June 30 through July 5th

Click here for photographs (There should be 14 different albums which translates into hundreds of pictures).

WOW! What a great city. Apparently it is the smallest big city there is. It has less than 600,000 people and it is steeped in history! We have mastered the Subway and it has been great. We bought the Go Boston card for each of us and it gets us into a whole bunch of attractions. So if we use it wisely we will be able to recoup our money and then some.

A co-worker of Mitchel’s, who is also working in Rhode Island, used to visit Boston frequently because the lady who is now his wife lived in Boston when they were dating. She is up here for the summer with their three year old little boy, Max. They showed us how to traverse Boston and we all went to the Boston Children’s Museum together. The Children’s Museum is right near the sight of the Boston Tea Party so we saw that while were down that way. The museum has a big blow up doll of Arthur (PBS show) on top, and many Arthur characters throughout. It was fun, but we got a late start and I can just imagine how late we would have been had we not had their help. It was hard to find the GoBoston Ticket Office. This is the card I mentioned above. It is near Faneuil Hall which is very BUSY! I thought all of Boston would be like this but once we left that area it eased up again. We ate breakfast in the room. Breakfast consisted of PB&J sandwiches and turkey and cheese sandwiches. We did all the above and had a very late lunch, or early dinner more like around 5 or so. We ate at Prudential Center which is a mall that has a food court. Pretty good food, depending on where you go, I guess. I got lobster bisque and quiche combo meal. It was pretty good. We ate outside and relaxed for a while. As we were leaving I saw that we could get a card for discounts to the stores in Prudential Center. It normally costs $5 but with the GoBoston ticket it was free.

Max, the little boy who was with us, was carried on his dad’s shoulders most of the time so Anna wanted to be carried. This is the same little girl that will go hiking for hours up hill and down, through dense woods and never complain. We carried her some and honestly we didn’t walk that much. We were on the T (Boston’s subway) most of the time. We got home around 8 or so, took showers and went to bed.

Today was our second day in Boston. We used the GoBoston card for the Duck Tours this morning. http://www.bostonducktours.com/ We got up REAL early… 6:30, had the kids’ clothes lain out and got them up and out the door in about 20 minutes. Got on the T and headed into town. We got to the Duck Tours kiosk in the Prudential Center (which is a mall) and stood in line. We were told to be there by 8:30 because they usually sell out by noon and this being a holiday weekend they figured they’d be sold out before that. We arrived around 8:10 and there was already a line. I got in line and sent Mitchel and the kids to get breakfast. I met some great people standing around me. One man was from Jersey City, another was from up-state New York, and one lived in Boston or real close and had grown children visiting. I “bought” the tickets for all of us and went and found the crew who were just finishing up breakfast. I grabbed a croissant and a coke to eat as we walked down the sidewalk to the Duck Tours. I was able to grab an early tour – 10:00. We were told to arrive at 9:30 and it was almost 9 so we walked down the street toward them. The Duck is an amphibious vehicle built in World War II. I believe 40% of the sea to land things that they did were done using one of these boats… incidentally these boats were mostly built by women since the men were away at war. They have several different vehicles, all with different names.

We were on the rust colored duck… at first (The Olga Ironsides was its name). It was great. We were driven through Boston, saw a lot of the sights and then drove straight into the Charles River. Now here’s the neat thing… if driving a car into the river wasn’t neat enough… they let the kids drive. Stephen and Anna got to drive the boat. It was way cool. See the pictures. Anna almost didn’t want to go drive it because she’s so shy. I asked her if she wanted me to go up there with her… I was up there for maybe 2 seconds. She got up to the seat and sat down and forgot about me. It was great for both of them. As we pulled out of the water we noticed this loud grinding sound coming from beneath the vehicle. He radioed for a loaner and we pulled over right were Old Ironsides is (who our boat was “named” after). This ship, Old Ironsides, is also known as the USS Constitution and is the first ship in the United States Navy. We didn’t get on the USS Constitution but we walked back and looked at it and got some pictures. As we were walking to look at it another Duck Tour came through and the driver asked our driver what we were doing. Our driver said, “I always give my group walking tours.” Then he told the driver what happened. When the loaner came it was the rainbow vehicle. They are all different colors. This one was white with large rainbow stripes painted down the side. It is named South End Sara. Apparently South End has a large gay community… hence the name of the vehicle with the rainbow. One of the neatest things I saw was some artwork we saw at a museum. It was a large slab of concrete with graffiti on it. It was protected by two things of plexi-glass. It was a strip from the Berlin Wall with the original graffiti on it.

We ended up back where we had started and decided to go find the whale watching place, get our tickets just to be sure we had them. We headed back on the T, transferred lines and headed out to the wharfs. We made it and after 45 minutes of trying to find the office we found it and bought our tickets and she told us to go back the way we came in order to find the 7-11 for lunch. The kids got Lunchables, which they loved, I got a hot dog and Mitchel got some Mexican thing. Then it was whale watching time. To make a long story short the line we were going to use had a broken boat so Boston Harbor Cruises were doing them a favor and loaning them a boat. This was not told to us when we got our ticket. I asked a Boston Harbor Cruises guy where to find the other cruise line (and felt like a schmuck for asking about a rival line) and HE is the one that told me.

