Boston Part 2

Saturday morning dawned bright and clear.  Well, actually it didn't.  It dawned cool and foggy.  The fog was crazy.  You can even see it in my pictures... I am letting the fog take the blame for both the fogginess of the pictures as well as the overexposure problem that our camera was having.  We didn't bring our nice camera on the trip because we didn't want to lug it around.  Even though I am disappointed in our pictures, honestly, I am glad we didn't bring the big one.  We had enough to carry, and it would have been just one more thing to worry about.

We got up late and got ready to experience the Freedom Trail.  Our plan was to walk to the "start" of the trail from our hotel, but we ended up walking past some of the sites before we actually got to the Boston Commons Visitor Center.

We really liked the below building- the Old State House.  I like to look at this building and ignore the skyscrapers behind it, the streetlights, street signs, traffic lights and 2012-garbed pedestrians.  Instead I add in crowds of cheering 1776-garbed Patriots who are listening to the Declaration of Independence being read (in Boston) for the first time - right from that little balcony.  Those same people then pulled down the Lion and the Unicorn and burned them.  

The balcony was funny.  It was so small and narrow, really completely useless for anything but making poignant speeches.  

We then stopped at Dunkin' Donuts- right outside of the Pi Ally Parking Garage.  Finding a "Pi" parking garage was pretty cool for my Physics Major husband who also celebrates "Pi" day.

Next we saw the first of many cemeteries.  I love cemeteries.  Everyn wasn't super interested in learning about grave symbols, however, so we didn't stay as long as we might have had we been alone.  In a way, it was probably good she was along.  We didn't have a lot of time, and we probably would have been sad to discover we had spent our whole trip in cemeteries.

Finally we arrived in Boston Commons.  There we saw a playground that looked very similar to ones in our city.  At that point one of us commented that stopping at that playground would have been the boys favorite part of the trip so far- and at that very same point we realized that we did the right thing by leaving them home.

They would also have liked this frog.  And his can of worms.  I wonder if their love of the frog would have sustained them for the rest of the day?  I am thinking no.

We wandered the paths of Boston Commons for awhile, and then looked around the Public Gardens.  We glanced over at Beacon Hill and then decided to do the Freedom Trail first and just try to walk around that area later in the trip.  Of course I never did get back.  I was disappointed in Beacon Hill anyway because it didn't appear to be very elevated.  I am always a bit leery of flat hills.

Oh look!  After looking over the capital (which has a gold dome that looks incredibly fake), and walking past Park Street Church we went to...you guessed it!  Another cemetery.  (why does cemetery have so many "e's" in it?  Seriously, I want an "a"!  Just one!)

By this time Everyn had just about lost it and so we found this nice modern building with a nice little wall to sit on.  This is where Everyn had her lunch.

 We continued to follow the red path on the sidewalk which meant that we were on the Freedom Trail.  We had to take a slight detour, however, when we came across a large group of people, bagpipes, police officers and barricades.  Turns out the President of Ireland was in town.  Who knew?

And that ends the first part of Part 2.  Or maybe Part 1 of Day 2.  Or maybe just Part 2: The Next Morning.