Boston

Map of this blog's locations click this link to open the map

After nearly a month in Maine and a night in New Hampshire, we are heading south into Massachusetts. In our 8 plus years of full time RV living, we have only spent 2 nights in this state. As we roughed out the plans for our journey to Florida for the winter, we decided to try to get into a bit more sightseeing here and budgeted 8 nights. Since we are planning on staying at Elks Lodges, we tried to scope out which ones got us into the areas we wanted to visit and settled on two of them. The first one in Hudson MA will give us a chance to head into Boston. It is located about 25 miles outside of town but fairly close to a commuter rail station so that we can easily get into Boston without needing to deal with traffic and parking. Hudson is not on a rail line, but it isn’t a long drive on I-495 to get to the train stop in Littleton. The train from there will get us to the North Station without the need for any transfers

Our arrival time at the lodge was good. They were not open yet, but there were a few members here getting ready for the evening dinner crowd so we were able get situated near the electric pole and be out of the way - well at least as out of the way as a 38 foot diesel pusher can be. We head in to the bar after they open and have a drink and dinner while getting all sorts of feedback from locals about things to see and do in the area for our 4 nights.

Our plan for the day trip into Boston was to check out the Freedom Trail - a 2.5 mile path through town that explores many of the sites famous from the American Revolution. I’m not a big history buff, but walking around and seeing some of the more iconic locations probably won’t kill me. Back in the late 1980’s to mid 1990’s, we had been to Boston several times to visit a college roommate that moved to the area and even a couple trips for work but we haven’t been back since so I would say it was time.

The next morning, we set our alarm to catch our train. We had studied the schedule and decided to shoot for the 7:51 AM train. From the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority website, this train should have available seats for the 50 minute ride into Boston. We downloaded the apps to pay for parking at the station as well as purchase our tickets. Since this was all unfamiliar to us, we arrived well before our scheduled departure time but eventually a dozen or so others show up and the train arrives on time. Shortly after we depart, the conductor comes through and scans our tickets on the phone and places paper tickets on the seat back in front of us. We stop at 11 other stations and by the time we arrive at North Station, the car is pretty full.

Waiting for the Train

It Has Arrived

Reasonable Interior

The Freedom Trail starts in Boston Common which is roughly a mile walk from the train station. We have several virtual geocaches along the way and in the park to show us around town. There are also quite a few Adventure Labs in the area but we decide that do our tour of town without using them. We have found that sometimes we get a bit too distracted with the tasks involved in completing these that they become a bother. We happened to be hitting our 16,000 geocache and so we selected one of the more popular virtual caches and had somebody take our picture to commemorate the event.

Pond at Boston Common

We Hit 16,000 Finds!

We enjoyed wandering around Boston Common before making our way over to the visitors center at the start of the Freedom Trail.

Chris Poses with Edgar Allen Poe

This is a very busy place and if you are looking to get a guided tour of the trail, this is the place to sign up for one. Many of the tour guides are dressed up like people from the revolutionary era. We decided that seeing things on our own and using a National Park app to learn about the sights would work out better for us - that way we can go at our own pace and wander off to check out other interesting things we might see along the way.

Visitor Center at Start of Freedom Trail

They do make following the Freedom Trail fairly foolproof. There is a double row of red bricks in the middle off the sidewalks or in the crosswalks at roads. Every now and then, there is a brass plaque in granite along the bricks just to make it clear you’re on the right path. Our first stop is at the Massachusetts State House. Even though we have kind of been on a kick of touring state houses this summer, we know that if we spend too long at any one stop, we likely won’t complete the trail.

Freedom Trail Red Bricks

Massachusetts State House

The next stop is at the Granary Burying Ground. This is a very popular stop. Established in 1660, this nearly 2 acre parcel is the final resting spot for over 5000 Bostonians. Including some of the most famous people from the Revolutionary era - Paul Revere, Samuel Adams, and John Hancock to name a few.

Granary Burying Ground

Paul Revere

Samuel Adams

Many of the old tombstones feature rather unexpected imagery carved into them. The Puritans of the day did not believe in religious icons so instead of angels or crosses, a skull with wings on either side were quite prevalent. Known as the “soul effigy”, they were to represent the soul flying to heaven.

Soul Effigy

The next stops are next to each other: the King’s Chapel and the First Public School in the country. The is a very detailed mosaic tile in front of the Boston Latin School - founded 1635. There is also the Boston Donkey that ended up becoming the symbol of the Democratic Party.

Tremont Temple

In Front of Boston Latin School

Boston Donkey

We had picked a day with really great weather so that may have contributed to the large number of people wandering around. Although it might simply be that Boston is a big city and we have spent most of the last few months in rather remote, unpopulated areas. While I don’t like the crowds, I do enjoy seeing some of the impressive architecture of these old buildings. At the Old State House, we needed to get some information from one of the plaques mounted in the walkway in front of the of the building. Of course our timing was such that one of those tour groups were standing right on top of where we needed to be so we needed to wait for them to move on.

