Twizzlers Road Trip Recap Day 3

Boston!

Today we hit the ground running – and made it through 3 tours, insane heat and an impressive thunderstorm.  The forecast for the Boston area today was for high heat and humidity with temps soaring towards 100 degrees.  We took a look at some of the attractions that we wanted to visit during our trip and opted for things like museums instead of outdoor walking tours (for the most part).  Lily Bean did not get a nap today and I was sure she was going to have a royal meltdown by nightfall, but once again she proved even more resilient than her parents – she was a great travel buddy today.

So the very first thing on our list of a sort of pilgrimage if you will.  If you have followed this blog for any length of time, you know that we are diehard Phillies fans.  More than the Phillies though, we love the game of baseball and the history surrounding it.  I think that most baseball fans will agree – no matter what team you cheer for, Fenway Park in Boston (home of the Red Sox) is a must-see.

We grabbed tickets for the noon tour of the ballpark and honestly it felt like we were transported back in time to 100 years ago.  (I also had a very Field of Dreams moment as I thought of the scene where Kevin Costner and James Earl Jones took in a game at Fenway.)

Fenway Park ballpark tours are offered most days of the year – though the times change a little bit when the Red Sox have a home game.  Tickets run $12 for adults and kids under 3 are free.

Before the tour, we walked around the stadium to take in the nostalgia of it all.  We found some neat statues and took a spin through their fan store – definitely one of the biggest I have ever seen!

The tour wound us all through the ballpark.  See that stuff on the field?  New Kids on the Block/Backstreet Boys concert is coming to town on Saturday and they are already setting the stage, etc.

The Green Monster:

Oldest seats in baseball today:

After our tour (which was almost an hour long) we split from Boston.  We jumped back in the Twizzlers mobile and headed north towards the town of Salem.

What’s that?  You kind of sort of remember the name Salem for some reason?  For me, Salem brought back memories of 11th grade English class – we had to read The Crucible and learned all about the seriously heinous Salem Witch Trials that took place in 1692.

I can condense the happenings to this: a few very bored and bratty girls thought it might be silly fun to hurl accusations of witchcraft at fellow townspeople.  Consequently 20 innocent people ended up being put to death after being convicted of witchcraft.  After the fact, the girls did admit that they made the whole thing up – total tragedy.

Salem, MA was a quaint little town that was really quite lovely to explore.  We saw the presentation at the Salem Witch Museum first.

From there we hit the sidewalk and wandered down a few blocks to the old cemetery.  Next to the cemetery is a memorial to the innocent victims who were put to death during the trials.  The cemetery itself is wicked old (no pun intended).  The tombstones were extremely aged and very interesting to read.  We even found a headstone from one of the Mayflower Pilgrims!

After the cemetery, we dragged our hot, sweaty selves back to the car and headed to our final destination for the day.  It was about 4:40 pm and we saw that the House of Seven Gables (of Nathaniel Hawthorne fame) had a final tour beginning at 5 pm.  We made it in time and got in on that very last tour – which included the House of Seven Gables and Hawthorne’s birthplace.  (You can download the free Kindle edition of The House of Seven Gables!)

Oh – and how is this for CRAZY… right before we began the tour, we noticed that the sky was getting very dark and we remembered hearing on the news this morning that storms would be moving through.  I pulled up the current weather on my phone and took a picture of the impending madness with Biker Bob’s phone:

Suffice it to say, we got WALLOPED about halfway through the tour and had to RUN from one house to the next in the extreme downpour – soaked is an understatement!

We saw so many interesting things today.  Tomorrow we will head back to downtown Boston to see what else we can find!

Travel accommodations and other expenses incurred as a Twizzlers Traveling Family have been provided by Twizzlers/The Hershey Company.  All opinions and experiences are 100% our own.  We may or may not have taught Lily Bean to say, “Go, Red Sox” today.  What can I say?  We were caught up in the moment!