New England Trip--Wed Oct 14th--Cape Cod

Wednesday is Cape Cod day! We drove the 2 hours and 10 minutes to the very end of the cape to a town named Provincetown or P-Town.

Here is a "school bus." This was the 2nd one we saw. The first one was in the neighborhood in which we are staying. This one was on our way to Cape Cod!
Here is one of only two bridges that allow you into Cape Cod.

This is a picture of the scenery in Provincetown.
We decided to stop and take pictures.
Unbeknown to us, there was a light house out here...
Here's a pic of us on the rocks that lead to the light house. I got a bit chicken going too far! Not to mention I did hurt my foot by getting it caught in one of the rocks! haha. To the left you can see the light house in the distance.
Wouldn't you know it... this was the first landing spot of the Pilgrims!!! Not Plymouth!!

So we drive on into Provincetown. At first we don't understand the town because the main roads don't have anything on them. As we're driving through we realize the town is gay and lesbian "friendly" or so they say. Many houses had these flags flying out front with the word "PEACE" on it. What really got my goat was that they'd fly them right next to Old Glory.
So moving on, we find a place to park for free and it has this awesome First Landing Monument.
As we walk the streets I see this...
and I felt a bit out of place. My conservative values started to get a pushed aside and I actually began to not look at the homosexuals holding hands as much as I did at first. For lunch we stopped into an Irish pup and had clam chowda and lobster bisque. As we walked on, the liberalism just started to fuse into me (sarcastic) and I bought some art! Whoa, I know! I bought two pictures from a man that actually took the pictures and had them matted. The pic is of the light house from above and the rocks from above that lead out to that light house.

Below you see a winery we went to. In Indiana and all the way up and down I-65 the wineries allow tours for free and free tasting. Well, not here! It was $7 a piece for 5 tastes and a nice wine glass. Then we got to thinking... how are we going to get this glass home on an airplane? Then we thought, well maybe we can just ship a bottle of wine home, right? Wrong! Indiana won't allow Massachusetts to ship wine to us. Oh well, guess it saved us some money, right? Considering a bottle of chardonnay cost $20 or more plus tax! Guess they are proud of their product.
On the way back toward mainland we decided to pull off and go to the Cape Cod Chip Company! We took the self-guided tour, bought some chips, and Dustin got a t-shirt. This place was in Hyannis. We didn't think much of it, but were definitely hungry since it had been about 4 hours since our bowls of soup at the Irish pub in liberal city. We drive on into town in Hyannis. Wouldn't you know it, it's where Kennedy enjoyed his summers and was raised out here. Thinking it was too late (around 4:15) we tried to go into the museum quickly and the ladies were very kind to let us in and enjoy. The museum was small, but very informing, interesting, and generally melancholy.
So after the museum we NOW get to get something to eat. We got a 20% coupon from the museum to go to this place called Tommy Doyle's. Amazingly it was ANOTHER Irish pub! Anyway it was amazing! I had a club and Dustin had a NY Strip, stuffed shrimp, mashed taters, and green beans. His meal was only $15!! AND delicious! So we stayed there for awhile, talked to the bar tenders and the waiter. It was a blast.

We moved on to see what was left of Hyannis. Here's some scenery.
Here I am figuring out the timed option on my camera!
Yay! I did it!! The camera is sitting on top of the car haha.
Here is a Korean War monument.
JFK...
Look at me and the timer again!!

New England Trip--Tues Oct 13

Today's adventures led us to go to the historical cities of Lexington and Concord. We first go to Lexington and grab a bite to eat at an Indian restaurant and can I say it was delectable!!!

We then went to the museum in Lexington dedicated to American history.

Isn't he almost hot? I mean I know he's dead, had a powdered-wool wig, and wood teeth... but all that power just in this one man?! Come on! That's very admirable to say the least!

If you look closely, you can see Dustin looking at me on the left and me taking the picture. Just an FYI all the pictures from today were "forbidden" so I didn't use a flash! haha

Paul Revere making his ride! I guess we learned that he was a dentist, inventor, a coroner, silver smith, blacksmith, goldsmith, surveyor, Currier and he would probably be shocked to realize he was remembered in history for this measly side job!
So in this same museum in Lexington was a room of clocks. I guess clocks were a huge thing in our country's past. This clock as gaudy as it is, is immaculate! We both love this clock and it belongs in my new house that Dustin bought me... if you are just catching up, take a look at two blog postings before this!
We also learned that this museum was funded by the masons. George Washington, was a mason! I absolutely loved this picture. Anyone want to buy it for our new house as our house warming present?

So I thought I had this picture turned before I posted it, but here we moved on to Concord. Concord is a literature-rich historical place. I absolutely loved this town!

