Freedom Trail and Pops

The better part of day 5 was spent seeing the sights along the Freedom Trail.  For hours we followed the red brick path around the city.  Some of the highlights were Boston Common, the Granary Burial Ground, Faneuil Hall / Quincy Market, and Old North Church.  We saw the graves of John Hancock, Samuel Adams, and Paul Revere at the burial ground and we had lunch at Cheers at Quincy Market.   I was worried that Cheers would be too touristy and not have good food, but it was actually one of the best meals of our entire trip.  The trail ended with the USS Constitution and the Bunker Hill Memorial.  We climbed the 294 steps to the top of the memorial- it was exhausting, but the view was nice.  Once we finished the trail we took a water taxi back to the downtown area and then the T (subway) back to our hotel to clean up for a big night out. 

Later that evening Mel, the kids, and I attended a performance of the Boston Pops. This is something that we were all looking forward to.  The orchestra played for about 45 minutes, took an intermission, and then resumed joined by actress and special guest Jane Lynch who sang "The American Songbook".  The songs included numerous tunes from the time when Mel was young.  It was such an enjoyable evening.  Brian did not attend with us.  This night happened to be game 7 of the Stanley Cup and Boston's hockey team was vying for the championship (and the game was in Boston).  Brian wanted to go to a sports bar and watch the game with the locals, so that's what he did instead.  Unfortunately, Boston lost.  Still, he enjoyed the experience. 

Rooting for the Home Team

After spending the morning and early afternoon in Plymouth, we arrived in Boston in time to attend a Red Sox game at Fenway Park.  I'm not a Red Sox fan, but I was excited to see a game in this historical place.  We ate hot dogs, rooted for the home team, and had a good time in general- even though the Sox lost. 

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.