Boston, Day 2

Our second day of adventures in Boston took us to the north- eastern corner of the city on the Freedom Trail. We walked past the site of the Boston Massacre (now a busy street corner with skyscrapers on every side). Then it was on to Paul Revere's House. This was the only site we had to pay money to see. (A great bonus for visiting Boston, especially with families). It is a great old house--it was almost 100 years old when Paul Revere bought it!

From there it was on to the Old North Church...you know..."one if by land, two if by sea"? It was very cool to be in the same building where the lanterns were hung to alert Paul Revere. I guess there had been a few additions to the building and when they were remodeling they found the actual window where the Rector escaped the church on that fateful night. It is still bricked over on one side, but you can see it. I guess I didn't realize that there were actual British Soldiers that figured out the signal and went to arrest the Rector. How cool would it have been to be a fly on the wall that night?

Then we followed the red brick line over to the the harbor. You have to walk across a bridge to get there. While walking over this bridge, we saw a sign for another bridge...this one's for you, Tobin!













In the harbor, they have two ships in dock. One is the USS Cassin Young. It was commissioned in 1943 and named after the Commander of the Vestal, which was next to the Arizona during Pearl Harbor. The Vestal was damaged heavily in the attack. The USS Cassin Young fought in the Pacific during WWII. It was decommissioned in 1960 and returned to it's 1950's version. It is now kept in Boston on display. You can walk aboard and look around. I just love these "old" boats--reminds me of my own grandfather, fighting in WWII in Europe and Africa. His ship was much smaller than this one.

On the other side of the harbor is a much, much older boat--the USS Constitution. This boat was commissioned in 1794 and is the oldest boat still in service in the world. It still under the direction of the US Navy and sails about once a year under her own power. She is magnificent (and I'm not even a "boat" person) and enormous! At the beginning of her life, she sailed the coasts of North Africa for our young nation and then was re-commissioned into service for the War of 1812, where she fought her most famous battle. On August 19, 1812, the Constitution was in a close-range battle with the British ship, HMS Guerriere. During this battle the canons fired directly at the Constitution, but didn't damage it, giving it the name "Old Ironsides". We could have waited in line for over an hour to do the full tour, but we opted to do the "quick" line and so we only got to go on deck. It was still very cool!



Next stop: Bunker Hill. It is a short walk from the harbor through an old neigh- borhood with windy streets. You can climb 279 stairs to the top of the memorial (much like the Washington Memorial in DC). We chose to climb the stairs! Here is the view from the top--we were sweating when we got the bottom again! After this we were ready for LUNCH. Of course, we were now in the middle of nowhere and couldn't find anywhere to eat! We finally stumbled upon a Friendly's Resaurtant and enjoyed some food!

Then we hoped on the train and went to the original Cheers bar. Everyone has to get a picture in front of this famous sign!

Our final stop of the day (and boy were we tired) was Harvard. You can take a 10 minute train ride out to Cambridge. Joel teaches many of the writers who worked or lived in either Cambridge, England or the Cambridge of the Massachusetts variety. They often told Joel he needed to visit one of these places before he could become a published author. So, we did! We didn't get to spend too much time here because we were so tired, but here are a couple of cool pictures proving we were there so Joel can show his students. The second picture is in fron of the Harvard bookstore called "The Co-op". Joel could have spent hours & hours in there. Much bigger than Borders or Barnses & Noble. They had rows and rows of poetry books. Joel was in heaven!




Back to our hotel for the evening for a night of rest--the Fourth of July would prove to be a long & fun day for us!