Day Seven of the Historic East Coast

Sunday Sept 21: Today is a travel day and we traved 152 miles to Plattenkill, NY. We travel in groups of 4 and we were leading and Barb was appointed the travel navigator. Barb was a bit nervous but they give us a log book with all the detailed directions so that helps. There camp grounds are out away from the towns and not easy to find.

Barb did laundry so we are ready for another week of touring.

Hope this finds all well with our family and friends .

Day 6 of The Historic East Coast

Sat Sept 20: We toured the Mystic Seaport. This is a small town called Mystic and the down is surrounded by the bay. They have a Museum of American and the Sea and the artifacts date back to the 1700 and 1800. The area was a shipyard and other businesses in its time.


This is a light house that used to be used back in the period of time.

This is the bay and the scenry from all the buildings that we were got to tour through.

This is a picture of a fire cart that they used to go on fires and look at the bikes that was used in those days.

After touring the museum we drove to the largest Indian Casino in the US or the World we heard both not sure which but it was huge and we ate lunch there.

In the evening we had a pot luck dinner with all the group in the caravan which was a nice get together.

Day Five of Our Historical East Coast Tour

Sept 19:Friday

Today was a travel day to CT. so we caravaned in groups of 4 and 20 minutes apart. It worked very smoothly. The Wagonmasters go ahead about a hour ahead of the first group. The Tailgunner leaves 20 minutes after the last group. We all arrived safely and set up camp and then headed out ride sharing to do some site seeing.



The sites for today was the Submarine Force Museum and go aboard a actual submarine called the Nautilus a (Nuclear Submarine).





This picture is of the harbour where the submarine is docked.

This picture is the Nautilus submarine which is the first submarine in service. Barb got half way through and then decided to exit that it was to tight of a area for her to finish. What a weeney! Barb was not the only one that had to turn back so she didn't feel so bad. It was very small and confined. Guess Barb could have never been in the service.

This picture is the front entrance to the Submarine Force Museum.

This picture is the bay in the town of Old Mystic CT. The town and homes surround this bay very neat little town. Very busy there was a antique car show and lots of people and small narrow roads.

Day Four of Foxboro MA Historical Tour

Thursday Sept 18:
This was a 11 hour day bus tour of Boston, MA, with a tour guide that new the city like a book, but guess that is his job. Scott was his name and he gave us very important information about the rules in Boston. You do not purnounce your R's in words unless it begins with R. When you step out in a cross walk don't depend on the drivers to stop there are two types of people the quick and the dead. You are considered red meat for dinner if they hit you.

There are 100 Dunkin Donut shops there corporate offices reside in Boston and only 50 Starbucks. Barb would ask Teresa her daughter do you think that is fare? She would say NO!

In MA their are 100 colleges and 50 are in Boston. Rent is very high it cost $1600.00 a month for 500 Square Feet. One third of the people who live there does not own a car because there is no place to park them. 13 Million residents use the subway for transportation. The parking is on the street or you pay big money to try and get one in a parking garage close to where you live.

This picture is houses yes, your house is virtical it is 4 story this building is several homes and they are side by side and this complex could be a block or two long. So you understand the parking complexity and the streets are two way but only room for one car at a time.

The tour was called Boston's Freedom Trail which is a 2 1/2 mile walk or ride that covers 20 of Bostons historic points or landmarks, we saw Bunker Hill & Beacon Hill, The OLD NORTH CHURCH, the USS Constitution & Museum, Harvard college, & Quency Market. The Church, the USS constitution, Harvard, and Quency Mkt was the places we got off the bus and spent time.

This picture is of a early century Epispical Church and it was interesting to see several students sitting on the ground drawing pictures of this church. They more than likely was going to a college and it was part of their assignment. This is the 9th most beutiful church in the US.

This picture is Harvard University, we stood on the lawn of the main campus in front of the library. The guide told us 1 in 10 students get accepted that apply. 24,000 applied this year as freshman and only 1640 got accepted. The criteria is based on straight A grades, acedemics, community involvement, the application Essay, and the WASAL test scores are last. If you are from a wealthy known family you may have some advantage. The guide said even valvictorians was rejected and having a perfect criteria base is no guarantee you can get accepted. 98 % of the students graduate in 4 years, 2% graduate in 5 years. We shopped and ate lunch in the Harvard University area.

Another big college in Boston is MIT (MA Intitute of Technology), very strick school, high intensity of discipline, very hard to get accepted to because of the volume, it has a higher rate of suicides than some other colleges. You do nothing but study at this college 24 /7.

This market is a big open market some stores in buildings and some on the street. Very large
area we spent a hour and half and had dinner there but it was at the end of our day so did not do much shopping but we could all go back to our home state and say we had been there. We understand if you go to Boston you will be asked that question.

This picture is a sky line view of Boston from accross the harbour.

This is a picture of the harbor from the same place the skyline picture was taken from.

This picture is bunker hill a impressive granite monument, 221 feet high and marks the location of the Battle of Bunker Hill fought on June 17th 1775.

The picture above this picture is the entrance to the Old North Church this old colonial church dating from 1723 was the highest pooint on the skyline of Boston when the night of April 18, 1775 two lanterns were hung in the steeple. These lanterns was a signal to Paul Revere how the Redcoats were advancing on Lexington and Concord either by land or sea. One lantern lit was by land if two lit it was by sea.

