September 20

September 20
This was a travel day. All the way across Maine into New Hampshire.
9/21
Headed out early down interesting roads, through small towns, up and down hills, and rarely saw a straight road. All was lovely although not quite as squared away looking as Prince Edward Island. They must have the neatnik gene there.
We’re a bit early for the colors, but we are seeing some. The sun is out and the colors range rom burgandy to red, orange, gold and several shades of green in the evergreen trees. Driving through one stretch on a narrow two lane road with color on both sides was like being bathed in a golden light. So moving.
We stopped at a tourist mall, Vermont style, sampled all the cheeses, dips, and syrups. We bought cheese, sweets, and the raspberry maple syrup which we fell in love with. Had to have it!
The Calvin Coolidge Museum is the original building with the family’s furniture, etc all intact. The family housekeeper lived 30 years after their deaths and kept everything together until the son gave it to the State of Vermont.
It’s in the original village called Plymouth Notch. This is still a village people live in today.
The store Coolidge’s father bought had living quarters in the back and is where Calvin was born. There is also the home they moved to when he was four years old, the barn and shops, the one room schoolhouse. Church, and cheese factory his Dad started. It is one of the oldest continuous and still operating cheese factories in the U.S. Even Coolidge’s mother’s garden is still there and tended by the park people. Tom got some hollyhock seed . We will see if we can grow them.
It was a fun day. I have been taking many pictures of houses. They are so
interesting and different from what we have in Washington. They are huge, many three stories with added on wings. First the saltbox house with a shop/garage attached and attached to that is the barn. They call this New England Continuous Architecture.
9/22
This was only a half a days drive because I suddenly remembered we were
going to visit the Old Sturbridge Village. We settled in Brimfield at an old RV resort in a pretty setting by a lake.
We decided to stay long enough to get the generator Tom had purchased
sent here so we can have use of it the rest of the trip. Means we will be here for
at least four days.
9/23
Today was to be our day at the Old Sturbridge Village. We did spend all day there, but will have to go back as we didn’t see half of it. They let you come back one more day free. Gives us something more to do in our four day stay here.
We went on the rides today, the Stagecoach and wagon which were both drawn by beautiful Belgium Draft horses and the riverboat ride. Now we have all the walking through the rest of the village to see the restored farms, shops, etc.
In the church there was an organ concert at 2:00. We attended and were so glad we had. The organist was a delightful gentleman dressed in eighteen century clothing and played beautifully, gave a wonderful history lesson and some really fun facts in an exceptionally interesting way. We were so glad we took the time
for this.
By the way, most of the people here are dressed in costume and act their parts as, bankers, blacksmiths, farmers, etc. Makes it interesting and fun.
We ate at the Bullard Tavern and had wonderful macaroni and cheese. This
was a long day but good.
On our way back to camp we discovered we can find churches on the Garmin. Halleluia! We located our church for Sunday.
September 24, 2001
Go to Boston day. Everyone says, "Don’t drive in Boston". Well we are going to. We have our trusty Garmin to help us. She took us right to the Kennedy Museum and Library. It is a beautiful, impressive building overlooking the water
which is filled with boats, lots of them sailing on this beautiful sunny day.
It’s hot today, as high as 88 degrees, but it is comfortable in the museum.
We spent all day here and could have spent longer. There were two movies and four or five sections of exhibits with videos here and there. The only thing I thought was missing was more of Jackie’s clothes. They only had a couple outfits exhibited.
They covered his family and life before politics, his bid for the senate and campaigning for president, his years as president, and his legacy. It was wonderfully done and so interesting. He was a right wing Democrat. How we could use him now.
We left the museum and drove into downtown Boston to eat at a restaurant listed in the book "Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives" called Mike’s Place. Getting there was a nightmare, but the Garmin did it again only to find it closed at 3:00.
We arrived at 4:20. To say we were disappointed was an understatement.
Getting back home was unreal. It was right in the middle of commuter
going home traffic. I know everyone thinks our traffic is bad, but we only see something like this when there has been a major accident. Going into Boston was a literal parking lot, we moved out of Boston at a snails pace, sometimes only
5 mph.
Back in our town of Sturbridge we stopped at a Chinese buffet. It was quite good and saved trying to figure out something to make at home.
We really are enjoying our time here in Brimfield. We are kept busy with things to do every day. Tomorrow we go back to Old Sturbridge Village and Sunday it’s church, of course. I’ll let you know how all that goes next time.