Boston/home (05-28-13)

Having lived most of my life here, there is no such thing as enough time in Boston for me.  There are so many things to do, and so many people to see, I could spend the whole summer here.  I said that to one of my friends, and she perked up, thinking we might decide to stay.  But no.  We did extend our stay another 5 days, so the stress of trying to squeeze in as much socializing as possible in a short time has lessened, but not by much.  But we are determined to spend the summer in Canada, so leave we must.
A few weeks ago, before we got here, Paul and I discussed the fact that since we’ve been on such a history kick lately, we should approach Boston from a tourist standpoint and explore all the historical sites.  Well, that plan has fall pretty much fallen apart, since we haven’t really had any time to go exploring yet.  Maybe we will, before we head out of town.  We’ll see.

So, what have we been doing?


We’ve been hanging out with our son Stephen.

We celebrated my birthday with my family at my brother’s house-and even face-timed with my daughter Jess on my ipad, so she could be with us too.  Of course, since then she has booked a flight, and will be with us in person in a little over a week!

We took the “T” in to Fenway Park with my brother Ray and his wife Dawn, to watch the Red Sox play the Cleveland Indians:

We had great seats to watch the action on the field.

I love the saying “it’s not over till Big Papi swings.”   Although David Ortiz didn’t hit his signature home run, he’s still one of my favorite players!

 

When a man as big as Ortiz steals third, it’s quite an accomplishment.  And although my brother says it’s called “Defensive Indifference”, I still call it stealing!

The game wasn’t the most exciting game ever, with the Red Sox down by three by the bottom of the 9th inning. Typical of Boston fans, though, the stands were still full and very few people had left.  Good thing, too! 

 

By the time there were two outs in the 9th, the Sox had scored another two runs, and Terry Francona, (who used to manage the Red Sox, but now manages Cleveland) was on the mound, changing pitchers. The game was  pretty exciting by that point, and ended in a win for the Red Sox when Jacoby Ellsbury drove in two runs when he hit a line drive with the bases loaded.  Now, that was fun!

It was very touching when the Yankees fans sang Sweet Caroline at the Yankees game after the Boston Marathon bombings, and it made it more emotional for me to hear it at the Red Sox game.

 

My clever sister-in-law Dawn had the foresight to make reservations at nearby Jerry Remy’s Restaurant for after the game, and dinner was delicious!










We spent a day out on the water with some old boating friends.  Their son bought a boat and we went out with them all on the shake down cruise.  It sure did make me miss boating on the ocean with our friends!










  
  Paul got his chance at the helm. 













We couldn’t have asked for better weather for lounging at anchor and zipping around the islands.  They keep their boat in Danvers Mass. and we took it out to Misery Island, off the coast of Beverly, MA.

So, that’s the short version of what we’ve been up to for the last week or so, with more craziness to come. 

The Last of Washington DC (05-12-13)

We did end up extending our stay in Washington DC so we could take in a few more sights, then still had to make tough choices on what to see.
We both really loved the National Museum of American History, and we hadn’t been able to finish it, so we headed back there and actually spent another 3 and a half hours there  The museums are open later some nights so we took advantage of that and exhausted ourselves by staying until the museum closed. 
Earlier in the day we toured the National Air and Space Museum but we have seen a lot of similar exhibits in the last year or so, so a lot of it was repetitive.  
Looking for something completely different, we decided to head to the National Zoo.  The weather forecast called for rain, but luckily it (mostly) held off.  Its been a lot of years since we’ve been to a zoo, and this one is free, so, what the heck.

  This zoo has Asian elephants, but none of the larger African elephants, because they aren’t endangered and the zoo felt that their available space would be better used  for the endangered species.  I know that elephants are intelligent, but when I read about some of the things they can do, I was still surprised.  Elephants have self-awareness.  If you put a white chalk mark on an elephant’s head, when he sees himself in a mirror, he will wipe the mark off!  Pretty neat.

I had never seen or heard of this cutie before- its called a Sand Cat, and it’s about the size of a house cat.  They live in the deserts of Africa and Asia, where the temperatures reach 125 degrees during the day, and 0 degrees at night. It has furry paws and leaves no paw prints.

  There were several Cheetahs, one of my personal favorites.  I didn’t know that when a Cheetah is running at full speed, 60-70 mph, their stride is 23 feet long. Holy Cow!

