Going Backwards in time. :) Our last day in Boston 9-8-13

Before I blog about New York City, I have yet to write about our last day in Boston, which was a week ago, so bear with me. :) 

Sunday, September 8th, 2013

We had spent Saturday in Boston learning about places on the Freedom Trail and since we didn't get to see everything on the trail, we were going to finish some of the places on Sunday.

We knew we wanted to see the USS Constitution which was located at the Navy Yard, Bunker Hill Monument, and the place where the Boston Tea party took place.  We decided not to park at the Boston Commons like we did on Saturday, but instead just park by the navy yard. It was a short walk to the navy yard.  From there,we would walk to Bunker Hill and then ride the subway to the tea party site, which was across town. It sounded like a plan to me!

We ate lunch at home and took off about 11:45. We arrived at the parking garage at 12:30 and headed over to the navy yard.  There was the very old frigate (a type of sailboat) named the USS Constitution located there, a gift shop, and a museum. We followed the crowd and we found ourselves at the entrance to the USS Constitution.  We had to go through security because it was a national park and this boat was very precious!  This was our girls' first time going through security, so they didn't quite know what we were doing, but soon learned!

Once we got throutgh the gate, we separated into two groups.  The first group was for those people who wanted to do a self-guided tour of the top deck of the USS Constitution and the other group was for those who wanted to go on a tour of the top and lower deck of the boat led by somebody from the navy.  We chose the second group!  I definitely wanted to go on a tour!

On the tour, we learned that this was one of the very first ships that the navy built way back in 1797!! Our country did not have a navy yet, but we were getting attacked at sea. We had to do something to defend our country! The United States government realized this and had give orders to build six frigates and this was one of them.  It is completely wooden and is still in amazing condition, about 9-10% of the boat is still original wood from 1797!.  It had fought in many wars and is mostly known for the battle against the in HMS Guerriere in 1812.  During this battle, the Guerriere was shooting canons at the side of this ship, but since the boat's sides were three layers thick, the canons just bounced off the side.  This boat then became knows as "Old Ironsides."  You probably heard of this when you learned history in school. :)

We went below deck and checked out the canons, the tour guy said it took 6-9 people to man one of these canons and when you signed up to serve, you knew you were going to go deaf from these canons, but many people sacrificed their hearing to serve our country! There were over 35 of these canons on the bottom deck.

After we got done with our tour of the USS Constitution, we went through the vistory center which told about the navy yard and how they used to build the ships there. We learned that the USS Constitution was actually built there at the navy shipyard in Boston in the late 1700s.. It still resides in it's home port.

Since it was already about 2 pm, we decided to skip the hands-on USS Constitution museum because I read there were a lot of hands on activities for the kids and I figured once we went in there, the kids would not want to leave. :)

Our next destination was the Bunker Hill monument and this was also on the Freedom Trail.  This was about a 6-8 block walk from the navy yard and it was all uphill! This monument was in remembrance of the battle that was fought here in 1795. 

Here's how it went.
1.  The British who were camped out in Boston at Boston Commons decided that they were going to go to Concord and get the Patriots' (those who were against the English) store of supplies and try to find the leaders of the rebel cause.
2.  The sexton put the lanterns in the top of the church to warn that the British were coming and Paul Revere went off on his midnight ride to warn the patriots that the British were indeed coming.
3.  The Revolutionary War started on April 19, 1795 when shots were fired at Lexington either by the patriots or the English- nobody really knows.
4.  The English couldn't really find what they wanted because the patriots had early warning to move all their weapons, so they decided to march back to Boston.
5.  Again, a spy was sent forward to Boston to tell of the coming Englishmen and the patriots quickly built a fort at the top of Bunker Hill.  They knew they needed a hill for defense.
6.  The British found this out, attacked the hill, and beat the patriots.  This is a memorial to that battle.  This battle took place n June 17, 1775.

The first thing I thought of when I saw this was that it looks like the Washington Monument in Washington, DC!  We trekked all the way up those steps and up to the monument.  Little did I know was that you could climb to the top of this tower! Were we going to climb this? Of course we were! All 294 steps! Christian even climed every single one himself!

Matt, Courtney, and Christian climbing the steps.

Once we got the top, there were some great views of Boston!

 

Do you see the USS Constiution in the middle of the picture? We were quite a ways up!

After that we headed back down and ended up catching a tour guide explaining the battle of Bunker Hill. Of course, I sat down and listened! I was also very tired from walking up and down 294 steps, so I was happy for the break. I think the children were too. :)

Once the story of the battle was over, we got back on the Freedom Trail and headed back towards the navy yard because we then promised the kids that we would take them on the subway.

