After our time in Maine, it was time to head south to Massachusetts.  Which will from hence forth be referred to as MA in this blog post so that I don’t develop a severe hand cramp.  The biggest thing I wanted to do in MA was Boston.  I had been once before and had fallen in love with it’s history and charm.  But, low and behold, I could not find a good campground that was anywhere near it.  Cities seem to be hit or miss with campgrounds.  St Louis had an RV park right downtown that was so convenient when we went there.  But not Boston.  So, we stayed about an hour and a half away at the Boston/Cape Cod KOA which was only 20 minutes away from Plymouth.  We were excited to explore the history there, too!

The KOA was nice enough.  The people I interacted with in the office were super sweet and they seemed to have a lot going for them in the summer time.  Again, we didn’t get to enjoy their heated pool or playgrounds because of our fall temps.  And our site was a bit sloped to the front of our RV, forcing us to level with the front tires off of the ground.  And even still, Zac had an uneasy feeling during the entire time because he felt like it just wasn’t even.  And it was a bit pricey, I guess because there is so little to choose from in the area!  Supply and demand, you know.  And, if I were ever to go to Boston again, I would hands down FLY.  (Wow, that was a lot of “And”s.  Sorry.)  The traffic is ridiculous.

 

Remember how I said the campground was an hour and a half away?  It was actually only 30 miles away but you sat in traffic for an hour trying to get into the city!  In hindsight it would be hard for me to recommend this KOA simply because if you just want to go camping it’s far too expensive and if you want to go to the city you should just fly in.  But it suited our full timer needs just fine.

Since we were driving into the city, we parked at Boston Common and then walked the rest of the city.  We didn’t walk the whole city.  We pretty much stayed with the historical parts.  We began with the freedom trail that started at the Common and ended at Faneuil Hall.  You can walk this trail independently and see all of the sites yourself, but we bought tickets for the tour with a guide in authentic costume that tells you the history with dramatic flair.

We had an awesome tour guide who was really engaging and interesting and loud enough to hear with all of the city traffic going on around you.  It was such a fun experience.  Caydence got into it, but the boys were a little bored.  Probably best for five and older.

Then at Faneuil Hall, we got our national parks passport stamped and grabbed a bite to eat at one of the markets there.  I got a yummy lobster roll, Zac had lobster mac and cheese, and the kids each got a piece of Regina’s pizza.  Then we sat in the square where I had remembered there were wonderful street performers the last time I was there.  I was hoping for some great acrobatic show, but the only person doing anything there was a British man dressed up like Donald Trump who had rewritten his own lyrics to the Simon and Garfunkel classic, The Boxer.  It was all about how Donald Trump “Lie lie lies.  Lie lie lie lie lie lie lies.  Lie lie lie (insert profanity here) lie lie lie lie lie lie lie lie lie lie lie liesssssss”.  I would have taken a picture, but I didn’t want to encourage him.  Luckily his accent was thick enough that I don’t think the kids noticed he was swearing a lot.

We decided not to pay for the North End extension of our freedom trail and we walked up to Paul Revere’s house and the Old North Church ourselves.  All of this was situated very close to Boston’s Little Italy, so we stopped by Mike’s Pastry and had some yums!  Zac got his go-to tiramisu and it was SO good.  We were glad we went.

After that, we were all tired from the walking and decided to trek back to the car for the LONG drive home.  The GPS told us the devastating news that with traffic, our trip would take two hours.  We decided we would break up the long drive with dinner and I just knew we HAD to go to Wahlburgers!  Who could pass up the opportunity to possibly run into Mark Wahlburg?!?!??!?  I mean, Zac was just beside himself with excitement!  Ok, it was me.  I was excited.  But Zac loves burgers so he was in!

We had a tasty burger and the waitress was kind enough to change the channels on the TV to the Indian’s game so that we could watch them win their series with the Blue Jays to head to the World Series!  We felt bad since we had just beaten the Red Sox to get there… oh wait, no we didn’t.  😉  GO TRIBE!

The next two days we split up our time between seeing the Mayflower II and Plimoth Plantation.  This is a really great experience, but again I felt like it was a little pricey.  They are, of course, offering something you can ONLY see there.  So they ask a lot and they get it.  But when all was said and done, it was $100 for the five of us to see both of those things.  And it was so cool and interesting, but I don’t think I’d do it again for that price.  The Mayflower II replica of the original Mayflower was such an eye opening experience.  To see how small their living space was.  And dark.  And damp.  And, although it didn’t smell on this boat it would have been, smelly.  And they were all crammed in there for two months!  Two babies were born!  Yikes.  And just looking at it and thinking of going across the ocean in that small wooden thing.  Not for the faint of heart!

And then the plantation was a really fun time too.  Again, it was a replica of the original town.  When you were on the boat, there were dressed actors playing the parts of the captian and William Bradford and they were, of course, in the year 1620.  When you were at the plantation, all of the actors were in the year 1624.

Some of the actors were younger and portrayed people who came over on the next boat after the Mayflower but many were older and came over on the Mayflower.  They wouldn’t really offer up that much information unprompted.  You had to pry and ask the questions and when you did, they offered up great information on what life would have been like back then.  And even their accents were on point!  Again, Caydence enjoyed this one a bit more than the boys.  There was a field trip there of 5th graders and they really seem to be the ideal age to take.  They were old enough to really get engaged and ask their own questions.  So, even though it’s a bit pricey, I would recommend doing it once to see how the Pilgrims lived when they settled here.

And, as I close out this chapter on MA, I will leave you with this.  A picture of the lesser known 6th Novak on the bus and a festive headband Caydence made for him.