Ockey Family Adventures: Boston Day 6

We love being able to go to the temple together.

Not much went right for us today. First of all, we got a later start than intended. We were supposed to be to the Boston Temple at 8:30 for our 9:00 appointment, but traffic and the GPS maps didn't allow that to happen. We did get to the temple, and we all did baptisms. That was a great experience, and the Boston Temple is really beautiful. It is so tall and narrow with its angel on top. But while at the temple, we had to stay and baptize some other folks, and they got bumped in front of us for confirmations. We'd hoped to be done at the temple around 10 o'clock, but it was closer to 11 AM when we finally headed up the road.

We had a two hour drive ahead of us. This for two reasons. First, the kids wanted to make a visit to Vermont as they hadn't been to that state before. Second, the Joseph Smith Birthsite is the last Church History site we needed to visit.

Unfortunately, this adventure wasn't without mishaps. Twice we got off the freeway to help children go to the bathroom. Both times you had to sail through a town to do so, adding 10-15 minutes to your trip time for the detour. You can't seem to get of and get back on a freeway in New Hampshire.

We finally arrived at the Joseph Smith Memorial, and it was way back up in the hills. It was beautiful, set back in the rich green trees. Honestly, there wasn't a whole lot there. We saw the mantle stone from the fireplace and the foundation for the house. Then we walked down the road and saw the Mack house foundation and a low wall and old bridge. The most impressive piece was actually a huge solid stone obelisk that was hauled here in 1905 on Joseph's hundredth birthday. It was carved from a single piece of stone and stands 38.5 feet tall, which is one foot for each year of Joseph's life.

This is the original mantle stone and they let you stand on it!

Outside at the Joseph Smith birthplace.

We walked down the hill to some other sites.

Not a whole lot to see here, but we tried to make the best of it.

We left the monument knowing that our plan to run by Lexington and Concord afterward would have to be altered. Instead, we needed to head straight to Fenway Park. The traffic was brutal, and we finally arrived about 5:45 and got parked for $60. There is an amazing little restaurant called Tasty Burger right next to the stadium, and we got food there. Around 6:30 we headed into Fenway.

We ate at Tasty Burger again!

The atmosphere seemed less festive, but we were still excited for our seats. We sat just behind the left-handed batters box in the front row of the second section. This meant that vendors were walking back and forth in front of us, and people wanted to take pictures from our row, but the view was perfect, and we didn't mind the traffic. It added to the ambience. The most incredible thing about this seat was that the voices of the spectators seemed to bounce off the grandstand behind us. It was like hearing the whispers of a hundred years of history. When Devers hit the longest homer of his career and the Sox took a two run lead, we were excited. But then the starter gave up 7, which later bloomed to 9, and the game wasn't as fun. They finally lost 9-4, and of course, we stayed for the last strikeout, which happened to be the same guy who walked it off yesterday.

After the game we voted and all agreed that the seats on the Monster were infinitely better than seats behind the plate. We didn't get back until 11 PM, but we enjoyed counting the baseball stadiums we'd visited on our drive back to the hotel.