But we had a little hiccup in our plan.  As we were walking by our parking garage, we remembered that we needed our parking ticket validated from the USS Constitution museum to get a discount on parking, so Matt and Courtney headed down to the truck to get his ticket.  Megan, Christian, and I waited outside, but when he came out, he said couldn't find the ticket.  He asked me if I had it and I said no. So we ALL went back to the truck to search for it.  After determing that the ticket was not in the truck, I started going through my purse and sure enough it was stuck in my notebook that I always carry with me!

We exited the garage and went back to the museum (the one I didn't want to go to in the first place.) Matt headed in by himself while I kept the kids outside at the entrance to the navy yard.

Courtney and I are catching a break from walking, she is showing me where she wants to go next on the map!  Matt soon reappeared with the validated ticket and we were off to find the subway.

We had to cross the bridge to get to the nearest subway stop, so we had to go over this huge bridge back to the main part of Boston.

Here is Megan on the bridge. Do you see the red line on the sidewalk? This was the line that made up the Freedom Trail that spanned for 2 1/2- 3 miles around Boston. This is the trail we had followed for the last two days.

Once over the bridge and down a couple of blocks, we were at the subway station.  The girls had never ridden a subway before, so this was all new to them. Matt and I found some machines to buy tickets, figured out what we needed after asking someone, and had our tickets bought. Next step: figure out where we needed to go to get on the right train!

As we were standing there looking at the map, some nice college student came up and asked us if we needed any help, but just at that moment, we had figured it out!

Here comes our train!

The kids loved riding the subway and I didn't take any pictures on the tran because I didn't want to look too much like a tourist. :)

We rode the train across downtown Boston and got off by the site of the Boston tea party.  There is a museum and replicas built there now, but they were $35 a person to tour the replicas! Crazy! We just walked by and took some pictures.

Here is the tourist center to the right and a replica of the ship is towards the left. I was surprised at how small these ships were! ( I was a bit confused here- Do you see to the right? The building is actually attached to a bridge and it is out in the middle of the harbor. Was that bridge really there when the Boston Tea Party happened??)

Before we saw the tea ships though, we walked down the wharf a little bit and looked into the river.  They also had some neat "outdoor furniture" that the kids loved! I think they were all made out of recycled material (or something like that.)  There were probably 5-6 different types of "outdoor furniture" along the wharf. Here is one example of the fun furniture!

As we were coming back from the tea party ships, Courtney was skipping and "crashed and burned" as I like to say. :) Do you see what shoes they are wearing? I can't believe I let them wear those flip-flops all day around Boston! I know how easily they fall and Courtney definitey fell! She scraped her knee and ankle up pretty bad and Matt ended up carrying her for awhile.

We had also promised our girls that we would get them ice cream sometime and since Courtney got hurt, it seemed like the perfect time. :)  It was also nearing 6 pm and we were all getting hungry.  We saw a Mcdonalds sign outside the main train station that we had passed, so we went in there to see what we could find. We were in luck! There was a McDonalds!  Matt had mentioned that maybe we should get something to eat, but I said, "No, we will just get ice cream, we will be heading home shortly."  Little did I know how late we were going to get home and we all should've eaten when we had the chance!

Here are the girls enjoying their caramel shakes! (The Mcdonalds we were at didn't have the caramel shakes like they do back home, so the employee put caramel in the bottom of a cup, added ice cream, and mixed it all up. It worked!) You can tell that Courtney had been crying! Poor thing!

 

 

After we got done at McDonalds, we headed back to the subway station.  We rode back to our stop, but instead of getting off, we decided to ride it to the end of the line and back!  Once we got to our stop for the second time, we got off and had to walk back across the bridge. By this time, it was a lot cooler than it was before and it was getting dark. I wasn't concerned for my safety at all, but I am glad Matt was with us.

 

Eventually we got back to our parking garage and went to pay for our parking and guess what? Matt couldn't find his ticket! The same one we couldn't find before!  He searched through all his pockets and his wallet and couldn't find it, so the guy working gave us the $5 off anyway! Ugh! (He eventually found the ticket the next day and we just shook our heads!!)

 

We got back in our car and drove the 45 minutes home.  I think it was almost 9:30 when we got home! And yes, we all had to find something to eat, except for Matt who was smart and got something at Mcdonalds.  We then had to get everybody into their pajamas and into bed! I think it was about 11 pm before everybody settled down and went to sleep!

 

A very long day, but very fun!!