Headed Home - Vacation Part 3

To make our New England vacation complete we had to spend at least a day in Boston before making the long drive back to Kentucky. The weather turned rainy and chilly, but we were not going to let that phase us. We started out with a tour led by this fine gentleman here who gave us all sorts of stories about the Boston Common, the Freedom Trail, and the various characters buried in the cemetery right off the Commons. It was a fun experience and John didn't notice anything too historically inaccurate that he felt the need to correct. 

The raincoats that we purchased on our trip to LL Bean came in handy more quickly than we would have liked and perhaps we should have purchased some of their duck boots. In any case, it was not going to slow us down.

It was fun to show the girls some of our favorite places in the city. They were not overwhelmed by seeing the building where Sarah used to work, but they liked Fanueil Hall and all the shops. 

Callie and Reese even got to see a really good street performance outside of Quincy Market. These two guys were true showmen and incredibly acrobatic with a good dose of humor. We all enjoyed the show but were also ready to find a good bowl of clam chowder.

Of course in downtown Boston there is no shortage of places with good clam chowder. We made our way through the rain to the Bell in Hand Tavern where we were able to have some good food and watch some soccer. 

The rain stopped while we were eating lunch, and so we were able to mosey on over to our favorite neighborhood in Boston, the North End. As usual, it was busy and full of life. But even better, that afternoon Italy was playing Belgium in the Euro 2020(yes it is 2021 but they had to postpone the 2020 version because of covid and still called it 2020 this year) soccer tournament. That meant that the North End was really alive with energy. It was so much fun to see. We ended up having appetizers and drinks at one place, dinner at a second, and then obviously ended the night at Mike's Pastry before walking back to our hotel. In short, we packed a lot into our one full day in Beantown.

What made this long driving vacation a little easier on everyone was the fact that our Honda Pilot has a built in DVD player. Reese was on fire with watching movies. On this trip she watched and rewatched Tangled, Princess and the Frog, and a couple others sprinkled in every now and then. Sarah even popped back for the first part of our departure from Boston to watch the Princess and the Frog. She enjoyed the movie and Callie enjoyed getting to sit up front.

What the girls didn't know at this point was that we still had more stop left in us. When we decided to drive on this vacation we knew that our return trip had to include Hershey Park, just like when we did this drive back in the summer of 2014.

Needless to say, the girls have grown a little bit in seven years, which meant that this visit to the park was going to be a little different. Last time we rode the Cocoa Cruiser almost non-stop. This visit began with a very different ride.

The day started off on a ride called The Claw. We hadn't seen exactly what it did before we got on, and our smiles here speak to that innocence. By ride's end John was no longer smiling and may have invoked the name of the Lord a few times during the spinning and swinging ride that at times nearly had us upside down. For Callie, on the other hand, it only appeared to fuel her fire.

Before too much time had gone by, Callie and Sarah found themselves on Fahrenheit, a roller coaster that starts off with an announcement over the loudspeaker saying, "Be prepared to upside down not once, not twice, but six times!" Reese and John were very happy to watch from the sidelines. Callie did give one look of hesitation as the cars went in motion, but at the end she was all smiles and only wanted more.

In the picture above, Sarah and Callie are in the second car, mid-descent at the beginning of an incredible journey. Before the day was over, the two had ridden just about every roller coaster in the park, and Callie had fallen in love with the thrill of upside down coasters.

In case you were worried, John and Reese didn't just sit around and watch. They simply enjoyed different elements of the park. Here we see the two driving one of the mini-classic cars that don't go too fast and certainly don't go upside down. They also made a brief excursion into the water park where they got to ride some water slides, which is just the kind of thrill they like.

We had a great day at the park and everyone got what they wanted, including some treats from the gift shop to make the final leg of the journey sweeter.

As we made our way back to Lexington, we could say that our vacation did everything we needed it to do. We had great times with friends and family, made some wonderful memories for our little family, and marked off another national park. Can't wait for summer 2022!