If you are wondering how Matt is working on our trip, he has been setting up a table in our bedroom and shutting the door for privacy. Here is he, hard at work. :) He has a nice lake view out his window too! (That was until we got kicked out of this spot for the weekend!)
Matt thought he had a meeting from 12-1:30 on Friday, so I had made reservation at 3:30 at the Jenney House for a walking tour around Plymouth. About 11:30, Matt came out of his "office" and told us that his meeting got cancelled. I said, "Great, let's eat lunch and head to Plymouth!"
About 12:30, we took off towards Plymouth, Massachusetts. Again, we didn't want to go to Boston yet! This town was only about forty miles away, much closer than our adventurous trip to Cape Cod the day before!
We pulled into Plymouth and the first place we stopped was the visitors center to pick up a map.
Courtney and I ran in to get some information about the town (we didn't want to pay to park, so matt parked illegally for a couple of minutes with the other two kids) and as we were looking at all the brochures, the lady at the counter asked if she could help me and I said, "No, I'm just looking" because I kind of knew what I wanted. Then she came back with, "Can I show you what is on the map?/" Again, I said I was fine, but she kept insistting to show me things on the map! So I finally went over and let her show me Plymouth's tourist attractions.
I knew we had a couple of hours before our tour and I knew what things there were to do in Plymouth from looking online that morning, so I took her information and Courtney and I headed back to the car.
We headed down to the main street in town and tried to find a parking spot. I knew that along this road somewhere was a replica of the Mayflower and Plymouth Rock. We found a spot and put some money in the meter. This meter had 49 minutes left on it and we only had about an hour and a half worth of time before our tour, but before I knew it, Matt put in enough money for 2 1/2 hours. I guess we pay the favor forward!
As we were walking along, we saw this huge collanade ahead of us and I had no idea what it was. There were many people inside of it looking over a fence, I was really anxious to see what was in there, I didn't remember seeing anything about this online.
You can probably guess my response when I looked over the fence and saw this:
It was Plymouth Rock! I know it is hard to see with the shadows, but the rock has "1620" engraved on it! This was the rock that the Pilgrims stepped onto when they came to Plymouth. Pretty amazing! Now I know why there is a collonade around it!
After we looked at the rock for awhile, we moved down the street to take a tour of the replica of the Mayflower. This boat was named the Mayflower II and was built in 1955 in England. It was then sailed over the Atlantic Ocean and now it stands in Plymouth bay.
We paid the entrance fee and it was a self-guided tour. There were people on the boat in historically-correct costumes and they were available for questions. We were surpised at how small the boat really was (and how much they charged for admission!) It didn't take us much more thna an hour to tour the whole boat and the little museum outside of it.
After we got done there, we walked down along the harbor for a little bit and looked at all the sail boats that were out there! We also stopped at the gift shops to look around and then we headed to our tour.
Usually walking tours are pretty expensive, but I saw that this tour on tripadvisor.com and it was the #1 rated tourist attraction in Plymouth. The rates were cheaper than most for a 90 minute tour, so I signed us up. In the end, it was our family plus two guys from Brazil. It was going to be a very personal tour! The guy that led the tour was named Leo and he was dressed up as a Pilgrim! The only bad thing about a 90 minute walking tour was that we forgot to grab Christian's stoller, so he had to walk, be on matt's shoulders, or we had to carry him. :)
Here we are following our tour guide Leo. He showed us the mill the Pilgrims used, where their plantation was, the water source they used, and led us to many statues and explained the significance of them all. He then led us down to Plymouth Rock (where we had already been.) After Plymouth Rock, we learned about a few more statues. Here is Leo showing us the leader of the Native Americans that the Pilgrims had a peace treaty with for over 55 years!
After we finished these, he took us through some streets and showed us the lots where many of the first Pilgrims had their farms. We ended up at the top of a hill by a court house and a church where the Pilgrims had first built their church. The church that was there today was the third church on that site, due to the other two burning down. When the Pilgrims had their church there, they kept their canons on the roof of the church because they used the hill for defenses. They only attacked when attacked upon. Behind the church was a burial ground for these people, it is the oldest cemetary in America! If anybody knows me, they know that I love to walk through cemetaries. Unfortunately, we were on a tour and I didn't have the liberty to go walking through at the moment! But I would have loved to. :)
After we passed the church and the cemetary, we were back at "The Jenney House" where we started. We thanked Leo, took a picture with him, and were on our way! We were really impressed with the tour!!! No wonder they were ranked #1!
After our tour, we saw that there was a monument to the forefather's a short drive away, so we headed over there. We saw this statue and then headed home. We didn't want to eat out again, since we ate out the night befoe at Cape Cod and food here was not cheap! We got home at a decent time, had supper, and went to bed! Tomorrow we were heading to Boston!!!
( I think it is funny that Plymouth was not one of the places that we had planned on visiting on our trip, but I am sure glad we did!!)
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