Road Trip Diaries

Jetlag did not stop us from getting up at a reasonable hour, and once we were dressed, we were out and about in Boston, looking for breakfast. It seems many of Boston’s cafes are shut on a Sunday morning, but we found plenty of food at Quincy Market, next to Faneuil Hall. On the way, we saw a lot of high rise, much of which was pretty ugly. We also saw a beggar who was actually clutching a pint along with his "hungry and homeless" placard. Fortunately Boston improved.

Next to our breakfast table was a booth selling Duck tickets. We seem to be unable to pass a Duck trip by, and today was no exception, so we booked one for 5:00 then set off on our planned activity for the day: the Freedom Trail.

"Freedom is a road seldom travelled by the multitude", says the Public Enemy sample, but we didn’t seem to be alone following the clear red line marked on the pavement through Boston.

By lunchtime we had seen plenty of Boston history, the Italian quarter in North End, Paul Revere’s house (he was some sort of equestrian) and so forth.

In all three graveyards along the way, flying deaths heads — something I’d previously only associated with Hells Angels and DOOM! — were a surprisingly common motif on the gravestones.

We had delicious lunch on the waterside in Charlestown — salads, then walked on to the USS Constitution, an old boat.

We didn’t stop long at the boat: there was a long queue in the scorching sunshine. Instead, we climbed a steep hill in the scorching sunshine, to see the Bunker Hill monument.

We were lucky: by complete chance, there was a musket firing demonstration just about to start. We learned a lot about muskets, including the way redcoats would wear goggles and earlplugs.

What followed was a long, wearying walk to the Museum of Science, where our Duck awaited. By the time we got there, Debbie had a blister the size of an egg (pictured later on).

The Duck trip was good: it took as past a number of the sights we’d already seen, and added some background. We were taken through the Back Bay — an area of the city that was all underwater until it was landfilled. I’d love to have seen all those people living there day after day before that landfill dried it out.

The Big Dig — Boston’s enormous building project to shuffle roads around and make it more pretty — was meant to be finished by now. Now it’s meant to be finished in 2006. Our driver was skeptical.

Debbie couldn’t walk, and the Big Dig put paid to a metro ride back to our area of the city. Fortunately we tracked down the replacement bus service, and were back at Quincy Market in no time at all. We ate at McCormick and Schmick’s Seafood Restaurant, at Faneuil Hall Marketplace. I had clam chowder and some lovely stuffed lobster, and Debbie had some spring rolls and halibut. Fantastic. We also had some nice local beers, to numb Debbie’s feet.

It was only 8:30 when we got back to the hotel, but we were shattered. I could barely type this. I certainly couldn’t bring myself to put any jokes in.

Addendum

Here are some signs we notices on or near the freedom trail.

There were more, but to my horror I had to start conserving camera memory card.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 10th, 2005 at 1:00 pm and is filed under Oregon Trail. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.