Boston Area 2015 - Day 3

May 24, 2015 Adams NHP, Boston Harbor Island NRA, Plymouth

Adams National Historical Park - Old House at Peace Field

We arrived at Adams National Historical Park just as they were opening up, which worked out well, since we were able to get on the first tour of the day. There is a parking garage behind the building, in which you can get the parking validated at the Visitor Center.  There is a trolley that takes you to the different sites available to visit – good thing, since the roads are very curvy and the sites were on the opposite sides of town, at least it seemed that way! There is a video (27 minutes) available for viewing at the visitor center, entitled Enduring Legacy, which was very good.  The tour has a $5/person cost, or you can use the annual National Park Pass and go for free (kids under 16 also free). The first stop on the tour is the Adams (John Adams and John Quincy Adams) birthplaces, the second stop is the Old House at Peace Field. Tours have a tendency to sell out, thus one of the reasons we wanted to arrive early. As expected the visit lasted about 3 hours.

Georges Island - Inside Fort Warren

Heading to the east, we headed to Hingham to hop on the 1 o’clock ferry to Georges Island. Georges Island is a part of the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area.  There really is not a lot to do on Georges Island other than visit the historic Fort Warren, but with the time we had it seemed like a good fit – an hour and a half was ample time to check out the island. Georges Island provided a great strategic location for defending Boston’s seaport. The fort was constructed in 1833. The fort was used as a training camp and a Civil War prison before becoming a park. The ferry ride was $17/person round trip. There is a lot of parking available across from the dock, apparently it is free during the summer months, with a ticket from the kiosk, but it is was not yet open for the season. Regardless, parking was like $4 for the day. We grabbed lunch at the Panera Break before setting sail. I would have liked to have lunch at Walburgers (as in the TV show), but we did not have time before the departure time and when we returned we were not ready for more food.

Plymouth Rock

Seeing as I had not planned anything for the remainder of the day and we were going to be going to Cape Cod anyways we decided to check out Plymouth Rock. Really, the rock itself is quite laughable. I seriously have seen field rocks bigger than Plymouth Rock. History explained that the residents of Plymouth intended to preserve the rock in 1774, but the rock split into two, at which point one half of the rock got placed on display in the Town Square.  Visitors also desired to take a souvenir of the rock also. In 1834, the rock was moved to safety inside an iron fence at the Pilgrim Hall Museum. On the way to the museum, the rock fell and cracked. The remaining half of the rock was acquired by the Pilgrim Society in 1859. In 1867, a canopy structure was completed to house the rock at the waterfront. Yet again the rock was made smaller, since it would not fit under the canopy. In 1880, the rock halves were reunited and 1620 was inscribed on the top of the rock, 1620 being the year the Pilgrims arrived in Plymouth. Plymouth Rock was moved to its’ currently location in 1921, at which time the rock yet again broke apart!

There was some free parking near the rock, but it was quite busy so we parked in a nearby lot which was not too pricy.  Near the rock is the Mayflower 2, a replica of the original. There is a fee to board the ship, but the ship is easily viewed from the harbor.

We walked around a bit had some ice cream at Ziggy’s Ice Cream. There are 50 flavors of hard scoop flavors! Talk about a tough decision on picked a flavor! Luckily, we were able to pick two flavors for a small. The cones were reasonably priced but, the sundae prices seemed really high – they must have been huge (we did not see anyone eating one). The small cone was pretty large. Mike really liked the waffle cone – definitely made fresh in the store.

We stayed at the Quality Inn in Hyannis for the night. It was okay. The hotel is under renovation, it previously was a Comfort Inn (according to reviews that I had found online).

The British Beer Company, in Hyannis, was our dinner choice. The food was good and the food was very reasonably priced.

Road Trip - Day 6! (MA, CT, NY)

May 31, 2012 (Thursday)

Springfield Armory NHS -
"Organ of Muskets"

We started our day with a visit to the Springfield Armory National Historic Site. The Armory is one of two National Park Armory sites, the other being Harpers Ferry in West Virginia. The site offers an 18 minute video that is worthwhile to view. After the video, we looked at the museum displays. We spent about an hour and fifteen minutes at the site, but one could spend more time if you wanted to view the other buildings surrounding the main exhibit building.  The Historic Site commemorates the role of the nation’s first armory by preserving the world’s largest historic US military small arms collection.

Originally, I had planned for us to visit the Armory site the prior day, but we ran out of time. This changed our schedule a bit. I had wanted to visit New Haven, Connecticut since it is an old city with lots of architecture.  Stay tuned on a travel adventure to that area in the future!

Springfield, CT - Capitol

After the Armory, we headed towards our next destination, Weir Farm National Historic Site. Along the way, we stopped off at the Capital of Connecticut – Hartford. The Capitol is very pretty. We noticed some weird things in the area, at least to our prior experience/knowledge. There seems to be a lot of mini-vans all decked out as school buses. There also seemed to be a lot more police in CT than anywhere else, we noticed in our travels. It seemed weird to see police officers directing traffic at construction zones – that does not happen in Michigan. Maybe CT has a high police budget?

