Welcome to the latest update of the Saiki-delic
road trip blog – which, in this case, started with a flight to Boston early
yesterday morning. Of the flights we’ve
taken, this will be among the horror stories we tell. Although it wasn’t as bad as the time I flew
to my cousin’s wedding and had to test the capacity of the airsick bag, this
flight had…
- Me sitting next to a large man (who oozed over/under the armrest into my space!) and his wife with their screaming toddler
- Turbulence
- No in-flight entertainment (Our last flight had DirectTV, so J had been looking forward to watching on board this time – bummer!)
- R suddenly feeling ill, so the flight attendants called for a medical professional to check him over. Fortunately, there were two on board, and whatever was wrong went away by itself after a bit. (He called his doctor today – it might have something to do with his medication in combination with the altitude, so hopefully we won’t have a repeat episode on the way home!)
But in spite of all that, we’re here and happy to be on vacation! We picked up the rental car from the airport and headed south towards our hotel in Quincy. After a stop at Target to pick up some groceries and other supplies, as well as fighting rush-hour traffic, no one was really in the mood to find a restaurant for dinner. Since there was a Domino’s next to the hotel, the boys voted for pizza in the room.
Today our first stop was the Adams National Historical Park in Quincy. We arrived at
the visitor center just in time to catch the first tour at 9:15AM. After boarding the trolley, we were taken to
the birthplaces of John Adams and John Quincy Adams – they were small,
neighboring homes so it didn’t take too long to go through them with the
ranger.
Then we went to see the family estate, "Old House" or "Peacefield", as they called it. The grounds are beautiful.
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| John Quincy Adams' birthplace (John Adams' birthplace is just to the right, but was covered by scaffolding since it is undergoing repair/restoration) |
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| The first (double) presidential library |
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| Yellowwood tree planted by John Quincy's wife, Louisa |
As an aside, whenever we travel, I usually try to have the boys read a book or watch a movie about the people or places we will see. Yep, my not-so-sneaky way of making them learn something as we go! So for this trip, we rented the HBO miniseries on John Adams with Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney from Netflix. If you haven’t seen it, I’d highly recommend it! Surprisingly, the kids really got into watching it, eager for the next disc to arrive. And today was the payoff – everything the rangers told us about the family’s place in history was depicted in the miniseries!
From Quincy, we headed south to Plymouth. We didn't spend much time poking around here - just a quick stop to see the National Monument to the Forefathers, which honors the pilgrims, enjoying a picnic lunch of sandwiches and chips...
...as well as a stop to see Plymouth Rock...
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| That's it?! |
Then it was on to Cape Cod. We first went to the motel to check-in, only to find out that they had given away our room to accommodate a tour group. No complaints from us since they comped us a room at the nicer Sheraton up the road! We quickly unloaded and then went to tour the Highland Light. We were able to climb up to the top and take in the view. Too bad it was so overcast today!
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| The boys think the sand here is coarser and harder on the feet than in CA! |
We ended the day at Arnold's Lobster and Clam Bar for dinner and ice cream...
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| Warm lobster roll - yum! |
1 comment:
Plymouth Rock does leave a bit to be desired. Although that lobster roll makes up for it. Hope you guys are having fun. Keep the food pics coming. My stomach lives vicariously through your travels.
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