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Yesterday we drove 268 miles from Acadia to Littleton Massachusetts. We are staying at the Minuteman Campground about 30 miles from Boston. It was a longer drive today and any of the days before, but we left early and even with some traffic we made good time. We quickly got settled, checked out the campground, had dinner and s'mores by the campfire before calling it a night.
The campground does a good job with advertising transportation into Boston. Even though there is public transportation we can use, with 5 of us it came to about the same as renting a car and we have more flexibility.
Today after picking up the car, we headed to Boston to explore the Freedom Trail. We parked in the Boston Commons parking garage and made our way to the street level to get our bearings and find the Visitor Center. I had a printed map to help us get there, but a better map from the VC was in order to read about the places as we stopped on the trail.
The Boston Freedom Trail is a National Historic Site. It's a 2.5 mile trail that takes you through portions of downtown Boston, Charlestown, and South Boston allowing you to discover the history of the beginning of the American Revolution.
The trail is marked with a red brick path you follow along to all the sites. At first the kids were not too thrilled about this excursion, especially since they saw a handful of people in what seem to be a guided tour in Segway. I explained that everything we do is not just about what we like, dad really loves history, and this was something I knew he would really enjoy. The Segway, even though cool, would not be able to get into some of the places and I am not fond of guided tours. I like to go at my own pace, move on or linger longer, depending on my interest. As I expected, there were no sightings of seaways the rest of the trail. I did not like history as a child, but as an adult, I have learned to appreciate it. I am fine with seeing it and letting Gil tell me about it, rather than reading about it. After a few stops the kids were learning to appreciate the tour as they started paying attention to the story behind the places.
The 2.5 miles felt a lot longer and by the time we were crossing the bridge to Charlestown, no one felt like walking up to Bunker Hill Monument. The monument was visible from the bridge, so we took pictures and headed to the Navy yard.
The tour ended in Charlestown Navy yard where the USS Constitution is afloat. It is the the world's oldest commissioned warship. I was disappointed that I had not done my research right and we would not be able to actually go into the ship because it's closed on Mondays. But when we got to the site we realized the ship is on dry dock undergoing reconstruction, so we were only able to see it from the outside.
We rode the water taxi from the Navy Yard into Boston Warf and then made our way - almost a mile walk, back to the garage.
More adventures tomorrow...
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