The Weir Farm National Historical Site was under major renovations during our visit. The site is the second National Park Site dedicated to an artist, the first already being mentioned. Weir Farm was an artist colony, founded by J. Alden Weir.  Weir was a well known American Impressionism artist. Again, we were not familiar with the works or life of Weir. The short film at the visitor center was very informative and definitely worthwhile if you know nothing about Weir. There were many artists painting while we were onsite. There is not a lot of parking at this site, if visiting you may want to arrive early in the day.

Vanderbilt Mansion NHS

View of the Hudson from the Vanderbilt Mansion Site

We ventured back into New York State, this time to visit some sites in the Hyde Park area. The Hyde Park area is very nice. Our first stop, in the area was Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site. The grounds are free to visit, but the mansion is $8/person (under 15 is free) or free with the National Park Pass. The hour long tour was GREAT! Our tour guide was a gentleman named Mike. He did a great job and was very interesting. The views of the Hudson River are superb, be sure to check that out if you take a visit! There really is not a lot to see here other than the Mansion and the River.

The Home of Franklin D Roosevelt National Historic Site was the next destination.  Tours run from 9:30-4, but the grounds are open until dusk. The museum is open until 6:30. It was a bit late for a tour and the museum, but we did walk around the grounds.

It would have been another excellent evening for camping, but there were absolutely no campgrounds in the area, so we ended up staying at the Quality Inn for $89/night + tax. The room and lobby were very clean, but the stairwell areas were dirty and a bit smelly. The room that we stayed in had a single double bed and was a bit small in size. The room décor was mismatched.

We grabbed dinner at a place just down the street from the hotel, called Pete’s Famous Diner/Restaurant.  The menu was very large, and was defiantly busier than they expected, since they were understaffed.  Mike and I both had Calzones. The Calzones were very large and only were $5-$6 each.  We had planned to head to the Dairy Queen next door, but we were too full from the calzones.

Road Trip - Day 5! (VT, NH, MA)

May 30, 2012 (Wednesday)

We headed to Quechee Fall/Gorge first thing in the morning. There is parking along the edge of the road. All the rain raised the water level in the gorge quite dramatically from when we drove by the previous evening. The gorge looks nicer when the water level is lower, since you get to enjoy the ribbon effect created by the rocks to a larger extent. It is a short walk in either direction to the dam and to the base of the gorge.

After the gorge, we drove around checking out some covered bridges and then headed to “Sugarbush” farm where they make cheese and maple syrup. They offer samples of the products and have a store where you can purchase items. It was a bit out of the way to get to “Sugarbush” but it was a nice place to visit if you have some time to kill.



Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller NHP

 Our journey, next took us to the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historic Park. This park was established to tell the story of conservation history and the evolving nature of land stewardship. The park represents three generations of conservationist, as well as, the history of three quintessentially families. The visitor center has shows a 30 minute film about the site, which is very informative.  There is also a tour of the mansion, which cost $8/person or $4/person if you have the National Parks Pass. There are many miles of hiking trails within the park. The mansion tour was an hour long. Photography is not allowed inside of the home. The woodworking and décor is extremely class, as to be expected from the families that lived in the home. The information in the video is repeated in the tour, so you could skip the video if you wanted.

Across from the National Park site is the Billings Farm & Museum, which is a working dairy farm and a museum of agricultural and rural life. The Farm & Museum charge admission $12 for adults, children price varies $3-$6 depending on age. They do offer a combination ticket package for the two sites. We did not visit the Billings Farm & Museum.



Saint-Gaudens NHS - Studio

 Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site was our next stop. This park is one of two parks that has been dedicated to an artist.  Prior to our visit, we knew nothing about Saint-Gaudens, so we learned a lot at this site. Saint-Gaudens is one of Americas’s greatest sculptors. Over 100 of his artworks are on display at this site. There is a $5/person fee charged at this site, unless you have the America the Beautiful Pass, which is then free to enter. The grounds are beautiful – pretty buildings and flowers, not to mention the pieces of art that are displayed. The Aspet house was undergoing exterior renovations during our visit. There are 15 minute tours of the interior of Aspet house and well worth the visit if your time allows. There was another tour available, which included the grounds and the studios. The grounds/studios tour lasted about an hour.  I would not recommend this tour, it seemed to drag on – spending too much time on certain sculptors. The visitor center also shows a video, which other visitors said was really good. We did not watch the video, since we anticipated that it would cover the information that would be discussed on the tours.

The weather appeared to be good for the night we decided to camp. The next day we planned to head to the Springfield, MA area and found a campground nearby to stay at. The campground was called Sodom Mountain Campground. It was $29/night for a tent with no electricity. The campground was very peaceful with lots of birds chirping away. The sites were very small, in our prior experience/knowledge, and pretty much all dirt surfaces. The camp roads were windy and would be difficult to maneuver a trailer in.  The bathroom was a bit small and showers cost $0.25/5 minutes. Camping rates vary depending on the month. I would not recommend this campground, but it seems that there are very few campgrounds in the Springfield area.