceremony in which they constructed a horse out of spare canvas, fill it with stones, sing a sea chanty about the horse (which represented their debt) while marching it around the deck of the ship, and then throw the horse overboard.  The kids got to help march the horse around while we all sang the shanty. 

We also took a tour around the seaport by boat. The captain told us a lot of interesting information about the various ships and buildings as we rode around in his boat. 

 We also spent time with the hands-on activities at the museum.  These were some of the most engaging and well-done kids' activities I've ever seen.

 After our visit to the seaport, we had a late lunch and then drove to the Mystic Aquarium.  This is a nice aquarium which became a must-see for us when we learned that they had beluga whales.  Olivia is obsessed with these animals.  There was one of the whales who was very curious about human visitors.  He stayed near the viewing windows the whole time and made faces at visitors.  The kids ate it up. 

 There were numerous hands-on activities for the kids at this aquarium.  We've been to a lot of zoos and aquariums with the kids, and I'm going to put this one in the top five aquariums that we've visited.  I liked that a lot of the tanks and exhibits were outside. 

Riding the Rail Bike

In the afternoon of our day in Rhode Island, we took a six-mile ride on a rail bile.  This was so neat.  The company that organizes this excursion took an abandoned track that runs along the water and outfitted it with these neat peddle carts and tourists can ride.  The ride was scenic and fun.  Everyone enjoyed it.

Cliff Walk

 Our second day in New England was spent in Rhode Island (state 27).  We visited Newport and walked the Cliff Walk in its entirety- about 3.5 miles.  The walk hugs the edge of the shoreline and runs between the ocean and several huge mansions.  The path starts out paved and easy to manage, but it later changes to a wilder treck over uneven rocks.  Of course, the kids much preferred the wilder sections.  Once we reached the end of the path, we caught a trolley to help us get back to our car.  This was my favorite activity of our whole vacation because the views were just so stunning.  So, I'm going to post a whole bunch of photos- even though I do not feel that they do the scenery any justice.