Boston Tea Party & Pastries

Day 34: Chad set the GPS for the National Seashore after researching to see if they had showers on the beach to clean up.  Woot!  They did!  But, they were turned off since it was still considered their ‘winter’ season.  So, that meant for a cold bath in the ocean!

Parking: Coast Guard Beach, Eastham – Free (off-seaon)

On the way to the water, I found a little snail crossing our path. The ocean was noisy, there were only two other people on the beach that we could see and the sky was cloudy. Ugh, the setting for a horror movie is almost perfect. We then saw a warning sign about shark attacks… it’s official. It’s JAWS! (fun fact: a lot of the Jaws movie was filmed at Marth’s Vineyard).

We weren’t really dirty or stinky enough to really need a shower, but it was tempting to know how cold the water was. The video explains my experience.

Chad waded in dunked under right away. According to their website, the water temp was 46 degrees. We stayed together in the shallow water and didn’t go out very far to avoid potential shark issues and didn’t last very long. Chad went in twice and I tried three times, but it was way too cold. My legs turned blotchy purple and red! My feet were numb and it took 20 minutes in the car blasting heat for feeling to return to my heels lol. It was so cold!

After freezing our buns in the water, we drove to Plymouth to see the pilgrims’ special rock.  Their pet rock is well tamed and has it’s own cage next to the water.  It sat nicely for all of our pictures and even let me take a selfie with it. There was a rock tamer there to explain about the pilgrims and Native Americans in 1620 as well as detail why the rock was split.

Parking: Metered next to William Bradford Statue on Water Street ($1.25 per hour)

Chad and I walked to Water Street Café for a cup of coffee and Chad ordered a surprise food item to go. I had discovered there was an old mill just up the creek to see and Chad was wearing his flip flops.

“I’m not wearing the right shoes for this!  We can’t go on a walk! And, we have to eat this surprise food before it goes bad!”

It wasn’t that far and we made it to the old mill, which then lead to walking a really old part of downtown.  There aren’t any original buildings from the 1600s, but some of them were still pretty old.  There was also a rock concert outside of the post office! Just a couple of teenagers who were showing off their skills on a Saturday! We ate Chad’s surprise meal in the car (a Reuben!) before we left.  Less than an hour in Plymouth 😊

We didn’t think that Boston would be as busy as New Yok, but it was! There were cars everywhere, horns honking, barely any on-street metered parking and tons of people walking around. Uff-dah, what a misconception.

First stop, a free museum tour at the Museum of Fine Arts and Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. 

Parking: Museum of Fine Arts Parking Garage - $20 for the day

The reason we were hitting the museums was because admission was free! If you are a Bank of America cardholder, you can visit select museums around the U.S. on the first weekend of the month. So, these two were free for both of us!

The line was OUT THE DOOR and down the street for the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Nope. Skipped it.

Next! The line for the Art Museum was moving pretty quick so we decided to give it a shot. We didn’t even make it through the entire museum! There were at least three buildings attached by skyways and it had three floors. Chad and I loved seeing the old instruments (even the lute and old clarinet!) and the paintings.

We would recommend spending the day here! To make sure we see everything we came to see, we had to duck out early and move on.

You can’t not have a Boston Cream Pie while in Boston?!  I had tried to research a place to find a good slice and we ended up in their downtown space called Back Bay.  It was chaos finding on street parking (metered) and when we did walk into the hotel where the restaurant Oak Long Bar + Kitchen was supposed to be, we were SUPER under dressed in our hiking clothes.  Kentucky Durby, anyone? It looked like we went back in time with all the hats and older styled attire.  News flash: the hotel doesn’t have Boston Cream Pie on their menu anymore.  GRRR.

Before we left, we checked out the buildings a little and walked the strip. It’s basically New York haha.

Moving the car down into the North End, we were transported back in time to really old brick buildings, skinny streets and cobble stone. People are everywhere! There are LINES out the doors of the pastry places I wanted to go.

There is NO street parking (residential only) and we had to duck into a parking garage. But, the garage we went into lifts cars onto ramps and stacks them on shelves! We didn’t want any part of that not knowing how long we were going to be there. We quickly backed up and found a new place.

Parking: Lewis Wharf Parking Lot - $23 for the day

We walked by Paul Revere’s House!

I waited in line at Mike’s Pastry while Chad ran to an ATM for cash (cash only apparently).  The line moved pretty fast (50+ people out the door) and we ordered a Boston Cream Pie, regular ricotta cannoli, pistachio cannoli and chocolate ricotta cannoli. The stern lady behind the counter forget the regular ricotta, which is fine because all I wanted to do was get out of there.  $4 a cannoli and $6 for the pie.

We had a better cannoli in Philly! It was a little disappointing, but the experience was out of this world.

We tried a restaurant off the main strip called Antico Forno (there’s way too many people everywhere!).  The restaurant was packed still, noisy and the TVs broadcasted the Derbie. Ugh.  The food was good though.  We tired the Gnocchi Di Patate and Fusilli Al Tegamino.

After dinner, Chad thought we were done with Boston but he forget he was invited to a tea party. We walked about .7 of a mile to the bridge where the tea party happened to take place. I didn’t want to get fined for ‘littering’ tea into the harbor (plus, no need for caffeine at 7 p.m.!), so I dumped my imaginary tea into the harbor.

Chad and I were in the accelerated class and went to visit Harvard campus before we left town. Chad had thought Harvard was going to be in a more secluded space but it was jammed into the infrastructure and surrounded by people.

Deciding we would rather watch a documentary and binge on history videos about the Salem Witch Trials when we get home, we drove the town at night to see the big-ish landmarks. 

I took a picture of where the trials were estimated to be held on Proctor’s Ledge near Gallows Hill Park. Chad spotted the Witch’s House where it is said that a judge from the case actually ate/slept.

Then, we drove down their main strip of buildings to end up at the Howard Street Cemetery right at dusk. Spooky!

“That was the essence of ‘walk it with your eyes’!  We finished in less than 20 minutes!” stated Chad.

After a quick swing into the McDonald’s parking lot for a blog upload, we set the GPS for the coastline of Maine. Finally, we are almost to the top!

Instead of making it to Maine, we reclined the seats for rest at the first New Hampshire Visitors Center. There were at least 20+ car campers in the parking lot and that was enough proof for us to know that we would be alright.

It’s actually chilly at night (low 40s) so I curl up in the down sleeping bag. Meanwhile, Chad has an old twin comforter and another blanket (cotton kills!!) that doesn’t hold as much heat. He is always burrowed in to stay warm!