USS Constitution – Bunker Hill monument to the left

We readied ourselves and moved on to our next adventure, finding breakfast.  It took us 3 tries, but we finally located the restaurant where our free breakfast waited.  Once we located it, we had to figure out how to get to it, and then how to park, but our magic held and we pulled up just as someone was leaving.  We ate and checked our email and discovered our wedding photos are posted!  We took some time to view a few of the shots—about the first four pages of eleven.  They turned out really great!Our next adventure was Bunker Hill.  It’s not hard to find, since the monument is a huge obelisk towering above Charlestown.  The problem is, all the roads seem to be one-way, the wrong direction.  We managed to arrive at the park and discovered it’s closed.  They appear to be doing some major landscaping or something, judging by the earth-moving equipment.  We snapped a couple of photos from the car window.

If you’re looking for thrills in downtown Boston, just get behind the wheel of a car.  Your task: find the Boston Tea Party ship on the southeast end of downtown.  Are the crowded, truck-filled main arteries too scary, with their constant detours and crane booms swooping within inches of your car?  Then turn off into the residential district, where the narrow old streets barely allow one lane of traffic to squeeze through and pedestrians don’t even bother looking before they dart out between cars.  It’s guaranteed to get your adrenaline pumping.  Fortunately, Grace is an excellent navigator, and armed only with a cheesy tourist map (the cartoony kind where the size of the buildings is proportionate to the amount of money the business gave to the map company), we circled around and finally found it.  Well, I say we found it… we found a half-obscured sign saying “Coming Soon: The New Tea Party Ship”.  It was under renovation two years ago when we were here and apparently still is.  I guess they have enough problems to deal with what with the leaky tunnels caving in on people and such.

 
An informal gathering of planes

By then it was raining on top of everything else, so we figured we’d just head to the airport early.  Fortunately this is much easier – in fact, it’s actually hard to drive around downtown and NOT end up at the airport.  We even found some cheap gas to fill up the rental car, and after a bit of standing in lines we got here with time to relax (and finish this blog).  We’ve had a wonderful trip, and believe it or not, it will be nice to get home again!!

 
Bloggin’ at the airport!

The Breakers, Newport RI

We moved on to the shops, hoping to find a store to buy our Rhode Island ornament (we are collecting Xmas ornaments from each state visited).  Newport is a sleepy town for shopkeepers—most places don’t open until 11 am it appears.  We finally found an open shop and the ornament we wanted—right after we bought one we didn’t want but settled for.  No worries; it was only $5.  We hurried back to the Pilgrim House, checked out, and on the advice of a lady we met at one of the shops we visited, decided to take a tour of one of the mansions.  The Breakers was built by Cornelius Vanderbilt II as a summer house.  The original home he purchased had burned to the ground, so he rebuilt a much grander place in the Renaissance style.  The Breakers was built in two years, completed in 1895.  It is 138,000 sq ft, has 70 rooms, 33 of which are servants rooms.   50 foot ceilings with gilding and paintings and mosaics—it’s breath-taking and just incredible that it was someone’s home once.

Plymouth Rock

The Mayflower II

Next we drove back up to Massachusetts to visit Plymouth.  We stopped for lunch then stopped at Plymouth Rock.  It’s been moved and broken and moved again and chipped away at by souvenir hunters, so there’s only a bit left, but it’s plenty, and the information signs indicate that, like an iceberg, only the top third is visible.  We then walked over to the Mayflower II, a replica built in 1957 and sailed from Europe to its current location.  I believe we read that it took seven years to build.  It is absolutely amazing how small the ship actually is.  And frightening to think of it crossing the Atlantic, worse to imagine being a passenger during the trip!

Pilgrim Village at Plimoth Plantation

Three miles south of Plymouth Rock is Plimoth Plantation, a replica of the Pilgrims’ 1627 settlement, and close by, a replica of Massasoit’s family village.  We were very glad we made this stop.  Actors are dressed in period costume, going about daily chores in both villages.  Each home had a fire in the hearth, since it was a chilly day today.  In the Indian village, real Native peoples are the actors.   A grade school class was visiting today and we were tickled to see the children getting into the experience.  We watched a small group playing with a hoop and stick, and were even more tickled to watch another group eagerly clean the goat pen, raking up “muck” and having the time of their lives.  If only their parents could have seen them!The day had been overcast and it began to drizzle as we left Plymouth on our way to Boston and our next adventure.  Traffic was not too bad, considering we arrived at the end of rush hour.  We made it to the Constitution Marina after sunset, found our envelope of information taped to the dock office door as promised and after several minutes, found the marina gate and entered.  The drizzle was now a light rain, and we discovered that our houseboat was at the opposite end of the dock from the parking lot.  About a quarter of a mile along a dark, wet dock in a cold October rain.  Talk about romance! 

Houseboat on Constitution Marina, Boston

The downside is, the rain and cold affect my foot in a negative way.  But, we found the houseboat, and after struggling with the lock a few minutes, made it inside.  Lovely accommodations—very comfortable.  We then hiked back to the car and took off to find some dinner.  Luck was with us again.  We turned the wrong way and ended up in an industrial dock district, yet stumbled onto Jenny’s Pizza & Subs, a tiny little take-out place somewhere in the dark next to the water.  We had a nice chat with the staff as they made our dinner, then we found our way back to the Marina and holed up for the night.  The slight rocking of the boat was very relaxing.

