Monday, April 18, 2011

Trip to Boston

Greg had a conference in Boston and with Cindy and Maddie's spring break happening at the same time it became a great opportunity for a family trip. Maddie had missed out on going to a conference when she was 16 since Greg never went on one that year so this was the time. We flew out early on Thursday morning and had a 3 hour lay over in Las Vegas. Go figure, we had to go west to travel east. This gave Maddie a chance to do home work for a while. We finally traveled east and landed in Manchester, New Hampshire. Why go to New Hampshire if your destination is Boston? Money is the answer. We could fly into there and rent a car for a day and still be less than if we flew into Logan Airport in Boston.
We got our car, a Mazda CX 9, they upgraded us to that for $10 more. It was a nice car and a lot more room than the compact car we had first signed up for. Our plan was to drive north of Boston so we could explore for a day. We drove to a place just east of Lowell, Massachusetts called Andover which was only 25 miles from Manchester. We commented how pretty this drive would be in the fall when the leaves turn color or in the summer when everything is green. We had dinner that night and used Maddie's phone to guide us to find places to eat. We then decided on ice cream for a treat and turning to Maddie's phone again we found a place called Friendly's. Great ice cream and we learned it was a chain in the northeast.
Friday we loaded the car for a drive to Cape Anne and Gloucester. Gloucester is America's oldest seaport settled in 1623.   We first visited the Fisherman's Wife Statue. It commemorates the wives and children left home waiting for their husbands to return from fishing. There we met a Sicilian fisherman. He started talking to us about his sisters and cousins names on the plaza and how one of his sisters was key in making the plaza area. He then told us he was a second generation fisherman. His dad did not want any of his children to be fisherman but he still carried on the tradition. He talked about the way things were, friends he had lost at sea, how the government has ruined the life of the family fishing business and turned it all over to big business. He was a wealth of information but also never took a breath as he talked. He went on and on.  
 We next visited the Fisherman's Memorial. It has the names of over 5,300 people who were lost at sea since the 1600's to the present that were from the area. It was a remarkable tribute. The statue looks out over the harbor where the fishing ships come in and out of the Atlantic.


We had another interesting sight as we were by the statues and that was a man on a bike. He was loaded down but he was pushing the bike with his feet rather than peddling. It was a funny sight and we could not figure out why he did not peddle. He could because he would do it once but then he reverted back to pushing with his feet.
We drove around and looked at the docks and the narrow streets and the large homes that overlooked the coast. We continued east along the Cape to a place called Rockport. Again there were a lot of homes, especially summer homes that lined the shore. We finally came to the little town center. You could tell this is a vacation spot but this time of year things were just starting to open up and there were not many people there which made it even better. The shops are on this little peninsula called Bearskin Neck.
We strolled down the narrow little street and went into several shops.They had some really good deals. As we walked around we came to find out that this place was used to film the show, The Proposal. This was the Alaskan village in the show. We bought fudge at a shop that Sandra Bullock walked by in the show.



















The area had several interesting lighthouses. You could spend a lot of time exploring them if you wanted to. The picture to the right is of the Staitsmouth light house that is the entrance to Rockport. To the south of this light house on an island is the twin lights. These two towers were built in 1771 and as a ship passes them and they both line up you know that is true north. Sailors would use them to make sure their compass was correct as they went out to sea.


That took most of our morning and as we looked at the clock we wondered if we had time to go south of Boston to the Plimoth Plantation. Plymouth is about 30 miles south of Boston. We punched in the directions and it said it would take us an hour and a half to get there so off we went.
The path took us right through Boston. It was amazing to see all the small towns, forest and ponds and swamps then come over a ridge and there was the skyline of Boston. The freeway took us through town in the long tunnel that was called the Big Dig. This used to be an elevated freeway that cut Boston off from the piers but several years ago it was determined to bury the freeway. We hit some slow traffic south of Boston which surprised us as it was only 2 in the afternoon. We made it to the Plimoth Plantation. This is a recreated Pilgrim village of 1627. Once you walk to the village from the visitors center the people act, talk and work like it was 1627. They each are a certain person who lived there at that time. They all talk with old English accents, work with hand made tools, cut wood to make fires to cook on, have cows and chickens to tend to, make wooden tools and repair the thatch on the roofs of the homes.   As you talk to them and hear what is happening Maddie said this is not the way they tell the story at school. There are few similarities between the traditional Pilgrim story and what really happened.  


































Here we learned how poor Maddie was because her shoes were worn to nothing, only the soles were left (flip flops). We also learned about the importance of a large skirt; gives you privacy when you go to the bathroom. Breakfast is milk and bread. Supper is the big meal around 2 and then at evening you have left overs from supper. 

Maddie laughed at me because she said I started to talk like them in asking questions.
The place was closing as it was nearing 5 in the evening. We had a good time and saw two extremes. It was time to head back to turn our car in and to check into our hotel in Boston. There was a school group who was also touring the Plantation at the same time and as the kids were waiting for their group to gather a couple of the boys saw my Y hat and started calling out Jimmer. It was amazing that school kids back east could pick out from my hat Jimmer Ferdette. We made it back to Boston and dropped off of our luggage at our Marriott Hotel. The bell man let us park for a few minutes once he saw the hat and learned we were from Utah. He said he had read the Marriott story and asked isn't the basketball arena also named after Marriott?
Once we got checked in we drove to the airport, a block every three lights. It took forever. We dropped the car off and then took the T back into town. That night we ate at a place called Fire and Ice. It is a Lee's Mongolian on steroids. What a fun and lively place. There was a two hour wait unless we wanted to sit at a high table. We were not choosy so we got right in. Again my Y hat got calls of Jimmer from a group of kids who were also waiting. This place was great, no thin sliced meats but thick pieces of steak, shrimp and anything and everything. You could eat as much as you wanted.  It was a great day. The next entry will talk about Saturday and Sunday.

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