BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS

Jules’ Journal: Freedom & Whales!

By: Julianne Lillie

8/12/22: We had an adventurous morning trying to find parking at the Alewife subway station, but we managed. We hopped on the 9:20am “train” to Park Street in Boston.

We met our true Bostonian tour guide, Cindy, in Boston Common for the Freedom Trail tour. She was a fabulous guide, extremely knowledgeable and complete with a thick Boston accent! We took the 2.5 hour walking tour through the streets of Boston hitting major historical sites such as: Boston Common, New State House, Granary burial grounds (final resting place of Paul Revere, Robert Paine, Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Ben Franklin’s parents, & the 5 victims of the Boston Massacre), Old City Hall, Old South Meeting House, Corner bookstore, several churches, Old State House & Faneuil Hall. Here’s some photos of some of those sites...

Old State Church at Boston Common:

New State House (AKA: State Capitol Building). The gold dome is 23K gold.

The Shaw Memorial. Fun fact...we already learned about the sculptor, Augustus Saint-Gaudens who created this memorial over a span of 12 years. We had visited his historical home & studio back in New Hampshire. Jett recognized this piece immediately which was pretty cool! Proof these field trips are "sticking!"

Granary Burial Grounds, this is the final resting place of John Hancock:

Final resting place of Benjamin Franklin's parents:

Old State House:

Faneuil Hall w/ Samuel Adams memorial out front:

We ended up picking up 2 different Jr. Ranger booklets in Faneuil Hall & after the tour ate lunch in the huge food court inside South Market. No tables available, so we just ate outside on the steps.

We returned to Faneuil Hall which housed the visitor’s center for the Boston National Historical Park & the Boston African American National Historical Park. We watched a park video & also listened to 2 Park Ranger talks in the grand Meeting Hall on the upper level to assist kids in completing their 2 Jr Ranger activity books. It was very humbling knowing that our country’s forefathers debated our freedom from England, our US Constitution, and later on abolishing slavery right there in the building where I stood. It welled up emotion inside of me along with gratitude & thanksgiving for the “rebels” who fought to create, define, & refine our country.

The kids ended up earning both badges each & were pleased to find out they were both wooden badges!

We took the redline back to our truck & headed back (in 5 o’clock) traffic to our campground where we grilled out hotdogs over a campfire. It was the perfect weather for it!

8/13/12: We arrived at the Minute Man National Historical Park at 9am sharp only to quickly realize that the Visitor’s Center did not open until 10am.

So, we took this hour to explore the grounds: gardens, trails, North Bridge, and the 2 monuments.

The kids have decided we need to plant this tree at our house... it provides a really cool natural fort and climbing playground! If anyone knows what type of tree this is... let me know as I'm curious!

North Bridge - The site where the colonists shot the first gunshots towards the British regulators. (Obviously this is a new bridge.)

Minute Man memorial honoring all of the farmers who joined the militia and fought bravely for our freedom.

On our way back, we saw a large majestic hawk (Or Osprey? The Park Rangers weren't for sure) on the trail high up in the trees.

One the visitor’s center opened, kids were able to quickly complete the Jr. Ranger activity to earn their badge (30th one) since we had been to all the sites and read about them already.

We did learn that there was another visitor’s center just 6 miles away that had a unique stated park film what was 25 minutes long. So we hit up Starbucks on our way to watch the film. And I must say the film was so good and very creative in how they used lighting, sounds, props, & multiple screens to reenact the events that kicked off the revolutionary war. And this film filled in a few gaps in understanding for me. It was so good! From there, we ate our picnic lunch in the car on our 1 hour drive East to Gloucester, MA.

There, we boarded our boat for a 3.5 hour whale watching adventure. None of us have ever seen a whale in person.

And boy did it exceed all my expectations! I was thinking if we could just see a couple of whale sightings that would be amazing. But we saw at least a dozen DIFFERENT hump back whales multiple times totaling 30+ (I lost track counting) sightings! At one point, there were 3 whales surfacing around our boat all at one time. It was amazing that our naturalist, Amanda, knew all of the whales by name. She explained that each whale has a unique “fluke” which is the underside color & markings of their tale. Their “fluke” markings are used to give the whales a name. She also explained that after several years of visiting these whales she has picked up on certain mannerisms that are unique to each. Such as a flip of the dorsal fin, slower dive, twisting movement, slap of the tale, etc. It was so interesting to learn about these whales! In fact, 2 of the whales migrate to Turks & Caicos for the winter – they’ve been spotted there. One of the smaller whales, Spoon, migrates to the Dominican Republic. And even several of the whales have developed relationships with each other as Jabberu and Spoon are often sighted together. (We saw them together.) Here's just a snippet of our whale sightings:

This video is an example of what literally was happening every 3-5 minutes. Our heads were on a swivel ... so many whales!!! It was awesome!

Jaycie enjoyed videoing!

Can you see the whale spout over Jett's left shoulder?

We also saw 1 Mola Mola (Ocean Sunfish) up close. It is such a weird looking fish! It hung around our boat for awhile.

I also got to see several beautiful lighthouses along the way.

Kids had a little snack on the way back:

After the boat docked, we walked to a nearby restaurant on the Fisherman’s Wharf and ate dinner. Both kids tried lobster for the first time.

Jett liked it, Jaycie didn’t care for it. So Jett ate nearly the whole lobster by himself! Jason and I shared 2 sushi rolls – yum yum! It was a fun-filled day several “firsts” for us!

Jaycie’s Bunny Hoppin’ News: Freedom & Badges

By: Jaycie Lillie, 8/12/22

We just visited Boston, MA. I don’t like big cities, but when we got inside and started on our journals there wasn’t as many people and noise. We walked the Freedom Trail. It was 2 hours and we saw old buildings, a graveyard and some memorials. The graveyard had a lot of famous people buried there. The tombstones had skulls and skeletons on them. Our guide said that the early Puritans believed death was “unholy” and they didn’t want to associate “holy” things like crosses with death.

We also learned that Paul Revere actually said, “The Regulars are out!” instead of the “Brittish are coming!” Since Paul Revere was in fact Brittish, it would be like us saying “The Americans (we) are coming!” Also I learned the red coats were called “Lobster backs” as an insult. Back then, lobsters were fed only to the prisoners and were called the “cockroaches of the sea.” After we finished we went to the visitor’s center inside Faneuil Hall. We were in this big room with a lot of art. In our Jr Ranger books we had to write a riddle about a person in one of the paintings on the walls. Can you guess mine?

“He once governed our very country and fought bravely. He lead many armies for freedom and liberty.”

Answer is George Washington! The Park Ranger guessed it correctly although I thought it was pretty hard. We sat through 2 Park Ranger programs and watched the park movie. It was a good movie about Lewis Hayden. He was a famous black person who helped with the underground railroad.

After we got our badges we went to this food court. I got a mango smoothie and a croissant. We couldn’t find a table so we ate outside on the steps of Boston!

Jett’s Wild Flight: Whale Watching

By: Jett Lillie, 8/13/22

We woke up and we were ready to earn another Jr. Ranger badge! When we got to the Minute Man National Historical Park, the visitor’s center was closed for 1 more hour. So, we walked the grounds for an hour. Then, we went inside the visitor’s center and received our 30th Jr Ranger badge!

After, we drove an hour to go whale watching. We got on our boat and road until we saw our first whale.

On the boat we saw four lighthouses, two castles, another Mola Mola, and about a dozen different whales! We got splashed, however no one got seasick thankfully! In the words of Bostonians, it was a “Wicked Pissah” day. (google it!)