Next, we pulled off at Hammonasset State Park, a beach area along Long Island Sound.  We found some shells and a plant or soft coral in the waves.  Got our feet damp getting them, but it was fun.  I actually took off my shoes and socks and wadded in to get the coral thing.  The water was chilly, but not too bad.

Oldest stone house in New England

Grace finds a coral souvenir

We stopped at a Christmas store in Niantic for our Connecticut ornament.  Niantic is on RT 156, which we switched to when RT 1 went farther west than we wanted to.  We continued on and stopped again in Mystic for lunch, though not at the pizza place.  We did see it though, and snapped a photo of the sign.  Neither of us has seen the movie…  After lunch, we witnessed the drawbridge over the river in action!

The drawbridge at Mystic Seaport

It has gimongous concrete counter-weights

We continued on after lunch to Newport without stopping.  We wanted to arrive before sunset to see some of the town and arrived just in time.  We drove “the loop” and were able to see some of the grand old homes along the shore.  These mansions are huge!  And they have great names on their gates, like The Breakers and Windswept.  We saw several for sale…Newport is a great little town with lots of historic old buildings housing businesses and bed and breakfasts.  We stayed in the Pilgrim House, a quaint old Victorian.   As I write this, I am in the Breakfast room on the third floor.  The door to the deck is in front of me, and I can see the docks and the water from here.  It’s a grey morning with light cloud cover.  Haven’t ventured outside yet, but I’m sure it’s chilly.  I’m waiting for coffee…

Just half a block from the Pilgrim House is a church.  We’re told it’s the oldest Anglican church in the country and that it’s still in operation.  The Queen made a point of visiting it on one of her visits!  On our way to dinner last night, we walked by it and discovered it has a cemetery attached to it.  Yes, we stopped in.  It was too dark to read much, but the King’s tax collector is buried right near the street lamp.  He’s interred with his maiden sister.  I believe he passed in 1734.  Lots of nice things were inscribed about his character on his tombstone, but what could one expect from Loyalists?  We’ll visit the yard again today before we leave.  It’s sad, these stones are being slowly eaten away, or toppled (not by vandalism it appears, but by age and frost) and so many wonderful verses and stories will be lost forever.

Bennington Monument

The round barn in the Hancock Shaker Village

Then we headed south through the beautiful Berkshires.  The Green Mountains of Vermont just get a little smoother and lower all through Mass. and Conn., but the fall color is just as vivid.  We stopped at the Shaker Village in Hancock for a few minutes, and at a nice covered bridge in Sheffield, but for the most part we drove straight through.

Covered bridge in Sheffield

We arrived in New Haven, CT about 5pm and drove by Yale University – fantastic old buildings.  We ended up in Branford for the night, which sets us up nicely for a trip up the coast and into Rhode Island on Monday.  We got some take-out and watched “Pirates of the Caribbean 2″ in the room.

(by Grace)

 We said our goodbyes around noon and headed toward our next stop, Woodstock Vermont.  It’s a very picturesque town, and was swarming with people on a beautiful Saturday afternoon.  We ventured into Quechee, a town right next door, to see the Simon Pearce Glass factory.  This factory/store/restaurant is right on the river and the Quechee Gorge.  They have harnessed the falls from the river to produce their own electricity!  One can tour their hydroelectric plant, their ceramics studio, watch glass blowers at work, and see a rug maker in action at his loom.  We did it all of course.

Falls, gorge & covered bridge in Quechee
We did not stop in Woodstock for a walk around the town. Parking was at a premium, road traffic was crazy and the wait at Simon’s place (less crowded than Woodstock) was over an hour.  We decided to drive on and eat later.We stopped in Bridgewater at a quaint little bakery.  It was virtually deserted and we soon found out why—half the power was out.  The proprietor offered what she had—some soup warmed on a gas stove and some meat pies, good warm or cold.  As we chose our meal, the rest of the electricity went and we sat and visited as we ate in the dim (not quite dark) by the window.  The place appeared to have been an old mill or something, so there was plenty of natural light.  It was charming and romantic and fun.

Kristi gave us directions on to Bennington, our lodging for the night, by way of the scenic route.  It was a windy back road highway like we love to travel, and gorgeous of course.  Along the way, I spotted one of the most humorous business names I’ve seen yet.  Severance Furs.  They were advertising sheepskin rugs and hats, but I’m guessing they had furs as well.  Talk about truth in advertising…  We stopped next in Weston, home of the Vermont Country Store.  If you’ve never visited their site on line, take some time one day and do it.  And of course, get to the store too—it’s fun to poke through everything.  They specialize in the practically-impossible-to-buy-anymore items we all remember from our childhood.  And some fun new stuff too.

It was near dusk when we left Weston, and we traveled on the scenic byway, marveling at Nature as we headed into the Green Mountains.  The sunset was glorious.

Sunset over the Green Mountains