Boston Day 7

Boston Common is pretty all on its own.

We woke up to our last day in Boston with really only one thing on the agenda. We were going to walk the Freedom Trail in downtown Boston. Since Mom likes to hike this trail downhill, she always does it backwards. This means parking the car at Boston Common, and taking the metro to Bunker Hill.

It was a little bit of an adventure getting to Bunker Hill. We rode the metro and then took a charter bus.

Starting at the Bunker Hill Monument, we collected the Junior Ranger booklets. The boys needed to answer question about five sites along the trail to earn the badge. We thought about climbing the obelisk on Bunker Hill, too, but we knew we had a long walk ahead of us.

Bunker Hill

After the small museum at Bunker, we headed down to the harbor. We walked through the USS Constitution and the military museum that goes along with it. Then we crossed the bridge and stopped at the Old North Church. We decided to go inside because the pews are so interesting. Also, it was a pretty hot day. Unfortunately, there was no air conditioning in the church building.

We had fun with all of the cutouts.

Seth makes a great sailor.

This ship is a lot bigger than the Mayflower.

It was fun to go through all of the levels.

The boys are always interested in the cannons.

Captain Mark

We enjoyed this stop.

It was a hot day in the church!

Good old Paul Revere!

Our next stop was Paul Revere's Home. This is by far the best stop on the Freedom Trail (and it's air conditioned). We were amazed at how well this home has been preserved. It gives you a good peek into middle-class life in 17th Century Boston. The house is all stone and has multiple levels, which is really cool, too.

Paul Revere's house is right on the main road.

No pictures inside, but we learned a lot!

It was time for lunch so we took a little detour to the oldest restaurant in the country, the Union Oyster House. This was by far the most beautiful restaurant we'd been inside. The decorations on the wall were all 3-D art of the Revolution. Mark's fish and chips was the best thing we ordered, but Dad and Dax liked their clam chowder.

It was fun to eat in a historic spot.

We were getting tired, and more than walking, we were trudging the Freedom Trail. Lunch perked us up a little, but not enough, so we walked down to Faneuil Hall and bought some gelato. The boys turned in their Junior Rangers. 

We walked past the buildings on the rest of the trail without going in. There was some old graveyards, and some old meeting houses. Finally, we found ourselves back at Boston Common. Along the route, we'd gotten texts that our plane was delayed three hours, just like on the flight out. That meant we had three hours to kill. Since we'd run out of time for the Minutemen Historic Site, we decided to drive down to Concord.

The Freedom Trail is always exhausting.

It's a drive to Concord. We enjoyed the hour in the car with the air on. The boys napped. We got there in plenty of time to see the "Shot Heard Round the World Bridge." The boys did another very short Junior Ranger. We watched a short presentation and checked out the Visitor Center. By then, the drive back to the airport was up to an hour and a quarter. Though traffic was brutal, we did make it to our flight and got home about 1 AM to find our chickens safe and much bigger.

Concord is a lovely little place.

Mark at the marker where shots were first fired.

Mom and Dad loved Boston.

Old North Bridge!