What can I say about Boston? Let's see...it's crowded, it's expensive, it's streets don't make any sense, and it's filled with bad drivers! That being said, you should understand why we ended up only spending less than one day there.
We left Plymouth just after lunch yesterday and drove into Boston. Originally, we had planned to dry camp a Wal-mart just south of the city for two nights and take the subway in. Michael changed his mind after finding out this was a small Wal-mart that wasn't open 24 hours. We just didn't feel safe so we called AAA and asked for their advice on a different place to stay. They recommended a campground called Winter Island that is about 30 minutes northeast of Boston. It was the closest campground/marina to the city. We called the campground and they said we could stay overnight for $20. Wow, what a good price! The only thing missing was the sewer hook-up but at least we had water and electric. We pulled into the campground, unhooked the jeep, and drove the 30 minutes back into Boston in order to beat the afternoon rush traffic.
Getting into the heart of Boston was more confusing than we had expected. There are lots of bridges and intersections where 4 or 5 roads are merging at once. The interstates go through long tunnels under the city and the traffic just flies through them. Once you're in the tunnels, you have to watch carefully for the exit signs and take the ramps up to the street level. It's the strangest road system I've ever seen. The roads through downtown and the historic district are not much better. Someone once said "the streets in Boston were laid out by the cows", and I agree! There is no rhyme or reason to them. We were following a map of the area but couldn't figure out how to get to several of the historic sites we wanted to see. At one point, we knew we were just a block away from Paul Revere's house, but every road we passed was a one-way only, going in the opposite direction.
Once we did get to our first stop, the Boston Tea Party exhibit, we had to find a place to park. We found a parking garage and entered.....and left....QUICKLY....when we saw the rates. It was $8 for 20 minutes! Or a maximum of $35 for a few hours! Can you believe that? We looked around for other parking but there was none to be found so we scrapped the plans for the Boston Tea Party and headed to the other side of town to see the USS Constitution which is docked in the Navy Yard. We found the Bunker Hill monument and the USS Constitution but once again couldn't find parking. By this time it was almost 5:00 and we were all getting hungry. We found a restaurant and ate and then headed back to the ship to take some pictures and tour the museum. This time we did find a parking spot on the street. The meter only took quarters....we had 3 which gave us 36 minutes. We hurried to the museum and walked in the door just as they were closing. The lady was kind enough to give us about 5 minutes to take a few pictures before she locked the door. The boys were disappointed because it looked like a really neat museum. After that, we went to see the USS Constitution.....and to our disappointment found out that it is closed on Mondays! At least we got a few pictures from the outside. There was another boat in the Navy yard. It was dry-docked for repair so the kids got to see how that is done.
Boston has a "Freedom Trail", a 2.5 mile walking path through the city that passes 16 historical sites. We were planning to walk it, but since we didn't have time we attempted to drive by the sites. The tangle of roads wasn't very friendly so we didn't find most of them, but we did come across several historical churches, the State Building, the site of the Boston bombing, and Fenway Park (Home of the Boston Red Sox). During our drive, we went up and down so many narrow streets lined with cars. It seems like there are absolutely no driveways in this city, just street parking. And there's not much room for that either. If your neighbor needs to get into his spot and can't, he'll back into your bumper and make room. We saw it happen more than once. I think every car I saw was either scratched up on the front or back bumper. I even saw one car with a "bumper guard" draped over the back bumper to protect it from damage. How can people live like this?
The site of the bombing.
A war memorial.
The State House
Home of the Boston Red Sox
Finally it was time to go back to the RV at the little campground. We searched for a Wal-mart on the way and finally found one. The first one we've found since we left home over two weeks ago. We bought a few groceries, headed back to the RV, pulled into the campground ready to fall into bed, and what do you know.........the gate was locked!!! We just sat there in shock! There we were, 10:00 at night, locked out of our own RV, with cold food in the car. Finally, we decided that myself and the kids would climb through the fence and walk to the RV with the groceries while Michael went to find someone to open the gate. He found someone and was able to get the Jeep safely into the campground. So much drama in one day!
Jeremiah was ready for his bed!
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