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| The Old North Church |
We arrived at L.G. Hanscom AFB near Boston on the 6th of September. It took a couple weeks to work up the courage to venture into town to have a look around. You might ask why that was? Well, frankly, in my opinion there's scant little information to let the novice survive, as well as extremely expensive tours. We found out when we checked in that the Coast Guard Base that is located close to the Old North Church has a free parking lot on Saturdays, Sundays and after 3 PM on weekdays. Of course that's only for active and retired military members. On the way there we passed an open lot that said it was only $28 dollars a day. So, the free parking at the base was a pretty good deal. The first thing that we did was to walk over to see the church where Paul Revere got his signal to alert the countryside that the British were coming on foot. As you can see, that is a really tall steeple, the tallest feature around at the time. At the square dance the weekend prior a woman told us not to miss the Revere house. As you can see, it wasn't very large, and that brick building wasn't there either. In fact, the house was in danger of being demolished before a cry went up to save it.
Revere had 16 kids! Not by the same wife; 2 wives, 8 kids each! They weren't all in the house at the same time, there was 30 years between oldest and youngest. The grandma and an aunt lived with him though.
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| Paul Revere House |
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| A Fife and Drum Performance |
When these people came out I was afraid it was going to be sort of 'hokey' but we were surprised at how informative and entertaining they were!
The gentleman explained how the ropes on the snare drum functioned to tighten the heads and gave examples of how the drums served to tell the militia to retreat, advance and other things. The Fifer (if that's a term) had several different ones, the originals were made of wood, and the later ones were metal.
I wish I had a video of the little kids that were enlisted to help play the 'spoons' and the 'washboard' to accompany the fife and drum. They were really cute. The little boy (who was visiting from England) on spoons was only 3, but he stood there and banged away as if he were much older, grinning over at the audience. Adorable.
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| Audience Participation |
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| Revere Bell weighs 931 pounds, the church paid $.43 a pound |
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| Revere's Silver Shop |
But what I didn't know until we were browsing in the shop, was that he also made dentures. Years before he made the 'midnight ride' he practiced dentistry. It sounded like practiced was an appropriate term too.
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| Revere made partial dentures |
Also missing from my education, was the fact that Revere didn't make it to Concord to alert the people. He was apprehended by the British right about where I am standing, a ways from Concord. And further, contrary to my history teachers, the riders were not hollering The 'British' Are Coming, rather they were calling out the 'Regulars' are coming. Actually Revere left Boston in one direction, and Daws went the other way and met up in Lexington.
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| Revere Captured here |
The two others who joined up along the path, Dawes and Prescott, managed to escape their grasp and went on to warn everyone. Revere was later released, but he did no more riding that night!
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| Dawes, Revere, Prescott 1:30 A.M April 19, 1775 |
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| Concord Militia on far side of bridge, British where we(Gary and a Ranger) are standing |
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| April 19, 1775 |
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| Narrative of the Midnight Ride |
Maybe you can make the above picture large enough to read. It tells the story well. (Try a left click on the picture. On my computer, you left click, then go to the top, click 'view' and click on zoom. You can click view/zoom as often as needed to get the picture size you want.)
Back to Boston, one of the last things we did was to go to the site where the USS Constitution "Old Ironsides" is moored.
USS
Constitution, also known as Old Ironsides, is a wooden-hulled,
three-masted heavy frigate of the United States Navy named by President
George Washington after the United States Constitution. She is the
world's oldest commissioned naval vessel still afloat.
Construction started: November 1, 1794
Launched: October 21, 1797
Length: 203′
Only, and I mean only other geocachers can understand the lunacy that some cachers will aspire to. In an effort to get a geocache in as many states as possible, we took a trip from Hanscom AFB to New Hampshire and up to Maine. That would give us 2 more states (ME, NH). In Maine, we decided since we were in lobster country, we would indulge ourselves. We found this restaurant, Warren's Lobster House, that seemed to be pretty popular in Warren, Maine.
The people to our left were having one of the popular menu items, two whole Maine lobsters.
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| 2 lobsters each |
And we had what was called a lobster roll, that looks like this:
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| Lobster Rolls |
Well that was delicious!! A full-feature salad bar was also included in our meal. I must admit it was much easier to eat than the whole lobsters. We had indulged in them when we were in Maine a bunch of years ago.
On the way to Maine, along the New Hampshire coast we found this area that didn't have a geocache. We put one out to commemorate our first look at the Atlantic Ocean since 1989. Turned out that the cache monitors nixed that because we were too far from our home base (AZ). Well as Serena Williams knows, rules are rules!
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| N.H. Coast |
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| Our potential cache was placed in this guardrail |
We were fortunate to be able to coordinate a lunch with Sam and Natalie in a sandwich shop in Concord. They are busy with wedding arrangements and school, but made time for grandma and grandpa.
Their wedding is scheduled for September 15 in Rindge, NH. Today, Sep 10, we learn of a Cat 4 Hurricane hitting the NE. We are hopeful everything works out okay for them (and us!).
Meanwhile, Eloise still busy making the wedding gift quilt:
Next stop, Rindge, NH and the big event!
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