After walking 5 1/2 miles through Salem on Wednesday, we were pretty tired BUT we made sure we were up, had breakfast, were dressed and down at the Salem train station by 8:30 Thursday morning for the 45 minute ride into Boston. Lots and lots of commuters heading to work and school meant we ended up sitting in the “jump seats” at the front of the car instead of in a nice, comfortable window seat.
The conductor was a nice older lady who said, “I’m not supposed to ask, but if you’re over 65 you get the senior rate for tickets.” Well, hell yes we’re over 65! I’m so far over it I’m running up on 70 now, lol. Anyway, that was nice as it saved us half the cost and we wouldn’t have known if she hadn’t “asked”.
Our reason for visiting Boston was to walk on a majority of the Freedom Trail. It’s a 2 1/2 mile long path through Boston that passes some 17 significant historical locations related to the birth and early years of the United States. The Freedom Trail was an idea proposed by a Boston journalist, William Schofield, who in 1951 suggested that a walking trail be built to link the important historical landmarks we see today. Boston’s Mayor at the time, John Hynes, agreed and The Freedom Trail was opened in 1953. That first year saw 40,000 people come and walk The Freedom Trail. Today, we were part of the more than 4 million who walk the Trail every year.
Most people follow the Trail from South to North but if you’ll look at the map in the photo album you’ll see we walked it in the opposite direction. Since we got off the train at the North Station we walked up the street to begin our walk from Copp’s Hill Burying Ground (skipping the USS Constitution and Bunker Hill stops farther north) and ending up at Boston Common. The Freedom Trail stops include buildings, graveyards, churches and ground markers. The Trail is marked through the city by a “ribbon” of dual red bricks on the ground for ease of following (except where it was interrupted by construction) or banners mounted on poles at strategic points.
After we reached Boston Common we walked about a mile farther with the intention of having lunch at Cheers of TV fame on Beacon Street. Unfortunately they were packed and the wait time meant we would miss our ferry boat ride back to Salem. We were hungry and tired, so we called an Uber to drive us to the harbor and found an Irish Pub there to have lunch and few pints. OK, just lunch but I could have used a few pints, lol.
After lunch it was time to walk over to the dock at the harbor where our ferry boat was departing from so we could get back to Salem. When we planned this part of our trip we thought it would be fun to take the train into Boston in the morning and a ferry back to Salem in the midafternoon. We were right. We enjoyed both very much and the ferry ride back at the end of a long day was relaxing; more relaxing than the train would probably have been. Fresh air, open sea and beautiful views in every direction.
By the time we got to the Salem Wharf it was 3:30 pm and we were exhausted. We walked 5 1/2 miles through Salem on Wednesday and 4 1/2 miles in Boston, so we were whupped! Even though our site was only about 1 1/2 miles away, we just called a cab and got back to Nomad at 4 pm. I think we were in bed before it was completely dark.
Friday was a day of rest. We needed it!
Saturday morning, September 23rd we left Winter Island Maritime Park around 11:30 am and drove a little over 3 hours to the March Farm in Bethlehem, Connecticut where we would stay for one night thanks to their participation in the Harvest Host program. March Farm is an apple orchard where you can pick your own from trees or buy their fresh picked apples in their on-site store. They also had a wide variety of baked apple goods and some other produce. We parked next to the large pond on their property around 2:30 pm and walked up to the store to get some apples, apple cider donuts and apple fritters.
It rained all that afternoon, night and into the early morning Sunday as we got wind and rain from the outer bands of Hurricane Ophelia. I just cannot believe that we’re seemingly still being stalked by these damn 2023 hurricanes!
But, we enjoyed their baked goods so much that night that we stopped by the store again as we were leaving Sunday morning to buy some additional goodies and then we were on the road again heading to our next stop.
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