Day 5: Plimoth & Boston

First, Plimoth is spelled correctly, as the Old English wrote.  The area was Plimoth Pitouxet for the Natives.  After we ate a not-so-filling breakfast (kaiser rolls with cream cheese, milk and cereal scraps, and some juices we got at yesterday's hotel, I stepped outside and walked around the pond with ducks, geese, turkeys, chickens around.  Part of the hotel atmosphere with shady picnic tables to boot.

Our first stop was Plymouth, MA.  We had 3 points of interest to explore: the Plimoth Patuxet museums with live theater throughout an historic Patuxet homesite and a 17th century English village, The Mayflower II (WWII gift from England), and a Grist Mill.  Here are some interesting facts I learned for the first time today

1. Companion crops were sowed in mounds of soil.  At the tip of the mound 4 corn kernels were placed, when they got to be a hand tall, 4 bean seeds were placed in the middle of the mound, and after a week when the beans trellised up the corn stalks, 4 squash seeds were planted at the base of the mound to protect the ground from heat and the vegetation from weeds.
   
2. To make a canoe the entire tree trunk was used.  The inside was burned out with a stick used as an iron, and the fine-tuning was done with seashells.
3. The Pilgrims first landed in Cape Cod, but because the land was hard to grow in, they skirted straight across the sound to Plymouth.  The Mayflower was not as big as expected, and the replica gift from England is sea worthy and was sailed from England first then later to and from Mystic Seaport for restoration some 10 years ago.
   
4. New Englanders don't eat grits because it was the poor man's meal after the cornmeal was sifted out of the dried corn and because they'd eaten it for 100 years and were sick and tired of it when other meals became available.  I guess the south just loved it.

We ate a nice HUGE lunch in the Pub attached but with no relation to the Grist Mill.  I had chicken stirfry, Chris had a pizza, Jessup had wings, Henry had ziti and meatballs, and Watson had a Cubano sandwich.  All so different, but all good.

We made it to Boston at 3PM, checked in to Yotel Boston (yes, with a Y), and quickly walked to meet our tour guide of the Freedom Trail in Boston Commons.  OK, so our guide was old, dressed like Grandpop (Sr.), yet was soft spoken and so not what would keep the boys entertained.  Two hours later after many, many, stories of Boston's history, we were set free to find dinner.  Here are a few tales I remember from the guide, Charles :)

1. John Hancock was a pompous ass with a hell of a lot of money; Ben Franklin couldn't be tied down to study one thing, so he went to Philly on his own at 16, yet is still a favorite son of Boston where he was born; and Samuel Adams was a friend of the common man, lawyer to those who were wronged he believed, and a poor man cause he gave most of his gifts away.
   
2. The Boston Massacre is where the first blood is shed for the Revolutionary war, a young 6 year old caught in cross fire of a scuffle between British soldiers and Bostonians.  Sounds all to familiar to my children today.
   
3. Buildings created for churches (people worshipping together) were called Meeting Houses.  There were Sunday services and then also a weekly town meeting.  It was in one of these meetings of the town where they discussed not accepting the tea delivered from England.  It was sent as a bailout for the India Tea Company in England who was going under.  The pilgrims wanted nothing to do with it.  Because they had to empty cargo within 10 days or be fined, and they weren't allowed to not accept the tea and send it back to England, the folk emptied it into the harbor.
   

We walked back to our hotel after trapesing through Fannuel Hall and the Quincy market but not seeing many things open (it is a Wed night), so we ended up grabbing food in the penthouse of our Yotel.  Small portions, not so great, but it was close, and we lucky beat the storm by 5 minutes or else we'd have been soaked.

I guess I should mention our sick room as the kids say.  Funky fluorescent lighting, bunk beds, curtained bathroom, and very small like a ship's quarters.  Big money for little space right downtown by the water.  But at least we don't have to pack in the morning.  Finally, the same hotel for 2 nights.