Massaachusetts

These pics loaded in backwards chronological order from the way I loaded them, so take this trip backwards with me!


Carson and April, my neice and her husband. They live in Rhode Island.

Jordan, five years old, bearing precious gifts.

LePewMan, April and family, TreeHugger and Kepler the cat.

Alex, one and a half years old.

Peacefield, home of John and Abigail Adams, in Quincy, MA

A street in the North End, an OLD neighborhood in Boston....old like Paul Revere and Ben Franklin old.

A big impressive bridge in downtown Boston...can't remember the name of it, though.

Olga Ironsides, the amphibious bus we took on the "Duck Tour" of Boston and my precious TreeHugger.

Really good picture, even if I do say so myself, of a very people-friendly rooster at Old Sturbridge Village.

We didn't really plan on a vacation this year. Then we were blessed with a really great tax refund. Bonus! We put away most of it for what we hope will be a down payment on a home. We had a week of vacation from my work in June that we hadn't planned on doing anything with, so when that tax refund came along, we decided to do something with our week of vacation.

TreeHugger had wanted to see Massachusetts for most of her life. I have, in recent years, become very interested in early American history. As some of our friends know, we visited Mt Vernon and Monticello last year, so I really wanted to see the home of John Adams in Massachusetts. So here is our trip......

We toured the Norman Rockwell Museum on a Sunday afternoon in Stockbridge, MA. I had been there in the mid 70's when it was housed in an old home in downtown Stockbridge. In the mid 90's they built a big, beautiful place just outside of town where they house many, many more of his works than they ever could in town. We really enjoyed it.

After the museum, we went into town and ate a mid-day meal at the Red Lion Inn. It's been in business since the 1700's and I had stayed there in the 70's. It's a wonderful old establishment.

Next day, we toured Old Sturbridge Village in Sturbridge, MA. It's an authentic colonial village about an hour from Boston. I had also been there in the 70's. TreeHugger liked the Colonial architecture. I lost patience with a jillion kids there for their end of school field trip. We then drove around the world and back to find a Cracker Barrel that had been a block away. Oh, the joys of wrong directions and a confused GPS thingy.

The next day was our tour of Boston. It was a cloudy, chilly, windy day with rain on and off. The rain didn't bother us much, but the cool temperatures....very disorienting for a southern boy, let me tell you. Our "Duck Tour" of Boston was ok. Our tour guide was very interesting and amusing....but.....things went by too fast. We decided later that we should have taken a different tour that lets you get off and on the bus so you can actually take time to see things.

We ate lunch at the Cheesecake Factory....total pig out.

Then we took the subway to the North End for a walk in one of the oldest parts of Boston. Another cool part of history was finding the Old North Church. You know...one if by land and two if by sea...Paul Revere's ride and all that?? There was a bust of George Washington in the church that was made very shortly after his death that people who knew him said was a very good likeness. That was very cool.

The last day in the Boston area, we went back into town and toured the New England Aquarium. The 3D movie was good and the aquarium would have been amazing...if not for another jillion kids! They were so loud and boisterous, it just made the whole thing harder to enjoy. We did enjoy the penguins quite a lot. We were amazed by big stingrays and sharks and a giant sea turtle.

That afternoon, we did what I had some to Massachusetts for. We first toured the birthplaces of John Adams and John Quincy Adams. John's birthplace and John Quincy's stand next to each other. John and Abigail, when they married, moved into a house of their own just next door to his parents' home. Both homes still stand on their original foundations, but now in the middle of downtown Quincy, MA. It's hard to get the feel of how old these homes are when they stand in the middle of a modern city, but at least they're preserved.

Then we were taken to Peacefield. It's the home John and Abigail moved into in 1788 when they came home from years in Europe where John served as America's very first ambassador to Great Britain. It's the home they went back to every time they left New York or Philadelphia or Washington (the three cities that served as the US capital during the time he was Vice President, then President). Then it was the home they finally retired to when he wasn't President any more. It's a wonderful home. Their descendants lived there until the early 20th century, when they donated it to be a historic landmark. John Quincy's son built an amazing building just to the side of the house which serves as the presidential library of John Quincy Adams....the very first presidential library.

Then for dinner that evening, we drove down to Providence, RI to have dinner with my neice and her family. We hadn't seen each other in many years, so it was a wonderful reunion. It was also great to meet the whole family. We loved it!

That was our longest day, but so worth it. We didn't know how tired we were, though. We slept until 11:00 the next morning!!

We drove to Vermont that evening and spen the night there. Then we drove home the next day. New Hampshire and Vermont were beautiful. The last leg was my first to spend any time driving in Quebec. I was afraid of all the road signs being in French, but we did fine. Garmin, the GPS lady, did us proud.

We got back and found our furry children very glad to see us. We were very glad to be back home with them, too.

I was just grateful to be able to see some of the places we did. Scenically speaking, it was a very beautiful trip. Historically speaking, you can't get much better than Massachusetts!