We started out outside and the breeze felt great. Then all of a sudden you could feel the breeze get at least 10 degrees cooler. It was amazing. The kids and I went inside. Stephen started feeling a little green so I sent him outside and Anna fell asleep for a little while. It was a little choppy but they said it had been choppier on the morning cruise… poor people. It was still pretty choppy and there was a lot of yakking going on around me. First a little girl, then I walked by a table and two people had their heads down and their area wasn’t very clean. Then in a line for the bathroom you could smell the Lysol coming out of it and soon a guy with a “Crew” shirt on came out. I said I hope they pay you well. He looked at me and said… “Not well enough for this.” They had latex gloves on but no protective masks that I saw. I don’t think you could pay me to do that job.

I guess you want to hear about the whales rather than the yaks. We saw several humpback whales. One of them was a mother with a baby. It was great. You could see their sprays then they would show their backs. Sometimes they seemed to stay up for many seconds. When they showed their entire tail it was when they were diving deep. You knew then, that they wouldn’t be back up for several seconds. Towards the end of the cruise they were letting hotdogs go for $1 a piece so we got a few and had dinner on the boat. We had a great time and Mitchel, who is prone to getting seasick, didn’t! There at the end, when we had been sitting inside for a while he starting feeling queasy but he walked outside and is doing fine. I am, though, still feeling the rocking motion of the boat, even though I’m on the firm ground of my desk chair. The website for the cruise we took is http://www.bostonharborcruises.com/whale_schedule.html.

Ah, Monday, our last day with the GoBoston Card. We new we wanted to do Plimouth Plantation (that’s not a typo, the plantation is spelled with an I rather than a Y) and the Mayflower II. So we got in the car and headed toward the town of Plymouth. We arrived at the plantation when it opened at 9:00 am. We bought our ticket and walked in to view the first movie. We noticed at the bottom of our tickets that it said it was good for two consecutive days. So we promptly left, went to see the Mayflower II and Plymouth Rock and decided to head back to Boston and get more bang for our GoBoston buck. The Mayflower II was interesting; it was a lot smaller than I had first anticipated. Apparently the first Mayflower got sold for scrap years (centuries) ago. Plymouth Rock was not what you expect. It’s a lot smaller than what you would picture. It has been moved several times until the last time put it back in its original position. But every time it moved it lost pieces and it is now only 1/3 as large as it originally was.

We then headed back to the hotel, went to the bathroom and headed into Boston. We ate at Prudential Center again then headed to get our Trolley tickets (GoBoston again). We got tickets to do a 45 minute harbor tour but the line was hugely long so we skipped it. We didn’t regret this too much since we had been on the water twice the previous day (Duck Tours and Whale watching). We went to the Boston Aquarium instead. Mitchel and I both felt a little unsettled in the stomach. And I was able to sit and rest since the kids and I had gone to the Mystic Aquarium. It was very similar. We had a great time here and because we had the GoBoston tickets we got $1 off the Imax Movie. We chose to watch the African Safari 3-D movie. After this was over we headed to the 7-11 for dinner, same one as before. We ate on the pier near the water. Anna knocked Stephen’s Sprite in the water where there were many other interesting things… garbage, interesting garbage and jelly fish. As we were sitting there I saw a lady walk by with a University of Alabama t-shirt on. I know it is the rival college but I was happy to see some home folk so I gave her a big War Eagle. I don’t think she smiled although she did ask me if I wanted a black eye. After that it was a trip to the Subway. Sitting on the subway Stephen notices someone with an Auburn shirt!! He said war eagle and the teenager gave him the thumbs up sign. The lady across from me (near this boy) asked about Stephen’s t-shirt. Our pediatric dentist is Dr. Baker Chambliss and he gives his patients t-shirts. Stephen was wearing his and the lady recognized it. They live in Birmingham as well. I had been looking for an Auburn anything as we walked throughout the city. The closest I came was a Florida State hat.

We are now back at the hotel, getting baths and watching TV, the same thing we’ve done every night… relax.

I just calculated how much we saved with the GoBoston card. Had we done everything listed above it would have cost us $610.55 (probably minus a few dollars due to the only numbers I had to make calculations). And this doesn’t include the 45 minute harbor cruise we got tickets for but we didn’t take. We paid about $320 for all 4 cards. I know we would have not done the whale watching or the Duck tours because we probably would have thought they were too expensive. I highly recommend this card. The only negative is some of the activities (whale watch and trolley specifically come to mind) are the second rate ones. The whale watch office was past the main pier and in a little alcove… kind of hard to find. Not right off the T as the others were. It took a while to find it. Also the trolley was a second rate one, their last trip was at 3 and after 3 we saw other trolleys running. The trolley also offers free 45 minute harbor tours (which we also got with the GoBoston card). Well there were about 10 minutes to go before the next harbor cruise left and we wanted to go on it. The driver of the trolley, right before the stop, pulls over for no apparent reason and says that we have to wait there for a few minutes… I guess to make sure we’re last in line and that the harbor cruise line fills up with paying customers first. But, had we had more time we could have done great things… Duck tour was great, Plimouth Village was great, Kids Museum, Aquarium… these were all great as well. Other cities have the Go card as well.