There are more pictures of the zoo in my “Recent Pictures” slideshow on the right hand side of my blog site.  You can click on it to see larger pictures.  Paul and I left D.C. and are on our way to Boston.  We both have colds now, so we are going to hunker down in a NPS campground in Pennsylvania for a few days. We are using our Wilson cell phone antenna and are still barely able to get online, so every time I try to do something with my blog, it gets messed up, re-posts entries and in general is just a pain in the neck.

Eenie, Meenie, Miney, Moe (D.C. 05-08-13)

There are an amazing amount of museums and historic sights to see in this area.  Some of them we know we can skip-neither of us in much interested in art, so the art museums can easily be bypassed.  Other than that though, we have had to make some tough choices.  Should we take a day off and head to Annapolis? (stay tuned for that answer) Would the National Building Museum be of interest to Paul?  Should we pay to take the tour of Ford’s Theatre?
We keep saying we should sit down and make a list of our “must do” museums, but somehow we don’t.  Every night we just decide what we want to go see the next day.  We can always extend our stay for a few days if we run out of time, so we’ll see.
Tuesday we decided we’d go to the National Museum of Natural History, and the National Museum of American History.  It soon became apparent that we had totally underestimated how big these museums are.  After spending the entire day at the Museum of Natural History, we left at closing time without having seen everything.  Each wing of these museums could be a museum in it’s own right.

There are rooms dedicated to the ocean and life within it- from tropical fish to the Right Whale- so named because it was the “right” whale for whalers to hunt.  It had valuable blubber and the added bonus that when it was killed, it didn’t sink.

Of course there was an entire section devoted to mammals.

The gem and mineral collection contained mock ups of 3 kinds of mines, with descriptions of how, where and when the mining was done, plus an impressive display of rocks and gems, including the Hope Diamond, a 45 carat diamond found in India.

It was while we were in the gem room that it became obvious to us that it was still raining outside.  No joke, this is how crowded this museum was.

One of the more unique wings of the museum, called “Written in Bone” is dedicated to forensics.  Jamestown Virginia, not too far from here, presented a great opportunity for this museum to teach archeology and forensics, all in a great display.  For many years, it was assumed the the first English settlement, Jamestown, had been absorbed by the James River.  Then in the 1994, during an archeological expedition, evidence of the town and the people who lived in it was discovered.

Using forensics, evidence from the gravesite itself, and historic documents,  they have been able to determine what this person looked like, and who he probably was.  His name was Captain Bartholomew Gosnold.
Over a million artifacts have been uncovered at Jamestown.








The following day we jumped right back in, and, getting a slightly earlier start, headed to the Smithsonian Institute National Museum of American History. What a mouthful.
As it’s name implies, this museum is about all things American, covering subjects such as wars, transportation, agriculture, communication, and culture

 

We started in the Stars And Stripes room- an entire room dedicated to the American flag and the Star Spangled Banner.  No pictures are allowed to be taken in that room, but it was neat to be looking at the original flag that flew over Fort McHenry, while listening to the National Anthem in the background.

 

There were lots of pictures illustrating Americans displaying the flag during times of distress and happiness- with the flag representing, in a variety scenarios, what it means to be American.

A room full of memorabilia included an original Kermit the frog, Dorothy’s ruby slippers, Archie Bunker’s chair, the hat Abraham Lincoln was wearing at the Ford Theatre, and Apolo Ohno’s skates.

 

A display of Food in America had  Julia Child’s entire kitchen.

 

One of the stories was about wine.  Zinfandel grapes were usually used to produce cheap red wines, and by the 1960s, most vintners in California had moved on to making Chardonnays and Cabernets.  The Sutter Home winery was still using old vines to make red zinfandel but one day, a mistake was made, and too much sugar was left in the wine.  After a week or so, the winemaker tasted it and liked it.  A new wine had been “invented”: White Zinfandel. 

 

The impact of motorized transportation on society is a theme we have seen quite a few times before, but this museum offered new and interesting tidbits to our knowledge database.

As the number of automobiles grew, states began requiring them to be registered.  In  1901,New York was the first state to have that requirement, but by 1918, all states required license plates. Driver’s licenses came later- in 1935, only 39 states required drivers to be licensed, and only a handful required that drivers pass a test.

The advent of the school bus in the early 1930s changed school systems.  Rural children no longer attended a localized, one room schoolhouse, but were bussed further away to consolidated schools, where kids were separated by age.

 

In the 1950s, with so many households owning cars, the urban population started moving out to the suburbs, where land was plentiful, but cars were a necessity. Most families were “one car” families, with the dad commuting into the city using public transportation, so the car could be left for the mom to use. 

I definitely have memories of driving with my mom to drop my dad off at the bus stop, so he could commute to his job in Boston.