Boston Irish Famine Memorial

Old State House

Great Architecture

Fancy Fire Escape

We made it to Faneuil Hall just before noon. This is one of the more famous stops along the trail and is often dubbed the “Cradle of Liberty”. We toured inside and checked out some of the many displays. This was also where we were able to stamp our National Park Passport book to prove we were here.

Faneuil Hall

By now we were getting hungry but we had a plan for that. One of the local Elks members had recommended a place called Paulis. It was only a block off the Freedom Trail and apparently has really good sandwiches. They don’t have much, if any, seating so we head over to a nearby park to enjoy lunch and watch the busy people scurrying around.

After eating, we get back on the trail and continue into the North End - Boston’s Little Italy. This is where Paul Revere’s house was. This destination also has tours but we have to limit our visit to just a quick look from the outside. There are some really pretty buildings here as well. As we were walking around, we saw lots of people with bags and boxes of treats from a place called Mike’s Pastry. From the looks of it, they had some really good looking cookies, cannolis and other sweets. As we continue on the trail, we look down a street and see a sign for Mike’s just a block away. We decide to detour to get some desert and we found this place was swamped with people. It took us 15 minutes to be waited on but the cannolis we got were worth it.

Waiting at Mike's Pastry

A few block away, we arrive at the Old North Church. Founded in 1723, it is Boston’s oldest surviving church.  This was the famous location of "One if by land and two if by sea".

Saint Stephens Church

Holy Pizza Oven

Old North Church Steeple

Just up the hill from this church is Copp’s Hill Burying Ground. We take a quick look around. This cemetery has lots of tombstones with similar imagery to the ones we saw earlier in the day. Down the hill from here the trail heads across the Charles River in to Charlestown.

Copp's Hill Burying Ground

Charles River

We are nearing the end of the Freedom Trail and it is only around 2PM, so we are making fairly good time. We had been worried that we would need well into the afternoon. At City Square Park, there is a split in the trail, showing it going two different directions. We look at our maps and decide to walk thru the park and head to Bunker Hill Monument next.

City Square Park Charlestown

St Mary Church

Ready for Halloween

This monument is rather impressive. It stands 221 feet tall and marks the location of the first major battle of the Revolutionary War - June 17, 1775. Since we were making decent time, we decided that it would be fun to actually climb to the top of the tower. Of course as our luck would have it, the monument is not open today so no good views for us.

Monument at Bunker Hill

As we head from Bunker Hill, we follow the split in the trail to the Charlestown Navy Yard - home to the USS Constitution. This is a large place with lots of displays and ships. We were sort of getting tired by now and didn’t really feel like paying to explore the museum. The USS Constitution is the oldest commissioned warship afloat in the world. Launched in 1797, this is a beautiful ship. We were looking forward to checking this out, but we discovered that this too was closed on Mondays! I guess we should have done a little more research and possibly planned our visit to Boston for a different day. It looked like the ship was being used for some sort of ceremony although it wasn’t clear what was taking place but many of the participants were in their military uniforms.

USS Constitution Museum

Ceremony on the Ship

USS Constitution

On the other side of the dock is the USS Cassin Young. This is a World War era destroyer. But yes, this one was closed today for tours as well. It has a nice view of other parts of Boston from the docks. One of the dry docks was empty of both water and a vessel, so it was possible to get a good look at how the ships get supported when they are brought in for repairs.

USS Cassin Young

Overlooking the Charles River

Wear Safety Shoes!

Commandant's House at Navy Yard

Empty Dry Dock

We finished the Freedom Trail just after 3 PM. We knew it was just under a mile back to the North Station to catch our train. I suspect we could have found lots of other things to do in this part of Boston, but we had worn ourselves out and according to the schedule, our next train heading back on the Fitchburg Line to Littleton, should be leaving here at 3:40PM. If we missed this one, we would have another 45 minutes to wait. We thought there may be a quicker route to the train station by going through Paul Revere Park. The only problem might be that there are some locks to cross over the river. We saw a few other people, heading that way so we gave it a try and found we could walk across the top of the lock gates.

Converse Headquarters

Crossing over Lock

We arrived at the train station with 15 minutes to spare. That was a good thing because unlike our morning train ride where the only options for trains were inbound or outbound. This station has more than 6 train options and if we get on the wrong one we could end up in the wrong town pretty easily. We discover that they don’t have a fixed gate for each train so we stand with hundreds of other commuters watching a large display that shows the trains that will be leaving over the next hour or so. Every few minutes an announcement is made as to which gate is now boarding for a given train. We patiently wait until our train is announced and we board ours with several hundred others.

Train Departure Board at North Station

It felt good to be sitting down after a long day of walking. I am convinced that even though today’s walk was shorter than many hikes we do, a slow, stop and go pace like we did today is more tiring than a hike up a mountain in Vermont. We made it back to the Littleton stop before 5 o’clock which meant we made it back to the rig well before dark. It was a fun and informative day in Boston.