This is a picture of the steeple where the lanterns were placed by the janitor that night.

They had room for 300 + of us tourist was ushered into this church and listened to a speaker on the history of the church. There is still church services every sunday in this church. The picture above is of the organ that you see is on the upper level of this building. Notice the 4 angels on the posts in front of the organ. They come from England. The clock was built by the sea captains. Notice where we all sat in boxes of 4 that is the way it was in the early days and that was because there was no heat in this building. But little heaters sat in each window (as you can see in the far window accross the way the black square object) with small boxes like this people stayed warm from each other sitting so close a confined space.
This picture was of a box of a sea captain that started the chuch and gave a large sum of money so if you did that you could decorate your box any way you wished.

This picture is of the USS Constitution and then there was a Museum also. We toured this ship.

Wow only with help of the Souvenir Guide books could Barb & Jerry pull all this information out of their brain. We have some great reference material for our grand children to read and do papers for their school history classes.

I took 43 pictures with the Camera that Teresa and Steve gave me for Mothers day and I love that camera it is so small and compact and easy to have in my purse THANK YOU SO MUCH.

Jerry took more than I did with his camera which is the big digital camera which he likes.

Day Three of The East Coast Historic Tour

Sept 17: The bus left at 8:00 am and we traveled into Boston. The traffic was ugly but at least we did not have to drive. We travedled to Lexington & Concord. We could not take pictures in the Concord Museum it was the house of a Author and with all the furnishings of his time.

This picture is in Lexington the soil that the Britsh soldiers and American Militiamen soldiers were in the first hostile action of the American Revolution. We met on the lawn. The white tall piller on the left is where the 8 solders that died are buried. The Militiamen were called minute men and the reason for this was once they were notified they could be ready in minutes. We were told it is like our National Guard is today.

This is a statue of a Minute Man it also was being rewaxed that is why there is scaffeling around it and two people working on it. All through this area from Lexington to Concord was the area where war began. We drove through the area that Paul Revere road through.

We had lunch at the Colonial Inn in Concord it was a very good meal.

The past two days have really been a walk through history that we studied in school but it means a lot more when you are in the spot where it all happened.

It is hard to share all the history but we have bought books of all the areas so we can share what we have seen.

Day Two Of Our Tour

Sept. 16: This is our second day and we traveled by bus to Plymouth to tour a museum, the Plymouth rock, Mayflower II, and Whale watching cruise accross cape code. We left the RV park at 7:30 and got back about 5:30 so it was a very long day. The weather was not as good as we would have liked it to be it was over cast and only about 70 degrees.




This picture is of our tour bus it is a Prevost a very nice bus. Barb tried to get a picture with it parked by some trees that are turning colors. Massachutes is one big forest of trees that is why they have the most colorful fall colors. They have so many kind of trees probably every kind of tree there is so that is why they have such pretty colors. The changing of the trees is late this year it is just starting. What we understand is it is because it has been so wet the past month.


Our first stop was at this Pilgrim Hall Museum. It was a tour of the history of the way of life and original furniture and paintings that come over on the Mayflower. We could not take pictures so we they gave us a web site we can go to do a down load .


This is a picture of the building of the museum. There was a 103 people who come over and after they got here only 51 survived. They showed a chart of the names of people and Barb actually found her ancesters name on the chart and there was 4 of the Bullingtons and all 4 survived. The ones who didn't survive died of small pox. A Large Wampanoag indian trib had been wiped out by small pox as well.

Then we toured the Mayflower boat with actual characters acting the part of life on the boat. This boat is a replica of the MayFlower boat that come over in 1957.

This is the big boat that we went out whale watching on.

Here is a hump back whale and her calf which was nursing so they come out of the water at the same time.

This is just a picture of their tail after they jumped out of the water. It was very hard to get pictures. Jerry took about 25 pictures but only 7 was good ones.

The real plymouth was under construction so there was all kinds of scaffling around it. Jerry got a picture but you could not even hardly see there was a rock inside all the construction. In the RV park we all have very large rocks on our lots. So when we got back for our social hour Jerry put ARK and SAW on the big rock next to our lot hopefully you can see them back by the Jeep.

First Day of the Historic Eastern Tour

Today was a get together and a Orientation party at 1pm to find out all our instructions. It lasted two hours and a lot of information but they give us a book with detail information so it looks like it will be a great adventure.


This first picture is of our wagon masters and tail gunners that do all the organizing. They have a big job but the wagon masters have been doing this since 1999 so they are very experienced.

This picture is of some of the other travelers with us. They gave us a break and Barb tried to get a picture before people started roaming but wasn't totally successful.

There is 7 of us that this trip is our first time with a tour group, 2 that it is their 2nd time, 2 that it is their 3rd time, 1 that it is their 4th time, 3 that it is their 5th time, 1 that it is their 6th time, one that it is their 10th time.

In ten minutes it is social hour so I need to wrap this up Barb would not want to miss that. haha

It appears we will be very busy from now on. Barb forgot the alarm clock so hope we don't miss the bus in the morning.