The next morning, we all got up at different times even though we set Mom's phone alarm for 7:30 a.m. I didn't have to shower like everyone else because I did it the night before and I was good to sleep in for another few minutes. Everyone took their time getting ready and then we went downstairs for a hotel breakfast. It was super busy, but we did manage to find a table to sit at. I had two sausage biscuits, a banana, peaches and some chocolate milk. It was good to sit, eat and chat for a bit.
We went back up to the room and grabbed our daypacks, purses, warm clothing and headed out. We really had no idea what we were going to do up until our Freedom Trail Tour so we just kind of made it up as we went along. We walked about a half a mile along the sidewalks through Cambridge and north towards Harvard. Mindy had been here the day before with her friend, so she kinda knew where she was going and what we were going to see.
There was this large building on the west side of the street, and we wondered what it was. On the side of the street that we were on, told a story about the Cambridge area and that building, Cambridge Brands Inc. Boston, could one claim to be the candy capital of America. In 1950, Boston and Cambridge were home to 140 candy companies. Main Street in Cambridge, known as "Confectioner's Row," as lined with New England candy makers. James O' Welch (Junior Mints), Fox-Cross (Charleston Chew), Jack Smiley (hard candies), Graylock Confection (Tweet) and Dagget (chocolates). NECCO moved into Cambridge in 1947 and then to nearby Revere in 2003.
It was so cool to learn that Junior Mints were made on the road we were walking down. I was actually disappointed that there wasn't a cache hidden at this spot. We continued walking.
Mindy showed us the graffiti wall she visited with her friend the day before. Mom was really into these hidden gems that you really wouldn't know about unless you stumbled up on them or had someone tell you where it was. We spent about a half hour looking at the art and taking some pictures. We had to wait for a guy to leave so he wouldn't be in our pictures.
Mindy asked if we wanted to go up to Harvard and we all said yes so, we hopped on the red line up to Harvard's campus.
We arrived at our stop, got up, went up to ground level, crossed the street and entered through the gates of Harvard's campus. It was strange to be on an actual Ivy League's campus because this is a university I've only heard of and never thought I would ever visit, let alone walk around and absorb the history that has walked through here. The ever-popular social media site, Facebook, began here in Zuckerburg's dorm room.
We noticed that there were a lot of people wandering around taking tours. We weren't sure if it was for future students with their parents or a parent weekend? We didn't know for sure. I knew where I wanted to go and followed my phone to the earthcache, Indiana Limestone on Campus (GC6A04T).
I worked on that while Mindy, Rhonda and Mom caught up to me. They were busy looking at all the old brick buildings. I felt like I answered all the questions, jotted them down and took out the cutouts I made of Grammie and Grandpa. I wanted them to pose with me on Harvard's campus. I don't think either of them have been to Harvard or Massachusetts before. Rhonda took a few pictures for me.
We walked around a little bit more and then decided it was time to head towards downtown Boston again for our Freedom Trail tour at 2. On the way out to the subway, we watched a bicyclist almost get hit by a car, he pounded the car's hood with his fist and left a dent. I laughed and was really lucky to see that. We walked down to the subway and took the red line south to Downtown Crossing. Mom mentioned grabbing some drinks and snacks, so we found the closest CVS and picked up a few things. I grabbed a couple Pepsi Zeros, a Milky Way and a bag of Fritos to much on.
We noticed that downtown Boston was a little busier than it was the day before and saw they were having a Halloween dog costume parade. We hung out for a little bit watching it. We saw so many dogs and people wearing costumes. Mom, Rhonda and Mindy took several dozen photos. We walked around, went into a couple places just to explore and took more pictures of our experience. I love learning about new cities. I wish I could do this more often than once or twice a year.
As it was approaching our tour time, we started making our way back over to the Boston Common area. Along the way, we saw the souvenir shop we saw yesterday on our way to Fenway and this time we had our daypacks with us. I bought a few shirts, stickers, postcards and a couple magnets. It was the perfect place to purchase gifts to bring home for family and friends because it was inexpensive. We then walked across the street to the park. The Boston Common was massive!
We went inside the park and because it was a nice day there were lot of people also enjoying the park with their kids, dogs, family and friends. So far, we've been pretty lucky with the weather we've gotten, and I hope it continues throughout the week. We saw many other tours were going on and realized we needed to go to the furthest northeast corner of the park to meet up with ours near Beacon Hill. Meanwhile, Mom and I did the two virtual caches, The Shaw 54th Regiment (GC891J9) and The Massachusetts State House (GC9P5VH). Rhonda sat down at one of the benches nearby and hung out.