Train Lets Us Off at Littleton

With a couple more days left in Hudson, we head out to get a bit more exercise in. Our goal is to bike the “Battle Road Trail” in Minute Man National Historic Park, halfway between Concord and Lexington. It’s about 20 miles east from our camping spot. From the descriptions we found, there is a gravel bike path that goes for 5 miles along the locations where the first battle of the Revolutionary War occurred on April 19, 1775. We park at the main parking lot, get the bikes off the car and head over to the visitor center. It was closed today, but at least this time we had checked in advance so we realized that would be the case.

Visitor Center at Minute Man NHP

Since the visitor center is closer to the eastern end of the park, we head east first. The trail is in great shape and there are informational signs now and then to describe what took place at the spot or occasionally who lived here. Many of the homes belonged to people that I may have read about in grade school when learning about the war, but have long since forgotten.

Jacob Whittmore House Getting a Facelift

Nice Trail for a Bike Ride

It’s only about 1.5 miles to the eastern end of the park from our starting point. However there was a rather large hill that made it a bit more challenging. It was a grey and overcast day but at least it wasn’t raining so it was fine for a bike ride. We turned around and planed to head the 5 miles to the western end of the park before returning to the car. Along the way was the spot where Paul Revere was captured.

Paul Revere Capture Location

As we continued west, we got to Captain William Smith’s house. Like many of the buildings along here, it was being refurbished - at least on the outside. The national park must be using some of the monies granted not too long ago to catch up on maintenance in this park. Unfortunately we didn’t make it much further before running into orange construction cones and a barricade. The trail looked fine beyond here but the sign explains that they don’t want visitors to use this section of the trail. We decide to head back and look for something else to do in the area only getting in a 5 mile ride instead of the planned 10 miles. We did find one other house along the way that looked to be in great shape. It turns out that the John Nelson house from 1808 is a private residence so we don’t spent much time looking around.

Captain William Smith House

Closed Trail

John Nelson House

We thought about seeing how much of the western portion of the bike trail was accessible but we never found another parking area that looked open to even determine that. Instead we head over to another section of the park just north of the town of Concord. The North Bridge Visitor Center was open, so we had a quick lunch then headed there to check it out. The old building had a lot of neat displays and pretty nice architectural features. It was the old mansion built in 1911. There were supposed to be some walking trails from this spot to a few more displays outside but these too were being repaired and closed to the public. Boy this wasn’t our day!

North Bridge Visitor Center

War Uniform

Elegant Staircase

We had one more mission for the area and since we struck out on the bike ride, we had some time to go for the oldest geocache still active in the state of Massachusetts. Hidden on October 1, 2000, we inadvertently came to look for it on its 24th anniversary. Located in the town of Woburn, at Horn Pond Recreation Area.

Horn Pond

The park was quite busy this afternoon with lots of people enjoying the many miles of trails here. Our cache was hidden on top of Horn Pond Mountain. That might be overstating the size of the hill here since we only gain about 250 feet in elevation. Not that I didn’t notice it going up, but it wasn’t a mountain by a long shot.

Kousa Dogwood Berries

Heading Up the Hill

The climb did get us high enough to get a really nice view of Boston about 8 miles away. We found the old cache, wished it a happy birthday and then went for one more cache that is nearly as old as the first one being hidden a year after the other one. It was definitely a neat area to hike to and surprised that these old caches are this close to Boston.

Boston Skyline

Graffiti Rock

On our drive back to Hudson, Chris had us stop at a Wegmans grocery store in Burlington Massachusetts. For those unfamiliar with Wegmans, they are a chain that started in the Rochester New York area, where we lived for 32 years. They are one of the things we miss the most about no longer living in the area. Over the years they have expended into other areas and states. When she saw they had several stores in the greater Boston area, we had to stop. When we arrived at the store, it was way bigger and more extravagant than any we have back in western New York. They actually have a parking garage and the store has two levels. And how do you get your groceries to your car if you park on the second level? Well, you use the grocery cart escalator, of course! We wandered around the store and found a lot of things that we thought we needed. It was definitely the nicest grocery store we have ever seen.

Gourd Collection at Outside Wegmans

Overlooking Produce Section

Shopping Cart Escalator

For our last day out of Hudson, I wanted to get a cache in another nearby county in the state. In studying what else there was to do in that area, I decided we could wander around the campus at Wellesley College. Whenever we visit a college campus, it seems like the parking regulations are always the toughest thing to figure out. After a little bit of research, we thought we had the parking situation figured out and we headed there. Fortunately there were plenty of open spots in the visitor parking area and we headed out for a walk. We were starting on the west side of campus near the athletic fields.

Pond

As we worked our way to the east, we came to the shore of Lake Waban. This campus definitely has a pretty setting. We ended up in the area with dorms and classrooms. Some of the buildings here are huge, quite old and very ornate.

Dock on Lake Waban

Claflin Hall

Houghton Chapel

We did a walk through some of the botanical gardens and enjoyed the solitude of the trails. Maybe school isn’t in session because the campus never seemed crowded. Of course it could also simply be that there are only around 2500 students. We worked our way back to the car and enjoyed our short visit, but we did get in a little over a 4 mile walk.

Galen Stone Tower

Praying Mantis

It was a short stay in Hudson but we found that using the Elks Lodge here worked out well. If we decide to see more of the area, I could see ourselves coming back here again.