Boston, MA

On our way into Boston, we stopped off at a Subway about 40 minutes away to let the rush hour traffic die down. We heard the Boston accent from a customer!

We noticed their on-ramps to their freeways were extremely extremely short. There were also quite a few tolls.

We got to our KOA campground (Middleborough, MA) in the dark and found out that the water hook ups were shared amongst 4 different sites. It was no problem except that our water hose wasn’t long enough. We asked the office the next day to borrow a long hose but they kept coming up short. Literally. The water hose they gave us was too short to work alone and there was a hole in it! The staff didn’t provide too much help so we became pretty frustrated.

Luckily, the good people of Boston were there to help. Two different people offered to help us when they saw Jared trying to get the water hooked up. One person even let us borrow their extra water hose since ours wasn’t long enough.

The Bostonians at our campground were some of the nicest people we met on the trip.

One tip for this campground would be for people to bring long hoses for water. We had already traveled across the country by this time and never had an issue with this before (and never had the issue again).

First things, first.

We saw Gillette Stadium where the New England Patriots play. We weren’t there for a game but it was pretty cool to be so close! On the way to the stadium we stopped off at Dunkin Donuts. They are very popular in the Northeast.  

We checked out the surrounding area and got to see the field through the front gates. It looked incredibly big from where we were standing. It would be amazing if we could come back to watch a game!

The next morning, we headed into Boston!

We met up with a friend from college, Jesse, and he drove us into the city. He was there for work. I was excited to be on the East Coast because of all the history!

We had planned to do the entire 2.5 mile Freedom Trail. The Freedom Trail is a red brick lined trail that goes through Boston and leads to 16 historic sites. The first stop on our Freedom Trail was Boston Commons.

The land was used as a pasture for grazing cows for centuries starting in the 1630’s. This was also where British troops set up camp to squash Colonial uprisings in 1768.

Boston Commons is also the oldest public park!

I had never been to the east coast so the historic buildings were all new to me. I studied history at Davis so it was an amazing experience to be immersed in the history I spent so long studying.

There were many monuments, murals, and sculptures dedicated to past events and significant historical figures.

Can you guess who I’m posing with?

We also stopped at the Granary Burying Ground where some famous Bostonians were laid to rest.

John Hancock, Paul Revere, and the parents of Benjamin Franklin were there.

I thought it was a little weird going through the burial grounds but there were so many people around looking at the tombs of these famous Bostonians.

We walked on for miles and saw some more historic buildings, like the Paul Revere’s home.

 

After walking and wandering, we got a little hungry. It was time to try some New England Clam Chowdahhh.

We headed to a little restaurant along the water for a bite to eat.

It was delicious!

Jesse showed us a canoli shop nearby and we had to have some. I tried their nutella canoli and it was so rich, I wasn’t able to finish it. Jared was a little more adventurous and tried a pumpkin canoli!

We continued onwards on our adventure through Boston.

The city was so cool!

Some people were out decorating their homes for Halloween.

We saw Bunker Hill.

We were too tired to attempt the climb up (I am also afraid of heights). 294 Steps to the top seemed like too much for us and it was already getting late.

By the time we finished up the trail at the USS Constitution, it was getting dark and the museum was closing. We weren’t able to go on the ship but we saw it from afar. It is the oldest commissioned warship afloat.

We didn’t end the night there.

We tried going into Webster where the hip young people go for a night out but it was packed! The traffic was horrendous and there was no parking anywhere.

So, Jesse took us to a mom and pop candle pin bowling alley that was situated in a basement. Sure, it was a little creepy (low ceilings) but we had a blast!

Candle pin bowling is played mostly in the New England area. You  use a smaller ball to knock down pins (kind of like a skee ball). Instead of 2 attempts, you get 3 attempts at knocking some skinny pins down. The lane doesn’t reset after each throw so it’s a little tricky there.

We weren’t very good at it…

After trying our hand at candle pin bowling, Jesse then took us to Tavern In The Square (TITS). We had a night cap before heading back to the trailer.

The next morning, there was something I needed to do. I wanted to see Plymouth Rock!

We talked to Jesse about it the day before and he wasn’t too interested. He mentioned it being a tourist trap but I just wouldn’t listen.

So me and Jared drove the 45 minutes it took to see Plymouth Rock.

This is a picture of me before I saw the rock:

And this was Plymouth Rock we learned about in school:

I’m sure you understand why we only spent 30 minutes in Plymouth, MA. It was still pretty cool to see such a rock but it did not impress a lot of people.

We drove back up to Boston to see Fenway Park! It was a cool time to be in Boston since the Red Sox were going to be in the World Series. 

They were setting up for the World Series.

It was really cool because people were being interviewed in anticipation of the game. We walked around and took in the sites.

 

We even tried to visit Harvard but we weren’t able to easily navigate the area. So we left. As you can tell, we don’t like putting ourselves into bad parking situations. The Suburban is a beast of a vehicle and we didn’t want to risk getting a ticket.

We still had a great time exploring such a historical city.

We thought we might have to extend our stay in Boston due to some unforeseen circumstances (a flat trailer tire)  but we were able to pump it up and continue onwards to New York (New Jersey, first)!