Our tour guide, Charlie, asked us if we were a part of the Freedom Trail tour at 2 and we said yes. He briefly checked us in, and we hung out a little while longer until it reached 2. The Freedom Trail is a 2.5-mile-long path through Boston that passes by 16 locations significant to the history of the United States. Marked largely with brick, it winds from Boston Common in downtown through the North End to the Bunker Hill Monument in Charlestown. We saw the path just about everywhere we went before our tour. It is really hard to miss it.
As it approached our 2 p.m. tour, more and more people arrived to check in with Charlie. We stood off to the side waiting for it to start. Charlie introduced himself, told us a little bit about what we were going to see, hear and experience. He said it was going to be about a 2.5-hour walking tour around Boston. At that point, I really should have used the restroom before we walked over here. That was my bad and I knew I was going to suffer through it.
We started at the Massachusetts State House and the 54th Regiment Statue where Charlie told us the significance of both of these locations. The state house has a wooden pinecone on top of it to signify Boston's lumber industry and the succession of the State of Maine from Massachusetts. We even got to see an old tree back from colonial times that has rotted in the middle. They wanted to preserve the tree, so they added bricks inside of it to keep its integrity, so it lasts for many more decades.
We walked across the street to the Park Street Church. I did a couple waypoints of the many Adventure Labs sprinkled throughout this tour. Unfortunately, I didn't get to finish a lot of them but did at least get a few pieces of each. Charlie took us down the street a little further to check out the Granary Burying Ground. We entered here and he told us the significance of the skulls you saw on many of the headstones. It was the representation of the soul flying to heaven after death. Some notable people buried here are Paul Revere, the victims of the Boston Massacre, Sam Adams, John Hancock and Robert Treat Paine.
We walked over to the Old Corner Bookstore, the Old South Meeting House and the Boston Latin School/Statue of Benjamin Franklin. I painstakingly tried to keep up with the Adventure Labs, listening to Charlie and trying to do the virtual caches as well. It was so cool to actually visit these places I've only learned about through textbooks at school. I stood there several times throughout the tour just absorbing the information, the surroundings and tried really hard to imagine what these places looked like back then.
Mom and I did the virtual cache, The Great Spring (GC9P8DB) while Charlie talked to the group about the spring in the alley.
We walked down to the Old State House where we learned that it has a statue of a unicorn on the right-hand side corner of the roof, Queen Elizabeth II visited, stood and delivered an address to a very large audience to celebrate the bicentenary of the US on July 11, 1976, and this is near the site of the Boston Massacre, which took place on March 5, 1770. Five colonists were killed by nine British soldiers. I stood there for a few minutes answering the virtual cache, Old State House (GC9P7XY) as Charlie took the group to the next stop.
We made our way over to Faneuil Hall, where we learned a little bit about it the previous day on our donut tour. Charlie added a little bit more to it and we stood next to the Samuel Adams statue on the west side of the building while he rattled off more history about the area. I noticed a tent about 50 feet away while doing parts to an Adventure Lab and it was a Boston firefighter's fill the boot tent. I donated some money and bought a challenge coin from the guy running the stand. I told him that my fiancé was a firefighter in Washington State. He gave me a card and told me if Ben wanted to send him a SE Thurston Fire coin to send it to the address on the card. I told him I would ask if they had extras when I got home. He thanked me and I thanked him.
I rejoined the group as we walked to the North End. We stopped in front of the Paul Revere House. Charlie talked about the history of the house and the small Rachel Revere Square that we stood in. I worked on the Adventure Lab for the North End and the virtual cache, Paul Revere House (GC7B7AZ). I had to find a date behind the gated off area and it was almost hard to see but I found the piece I needed to claim a find. By this time, I really needed to use the restroom, but we still had a couple places to go, and public restrooms were not that easy to find.
Our next stop was the Paul Revere Mall, where Charlie talked about the Revere statue and the other plaques and memorials sprinkled throughout the mall. We walked to the Old North Church, which is the location from which the famous "one if by land, two if by sea" signal is said to have been sent. We walked down the narrow streets and made our way to the Copps Hill Terrace where Charlie concluded our tour. He spoke about the Copp's Hill Burying Ground, The USS Constitution, "Old Ironsides" and the Bunker Hill Monument. The ship and monument we could see in the distance across the harbor from where we were standing. It looked like a miniature version of the Washington Monument in DC. According to popular stories, Col. William Prescott, coined the famous Revolutionary War phrase, "Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes" during the Battle of Bunker Hill.
