Tuesday, April 30, 2024

Day 4 - Tea Party, Duck Tour and sights to see!

Our schedule was wide open for Saturday. Reid had asked about heading to see the Patriots stadium but they don't offer tours and it would have taken 3-4 hours to just go walk around it... so he opted for the Boston Tea Party Museum Tour. TBH - Jason and I looked at each other and rolled our eyes over Reid's head. It didn't sound too thrilling. But, we dutifully followed his charge and headed out east this time!

We happened to walk by this bar - a Stillwater, OK native opened it in Boston! We didn't eat there but did take a picture.
Took this for our UFC dude...
Approaching the museum...
we arrived one minute before the next tour so it was great timing. 
From the second it started, the employees were in perfect character and made the entire experience very interactive. It was REALLY fun.  Each of us were given a character card as well.
There were three ships involved in the tea party. They had two replicas at the museum.
This is a list of the known participants from that night - the information gathered at a much later date as if they would have been known at the time, they would have been hung for treason. These relate to the character cards given at the beginning.
Fun fact - most of Boston is man-made. The blurrier part in the middle is the original part (during tea party) and the smoother outside edges are current day (land fill with buildings on top!). So he's showing us the building where the actual port was located as it is now land.
Jason, OF COURSE, had to get tea at the Tea Museum,
We wanted to go to the North End for Italian food (Boston's version of Little Italy) so we headed back out on foot.  This is the exterior of the building of the start of the Boston Massacre - different view than what I posted from the Freedom Trail where I took it from below the middle front window.
We found a bookstore!
Outdoor market - just on Saturdays. Reid and I thought it was so gross.
We had a great Italian lunch and made it to our Duck Tour with an hour to spare. ha!
Another EXCELLENT tour guide. And you'll recognize the driver.
That would be Reid driving our boat!
Boston from the harbor. We're between Boston and Cambridge at this point.
The question asked of the group was "where did the idea of a duck boat originate?" and Reid knew the answer!  There were two answers... and his answer was from the beaches of Normandy on D-day unloading the troops. He got a sticker in front of the tour! 
Beacon Hill area - this was just a picture up a random street - doesn't do it justice. 
It was such a darn cute area and apparently the most expensive place in America to buy a home.
Cheers - sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name....and they're always glad you came!
Jason's next stop... beers at Cheers!
It was the actual bar from the show but the room wasn't the same.
We walked home.
I had 18,133 steps this day!

We slept in on Sunday and headed to the airport.
Great trip!
Traveling with a tween/teen is like this.... We had a lot of "Reid, off your phone" sentences at the airport!
We wished for our other boys to be with us but thankful for an easy trip and great memory with Reid.

Day 3 - Fenway

This was Jason's 45th birthday!!!  Happy birthday to you!
Today was our Fenway day. We walked there via ChickFila - a three story one!

Ready to go in our Boston gear (thanks to a gifted hat Grant was given by a former employer!), Cubbies gear, and neutral gear!
The original logo from 1940 from the oldest MLB park.
Oldest seats in MLB history (yes, of course, I took #11 on purpose)
from atop the Green Monster wall.  37'2" - balls played off of it are in play - it cuts out the homeruns in the stadium.
Fenway has their own garden where 25% of the food they grow will be used in the stadium and some is donated back to the community.
Pressbox
Inside the pressbox
The red chair is the furthest homerun ball hit so far in the stadium.
All of our boys across the country!
We had a few hours to kill before the game so Jason found us Wahlburgers - Mark Wahlburg's place. It was SO good! And totally affordable.
Jason isn't a huge Red Sox fan so his souvenir from the trip was his Fenway hat - which is modeled after the Citgo sign that you can see over the Green Monster in left field (on tv, it looks like part of the field but is actually several blocks away).
We walked around for a while and saw several college/universities and stopped by a three story Target.
We decided to grab food before heading back in the stadium and went to Sal's pizza across the street.
Back at Fenway for batting practice...
he was SO close to the Cubbies...
way up high for batting practice just HOPING for a ball!
thanks, BeReal!
IT HAPPENED!
IT HAPPENED AGAIN!!!!
Pregame - Reid was down on the front row checking it all out!
Our view of him - #11 down front. The guy next to him was in our tour and was pretty jealous that we got two balls during batting practice. We didn't share - sorry.
Patrick Dempsey, aka McDreamy, threw out the first pitch. He embarrassed himself.
I had two pretty happy fellas this day! 
We did pick this weekend for Boston to see the Cubs so a WIN by the Cubs was icing on the cake!
We walked home from the stadium.
I had 20,746 steps this day.

and speaking of cake.... Mr. Birthday Boy had a chocolate cupcake for his bday in our hotel room!
and old pizza. Wearing knee high socks. :) HA!