Boston Day 2 (9/1/2015)

Well, it's back to the ferry and the trolley this morning.  On our way to the ferry, we drive this one street that has the center line marked with red, white and blue stripes.  We were on this road on Sunday, when we came here. Thought this striping was noteworthy.  We caught the 9:15 ferry this morning and were on our way!
 

Our first get-off was to the Paul Revere House.  This is the oldest house in Boston, and Paul lived here with his 16 kids.  Well, he had 16 kids -- but not all of them lived, and some had moved out before the last ones came along.

 Just up the street, actually, up the Freedom Trail, is the North Church, famous for where the lanterns were hung to announce how the British were coming (one if by land, two if by sea). The Freedom Trail is marked by the two-brick part of the sidewalk.

 This church was different from any we had ever seen.  It was built in the old English fashion, with individual boxes for families, which they rented every year.  They could decorate them however they wanted.  And of course there is a statute of Paul Revere here.

 

Traffic in Boston is awful.  The roads are narrow, crooked like any town along a river, horns blaring (they call that the Phoenix Symphony), and the pedestrians are even worse.  Our driver said they are color-blind because they don't know the difference between green and red lights.  I added, they also don't know about crosswalks.  They just walk right out in front of everybody, including these huge trolleys, and expect the world to stop for them.  However, in addition to all of that, today (September 1) is "Moving Day" in Boston.  Most apartment leases start date is Sept. 1, I'm sure mostly due to the vast number of students moving back in, but every street (many of which look more like alleys than streets) are jammed with U-Hauls, box trailers, semi moving vans.  They just park right in the street, blocking the whole block, and everyone just drives on down to the next street.  Yikes!!!  This was going on all over the city, not just in one area. 

We found our way back to the trolley stop and went to the next stop, the USS Constitution a/k/a Old Ironsides.  It is currently in drydock,  we didn't get to tour it, but we did get to see some of the hull out of water.  And all the cannons had been removed and were stacked up alongside.

 There was also another ship here that we could have toured, the USS Cassin Young, but we've been on other ships this year so we skipped it.

Yesterday, we sort of "winged it."  Today we had a plan.  We got off at stops 2 and 3, and then 7 where we had lunch at the tavern that was the inspiration for "Cheers."  

Joe had fish and chips and I had linguini and meatballs.  And 2 sodas.  For about $30.

Downstairs Bar

It was very small, crowded.  Easy to talk to the people beside you (who were from Manitoba and going to the Red Sox game today).  There was a bar down here, and a "sit down" bar upstairs.  I'm not sure which one is the one from the show, but they were both full.

Upstairs Sit Down Bar

From here, Joe decided it would be quicker to walk up to Stop 15 rather than wait for the next trolley at Stop 7, since traffic was moving so slow today.  He forgot to mention that "walk" would take us UP Beacon Hill.  But it also took us past the Boston Commons, where he got a picture of Mrs. Duckling from the famous "Make Way for Ducklings."   "Make Way for Ducklings is a children's picture book written and illustrated by Robert McCloskey. First published in 1941, the book tells the story of a pair of mallards who decide to raise their family on an island in the lagoon in Boston Public Garden, a park in the center of Boston.  Make Way for Ducklings won the 1942 Caldecott Medal for McCloskey's illustrations, executed in charcoal then lithographed on zinc plates.  As of 2003, the book had sold over two million copies. The book's popularity led to the construction of a statue by Nancy Schön in the Public Garden of the mother duck and her eight ducklings, which is a popular destination for children and adults alike. In 1991, Barbara Bush gave a duplicate of this sculpture to Raisa Gorbachev as part of the START Treaty, and the work is displayed in Moscow's Novodevichy Park."

We reached our trolley stop, right across from the Park Street Church.  "The spire of this 200 year old church (built in 1809) has long been a landmark for downtown shoppers.  The carillon sounds twice a day and the hymn “America” was first sung here July 4, 1831.  William Lloyd Garrison, the abolitionist, gave his first anti-slavery speech here in 1829."  There are a couple of statutes here, of course, one very nice one of President John F. Kennedy.

While we waited for the trolley in front of a "statute" representing the black soldiers, a costumed tour guide stopped by with a family.

Our final stop was the Boston Tea Party, a "bonus" of our two-day trolley ticket.  Here, we actually participated in the reenactment of the event, including being costumed (notice the feather on our heads to make us look like Mohawk Indians), and throwing a box of tea over the side of the ship.

After a resounding speech at the town hall meeting, we traipsed down the gangplank to the ship, where we got to see a few of the crew sleeping in their bunks (including the last one, the captain), and throw over a box of tea.

 

Our timing was good today.  We got back to this trolley stop just a couple of minutes before the trolley arrived, and we got to the harbor just as our ferry was loading -- in fact, we were two of the last ones to load.  On our way back, we spotted a ship off in the distance, but it was hard to get a picture between the rocking of the boat.

 Getting home became a problem, though.  One of the roads on our route was closed because there was a tree down, and we had to detour.  Lucille took us down another road (after her several attempts to make us make a u-turn), but that road dead-ended.  The next one was alongside the state park where we are camped, but apparently all gates except the main one are closed, so that was another dead-end.  This went on for more than an hour, and Joe was hungry.  Finally, we stumbled back onto the main road, found a McDonalds, and eventually wound up back at the RV.  Oh, we did see a deer in the park.  We were glad to be home.

As I mentioned, we are nestled in here, this is a very woodsy campground just on the outskirts of the town of Hingham.  Very few people in here, so it's nice.

The weather was great today, maybe low 80s, and low humidity.  Tomorrow I think we are going to drive out to Cape Cod.  Maybe take in a beach or two.  Maybe look for seaglass, rocks and shells.