One thing we noticed is that people who you would normally ask for information aren’t very helpful or specific. Especially when asking where you need to go. It’s almost as if they want you to miss the boat time, or the starting time. Directions are never given as well as I would like. This may be because they’re busy, but still. But the people on the street are SO helpful. I never felt like I was a nuisance to the general Boston population just because we were tourists. We even had one couple take us through a construction zone to get us to the children’s museum.

Our last day in Boston, July 4^th was busy and a little of a let down. We did our second day at Plimouth Rock in the morning. We got there later than the day before because we slept in a little. We finally got going, stopped at the same McDonald’s and then went to the site. It was very interesting. There were native peoples (the sign says don’t call them Indians or even Native Americans) who answered questions from a 2006 perspective but they were dressed in traditional costume, doing traditional work, and had traditional gardens and housing around them. We moved on to the village where people are in character from a 17^th century perspective (never heard of Alabama, for instance).

We watched a modern day potter making pots and Anna kept going back to this time and again. She was really interested in it… sounds like a good gift to me.

We headed in to Boston after that to do Bostononian things. We began the Freedom trail which is about a 3 mile trail that takes you by different places in the history of Boston as well as our country. We went to the graveyard where Paul Revere is buried and also the five people who died in the Boston massacre are buried there. A descendant of Mother Goose was buried there as well. We traveled on and it began to rain but it was just a little sprinkle and stopped soon after. We didn’t do the whole trail so we missed Paul Revere’s birth place as well as the church that hung the two lanterns (one if by land, two if by sea). We headed to Faneuil hall for dinner. There are two Cheers bars in Boston. One is a newer one and it looks more like the set of the TV show. This one is at Faneuil Hall. We peeked in but didn’t go in. Very crowded! We got some hotdogs from a vendor there for dinner and then headed to watch the Fireworks over the Charles River. It was about 6:30 and we planned to walk there. We knew it would take a while and wanted to see the fireworks at 9. We knew we’d have to wait for a little while but we wanted to get a decent seat. As we were walking we saw the original Cheers Bar. The one the TV show was fashioned after. And yes, you do have to go down stairs to get to it. We finally made it to the fireworks area, saw the “half-shell” where the Boston Pops play, they weren’t playing yet. We found a place to sit by some college students. It was around 7:30 when we finally sat down. I figured an hour and a half wouldn’t be too long to wait. We’d been sitting there around 30 minutes and I had been hearing things that made me a little curious… so I asked someone what time the fireworks were supposed to start… NOT 9:00 but 10:30!!! There was no way we’d survive that. They’d go until 11:00 then a long trip back on the T fighting 500,000 people to get a space on the T to get home so probably 12:30 or 1:00 until we made it back to the hotel (our T stop is the last one on the line) and then we’d have to bathe because we’d all be nasty… 2:00 before we all got in bed??? Probably. We decided to leave. It took us an hour to get back to the hotel. While on the T we played Rock, Paper Scissors… all four of us. We had a great time! We were all laughing out loud; it was truly a great family moment. After we got back to the hotel it took about 45 minutes for everyone but Mitchel to bathe and we had the Boston fireworks show on TV. Anna fell asleep before the fireworks started and she never falls asleep while watching TV. Stephen fell asleep during the fireworks as did I. I think we made the right decision, no matter how hard it was. I was really disappointed but feel much better about that decision now.

This morning, as we were packing up in Boston to come back to Rhode Island I asked Stephen what his favorite part about Boston was. He said playing Rock, Paper Scissors on the subway the night before. Mitchel said that when I asked that question that popped into his mind and he knew Stephen would say that. Go figure, we go, go, go for four days. We do all these activities that we think the kids will love instead of walking down neat streets, looking at historical sights that don’t mean anything to the kids yet, but doing all these things for them… and what’s his favorite? Having fun as a family, playing a nonsensical game to pass time on the subway. Anna’s favorite thing was the map cow. All through Boston there are these cows, almost life-sized, decorated so many different ways. You’ll see them in some of our photographs. But there was one with a subway map on it. Very recognizable because this map is everywhere, in the trains, in the subway stations, on maps, etc.

It was a great weekend, a great experience, but I don’t feel as if I’ve experienced Boston. We did a lot of fun things but not things particularly Boston-y. J I told Mitchel that going back to Rhode Island was almost like going “home”. We were just constantly going. Mitchel promised that we’d return to Boston in about 5 years to watch the fireworks. I think it’s a great idea but we’ll start our vacation in Boston on the fourth instead of four days earlier. We were exhausted and wouldn’t have done very well staying up so late on the fourth.

Now we’re back in Rhode Island and I believe the kids and I will take things really easy the next couple of days!