Here's Dustin standing outside the Concord museum.
This is Ralph Waldo Emerson's writing room. He wrote in this little place and it has been preserved since his time on earth.

Yes, I want this sometime!!! This is my goal--Dustin is going to build this in my new house over in Newport, Ri.
Here's Emerson's house.
I have to stand next to the sign to prove that I was there and just didn't drive by or steal the pic from someone.
Louisa May Alcott's residence. Her family and Nathaniel Hawthorne's family kept switching houses as they were both growing up. This is the house she wrote Little Women in, but Nathaniel Hawthorne's house (yellow) was what she was writing about in Little Women.



Hawthorne Inn
Okay, probably one of my most favorite things I did today--Walden pond! It looks like a lake to me and they seem to call all fresh bodies of water out here "ponds." This place really was peaceful... no wonder that Thoreau wrote the book about this place! LOVED IT!!!
Such a nice oasis away from the city life.
As we end our ventures for the day we head through many small towns back to our hotel. This was just a random scenery pic on the way back.

This day was all about getting back to our roots with nature and freedom-- Um... Transcendentalist in me?? I L O V E Emerson & Thoreau.

New England Trip--Mon Oct 12th--Columbus Day

This morning we woke up refreshed and ready to see Boston. We look at the map and realize we are only about 10 minutes from downtown Boston. Not too bad of a drive, eh? We also have it planned that we are going to follow the Freedom Trail from the American Revolution.

So here we see the scenery driving into Boston.


This is on Atlantic Ave--the easternmost road that travels along the coast of Boston. This flag was kind of pretty. The Coast Guard base is just to the left of this building.
Thought this amphibious vehicle was hilarious, but made total sense after our endeavors that day. There is so much walking, climbing, and crazy traffic with no place to park!
First stop on the Freedom Trail: USS Constitution This is the oldest ship in service to this day. She is 221 years old. Here I am posing next to a "gun" or cannon if it were on land. This thing weighs as much as a Ford Explorer and recoils 4 feet once fired... They fire her three to four times a year.


This is what kept my eye most of the time waiting to see "Old Iron Sides." This is a destroyer from WWII. The last time it saw battle was Korea.


Here I am on the "head" of the ship. This is where the crew would "hit the head" or do their personal waste business and allow the water to rise above and wash it all off.
Here we see Bunker Hill Monument. Notice, we see this about 2 1/2 miles away at the USS Constitution site.


We got to the bad boy and saw we had to climb it! 294 stair steps straight up in the air. We are sweaty and I'm quite frankly pissed off!
Dustin took pictures of the view while I was still upset sitting on the bench!
Here I am having a conversation with Uncle Butch about how "awesome" this site was... Ok it was pretty cool, but come on! This was outrageously high. Didn't they hear of elevators?! 294 STAIRS straight up! Actually going up was more of a pain just because I got out of breath and was sweaty after having a good hair day. THEN the way down was so much easier on the lungs, BUT my legs were shaking so bad when I got done. I wish I had videotaped my way up and down. I complained the whole time, but hey, all in the name of Freedom, right?!
So I calmed down a bit when we got back to the car and Dustin dropped me off to step out and get a pic of Paul Revere.
Here is where the Boston Massacre happened.

We got so fed up with the traffic, not being able to park to take pics of the scenery that we decided to look for the Cheer's bar. Ironically we got a parking spot on the street for FREE because it was Columbus Day AND we didn't have to walk every far! So we get there and realize we have to walk down MORE stairs to get to the restaurant/bar. Ugh! I'm sure you can only imagine my agony. Did I mention that I had an awful headache by now? I believe the 294 stairs straight up in the air didn't combine well with my asthma and allergies flaring. We hadn't eaten but a bagel for breakfast and it was nearly 1500! So I got a Sprite and Dustin had some kind of ale. We had some of the best Nachos ever, and boy were they refreshing!
You can tell I'm still a bit sweaty! haha
Ok so we're done with downtown Boston and head to Harvard. This is the water way with sail boats as we cross into Cambridge.

Here is an angel, one of those crazy real human things ya know? He was doing the motions of an angel you see at Menards during the holiday season that are electronic with fiberoptic lights! I bought a Harvard sweatshirt at the Harvard bookstore, then I continued my liberal experience and bought a New Yorker at a news stand!
All in all today was an awesome day! On our way back we decided to stop at Hanscom AFB. We had been craving Anthony's Pizza and of course when we get there the streets are all rolled up with NO Anthony's Pizza in sight. So we head back to our hotel and stop at the British Beer Company. We get take out and go back to the hotel and relax.

Boy what a day. Tired and stressed out from the 294 stair steps straight up Bunker Hill Monument, the driving, the people, no parking--Whew!