On the heels of our family visits in Philly and Delaware, we drove up to New Haven, Connecticut to see a friend that I’ve had since middle school, and then we finished the day in Boston. Apparently, everyone in the world decided to be on the road with us at the same time, but luckily Sarah loves traffic. She also loved the little cat figurine waving hello that was on the entry table in our rental house. She liked to wave hello and goodbye to it and would say that it was missing her when we were not there.
Boston, Boston, Boston. What can I say except that your roads are crazier than Pittsburgh’s? Perhaps that is simply because the scale of everything is so much larger and we so rarely were confident in where we were going or what lane we needed to occupy to get there. The girls had a fun time summarizing the experience of what they heard as Carl and I drove around: Um! Oh wait! I think I was supposed to be over there! Oh no! I messed up! Oh dear! Google! Apple Maps! GPS fail! Eeeee! Whooo that was close! This is ridiculous! There was no indication of what lane to be in! Crap! Dude! People! Oh no!! What?!
Once we got where we were going, we usually had a good time, although we did confirm our suspicions that Sarah is allergic to museums. As soon as she sets foot inside anything other than a Children’s Museum, she wants to be done and leave, and she’s not shy about expressing it. On our first full day in Boston, we went to the Jason Russell House, which is the site of the battle of Menotomy. It was the bloodiest battle of April 19, 1775, which is the day that began with Lexington and Concord and was the military start of the American Revolution. Many of my ancestors from Danvers fought in Menotomy that day, and three of them died there. Amy and I toured the house, noting the bullet holes that still mark the walls, but Sarah was having none of it, so Carl stayed outside with her. After that we went to get ice cream.
As in so many areas of the country, it was beastly hot for our time in Boston. For our second day we met a friend at a big new playground but didn’t last long in the heat before we decided to go to a spray park instead. Then we went to get ice cream.
The next day we met a friend at the Salem Willow’s park where Amy enjoyed climbing trees with the other kids, and then we went to the beach at Manchester-by-the-Sea to visit friends who live in a house built in 1640!!!! It was another scorching day so that helped us brave the extremely cold water. Amy, Carl, and one of our friends fully immersed themselves in the water, but Sarah and I didn’t let the water past our calves. We ate water ice, and then we went to get ice cream.
Having learned our lesson about museums, Carl and I divided in Concord. Amy and I went to the Orchard House, home of Louisa May Alcott, where you can still see the art her sister May (Amy in Little Women) drew on the walls. Carl and Sarah walked through the heat to the Old North Bridge, imagining what it was like in April 1775 when it was probably just a wee bit cooler. We reunited and went to get ice cream.
To see family in Danvers, we went by way of Salem. We had hoped to see the replica of The Friendship because the original ship was built by Enos Briggs, a cousin of mine many times removed. Unfortunately it wasn’t in the harbor because of needing repairs. We did enjoy some Salem shops and the rainbow crosswalk that gets freshly painted every June in honor of Pride Month. Sarah has always loved crosswalks, but with the new shirt that we gave Granddad for Father’s Day that has four Snoopys (The Beagles) crossing a street a la The Beatles for Abbey Road, she has been even more enamored of crosswalks. Amy loved our brief visit to Salem with all things witchy. After our family lunch and a second pass through Salem we. . . stopped to get ice cream. That evening we met friends near Harvard, and after dinner and a walk through Harvard we . . . stopped to get ice cream.
For our final day we all enjoyed the Tea Party Experience, shouting “huzzah” and “fie!” with a crowd before we dumped the tea in the harbor. There were small fake bales of tea attached to ropes so after a person tossed the tea overboard they hauled it up for the next person. Sarah didn’t want to do the rest of the experience which was more like a regular museum coupled with short movies, so she went to the tea room with Carl. He noted how she went from really wanting to be done to being happy and chatty once they got into air conditioning and he focused his full Sarah-Rise energy and attention on her. She often wanted to leave a gathering as soon as we were done with a meal, even when we wanted to stay and talk with friends and family. Carl observed how often she probably felt left out and bored and how that might have contributed to her wanting to be done. Amy often connected to some of the kids we visited so she was usually wanting to stay just as much as Carl and I were. Anyway, I enjoyed dumping the tea and hearing about John Crane, the only person to be injured during the original Boston Tea Party. There is a family connection to him as well, through Grammy’s ancestral line. Carl and I sampled some of the different kinds of tea that had been dumped. The most surprising one had a smoky aroma as strong as a campfire. While it didn’t taste overly smoky, it’s not one I would need to drink again. We took the subway to and from the Tea Party Experience, and both girls enjoyed that, especially Sarah. Carl used the day to start training Amy in how to navigate a subway system, so she was the one to tell us when it was our stop. After a quick nap, we ventured out again to see friends in Dedham. That day did not include ice cream, but it did have a birthday cake for Carl, and we averaged one ice cream per day overall.
If you go to Boston, my top recommendation for ice cream is Rancatore’s ginger molasses. It is some of the best ice cream I’ve ever had in my life. I also recommend using multiple map programs at once to help navigate, and you might want to brush up on your exclamations and expletives.
And now. . . let’s go get ice cream.
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