Boston Swan Song

This is my third and final trip to Boston for the year, I promise! On our first family trip, we started at the beginning of the Freedom Trail which is a trail taking tourists through the main historical sights of Boston which relate to the Revolutionary War. Well, after three visits, I finished the Freedom Trail at the Bunker Hill Monument (which is actually situated on top of Breed's Hill which is darned confusing if you ask me).

I started my day at the Charlestown Bridge which is an ancient and rusty bridge that has a great pedestrian crossing if one enjoys walking over see-through grates pretty much the entire length. Yikes! It affords a nice view of the Kazim Bridge and the Charles River.

Charlestown is where Paul Revere began his infamous midnight ride and is also the home of Samuel F.B. Morse of Morse Code fame.

Next, the trail goes through City Square Park

 

which has a great fountain

and town sign

and a pretty view of the Old Court House.

 Sage advice

Then I made my way up the hill

 

on a very hot morning (phew!) to the Bunker Hill Museum which is located across the street from the monument in the old Charlestown Public Library which is a pretty building in and of itself.

 This was drawn when Maryland was abbreviated as just M, not MD.

After a looksee and much needed water break, I headed up to the monument

 

which is just a monument that looks a lot like the Washington Monument really, but one you can climb 294 steps to its top.

I was all ready to go just as a family came down and the fit parents looked utterly exhausted from the climb and they said it was boiling inside the stairwell. Not one to dabble in heatstroke, I took their word for it and turned around.

 Very dapper Revolutionary

 

More sage advice

 

The battle flag, I assume.

So I headed back to subway on another route through Charlestown proper and got some food to eat as I walked. I had some time to kill so I went to the Boston Public Garden again to catch a glance at the swan boats made so famous in Make Way for Ducklings. Not only did I see them,

I also saw an ice cream truck with this painted on it

 

and the license plate says "SWAN". Cool!

It was time to go get Evan from camp so I headed over to MIT and sat through the camp ceremonies and got to see what Evan had been working on the past couple of weeks. He and a friend, Jack,

 

co-wrote a program for a video game called Cowboy. It was pretty neat. Evan did most of the programming whilst Jack did most of the artwork. Very well-teamed. I was duly impressed.

 We headed to the airport. Our flight was exactly on time and I must say, Express parking is the way to go at BWI. The shuttle is way emptier than the Daily Garage parking, they give you a slip of paper with your parking space on it and you hand that to the driver who delivers you right to your car, they load your bags into the bus and into your trunk if you want AND it's $2 cheaper per day than the daily garage which made me feel free to tip the driver.