Charlie thanked everyone for attending the tour, who was still there at the end, and we all parted ways after thanking him back. We all speculated what he did for a living, since we didn't ask and he didn't volunteer the information, but he seemed like he was a professor or a historian of some sort. I asked Mindy, Rhonda and Mom if we could go find a bathroom because I was in serious need of one. They all agreed, find a bathroom and a place to eat, preferably the same place for both.
We walked around the North End for a few minutes and found a place called Ciao Roma that wasn't too terribly busy. We were seated upstairs right away, and we all took turns using the restroom. I was so thankful for a bathroom. We all ordered drinks, I just had water, and explored the menu. Mom has a really hard time expanding her horizon's when we go on vacation to different places when it comes to food. I knew she was going to be picky, so I explained what gnocchi was and she said that doesn't sound too bad. It sounded really good to me, so I ordered it too.
Our food came pretty quickly, and it sure hit the spot after walking around all day. We hadn't eaten since that morning at the hotel. As we sat there, it started getting dark. I asked everyone what we were going to do after dinner and they said, we could walk around downtown for a bit. That sounded good to me. We paid and headed downstairs.
We walked down the street back towards the Boston Market and downtown. We walked through the Holocaust Memorial, where I did the virtual cache, The New England Holocaust Memorial (GC9P896) and then went inside the Boston Market because Rhonda and Mindy wanted some coffee. Mom and I ended up purchasing a reusable Boston Market bag since her plastic bag was falling apart.
We wandered around downtown and made our way to Chinatown for a bit. We wanted to see the Chinese lanterns in the town square. It was such a nice night to walk around and see things. Chinatown is similar to all the Chinatown's I've visited in both NYC and Seattle. The lanterns and the arch were pretty cool to see. We walked through the rest of Chinatown and back to the Boston Common. I asked everyone if they were ready to go to Cheers and everyone said, yeah! Let's go!
We walked to Beacon Street from the Boston Common. We found the famous Cheers sign and took a couple photos with it before we had to dig out our ID to be checked to be let in. We all went inside and saw there weren't that many places to sit, and everybody didn't know our name. Luckily, we didn't have to wait that long and had seats right at the bar in front of the bartender. I looked at the beer choices and saw a blueberry hefeweizen. I had to try it! It is a Maine blueberry wheat beer made by UFO Beer. It is probably the best flavored wheat beer I've ever had! It was so good, and I should have had two of them. Rhonda drank a tequila drink; Mom bought a jack and coke and Mindy got one of the other wheat beers on tap.
We drank our drinks, joked around and talked to the bartender who was dressed up like Thor. It was a fun atmosphere and we stayed for about an hour or so. We went to the gift shop and upstairs to see the replica of the set but sadly, it was closed for the evening. Bummer. Oh well. We did get to see some of the memorabilia though and took a few pictures. I bought a magnet from the gift shop and when he handed me my change, part of it fell into the garbage. I didn't bother digging out like 30 cents because it wasn't worth the time or effort.
We left Cheers and walked over to Acorn Street, one of the most photographed roads in the US. When we arrived, we were very disappointed that there was a car parked in the middle of the street. Ugh, lame! We thought about coming back the next day, but we knew we weren't going to have the time to do so, we had to go with what we had. It is a private way owned and governed by a neighborhood association, acornstreetassociation.com. Neighbors retained ownership and control of this private way to prevent the City of Boston from paving it back in the 1980's. The stones used to cobble Acorn Street, technically called "cobs", are original, making this one of the last remaining authentic cobblestone streets in the nation. Visitors are asked to move quietly and quickly through the area. Acorn Street gives visitors a reminiscent view of Colonial Boston.
We walked back to the subway on Park Street and hopped on the red line back to our hotel in Cambridge.
We got back, I got in a shower and Amy rolled in around 10 p.m. that night. She had to stop a couple times to sleep along the way because she didn't feel very well. She thought she was getting better but she wasn't. She assured us it wasn't Covid. Her daughter Katie and her husband went to Hawaii and Amy went to Washington to be with her grandson and got sick. Amy was supposed to meet us on Friday night but didn't feel well so she drove over Saturday night instead. She missed all the tours she was going to take part in with us. We were going to be exposed to her cold after being vulnerable on Thursday-Friday traveling all day with very little sleep. I haven't been sick since October 2019 and have avoided Covid since the outbreak in 2020.
We all got situated and visited with Amy as the World Series played in the background. Astros won 5-2. We all ate some popcorn and went to bed late again...after midnight.
Next Adventure: MA-VT-NH-ME Girl's Trip: Leaving Boston, Marblehead, Lighthouse, Cemetery, Salem Night Tour (Day 4)
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