August 2009 Weekend Trip to Boston

We decided to take a quick trip to Boston one weekend in August. We left early Saturday and headed to Boston. It's about a 3 1/2 hour drive but it's pretty along the way so, felt like shorter.

We started out walking the Freedom Trail. It's a 2.5 mile red-brick lined walkway, though it felt like a lot longer! The trail starts out at the Boston Common park and leads you through the city of Boston by a red-brick line on the sidewalk. Along the way are various historical landmarks, buildings, monuments, etc.

Here's the line we followed through the city, neighborhoods, the market, up hills, over bridges, etc.

This is a really old and small cemetary in the middle of the city with all sorts of big modern-day buildings all around it. That's something I thought was unique about Boston; the city kind of grew around the cemetary and old buildings.

There were numerous famous and historical gravesites here. This one is Paul Revere's Memorial and the one below is his actual gravestone which is right next to the other.

Other gravestones include: Boston Massacre victims, Sam Adams, Ben Franklin's parents and John Hancock.

Most of the gravestones were illegible and slanted 1 way or the other.


This is the Old State house. It was the capitol building and the site to many historical speeches and events that lead to the revolution including the Boston Massacre, which began just on the other side of the building.


Here's the intersection where the Boston Massacre began.

This is Paul Revere's home. We took a tour through it but they didn't allow photography so, can't show you that. Sorry!

This is the Old North Church and the statue is Paul Revere. The 2 shuttered windows are the two windows that Paul Revere hung the 2 lanterns to alert the patriots that the British were coming! (by sea)

Up a steep and long hill and over a bridge, then up another steep hill and we came to the Bunker Hill monument. For those who don't know, Bunker Hill was the site of the 1st major battle of the Revolutionary war.

One of Boston's pretty harbor's with the city behind. Believe it or not, the trail started way over there!

This is where we ate dinner that night. It was pretty good seafood, but we thought it was a bit over-priced. After dinner we went to a comedy club. There were 4 or 5 different comedians. We didn't know any of them but they were all pretty hilarious!

This is outside the Aquarium. We stopped by here Sunday morning. They have a huge 3 story salt water tank, with stairs that wind up around it. The tank had all kinds of fish as well as sea turtles and sharks. There were a couple of feedings while we were there by some scuba divers. There were also 2 huge open peguin habitat areas and a smaller one. Each had a different type of penguin in it. It was all pretty cool!

Greg made several attempts to get that perfect Jellyfish picture. The one where there is no doubt of what that thing in the picture is. Finally, here it is!

This funny dude held out his wing the whole time we were watching him.

There were tons of them! It was really fun to watch them interact with eachother and with the workers cleaning and feeding them.

Here's us at Boston harbor by the Aquarium.

After we went through the Aquarium we drove through some of the neighborhoods and then around the Harvard University area. We didn't see much of the University because it's surrounded by a tall brick wall with various arched gates. Fancy!

We headed back to Burlington and got back in time to make dinner and start the week again. It was nice to get away for a quick trip.