Vacation - Day 5

Today was a very historic day. And by that I mean we saw a lot of historical things. We started out by going to Braintree, which is where John Adams was born and lived most of his life. We went on a tour of the house he was born in and then the house he lived in when John Quincy Adams was born. They are actually the oldest existing and closest together houses of any of our former presidents. I don’t really think the oldest thing is that unique, I mean John was the second president. It just follows that his house would be one of the oldest. Anyway. Oh another thing, apparently today was blue-red-green-white day. Everyone was wearing the same color scheme and we didn't even realize it until later in the day.

We then rode this trolley/bus to the house he lived in when he was president of the United States. It was kind of a scary ride and I almost fell off several times (Marissa if you are reading this, it was even more slippery than that bus in Dublin!). But luckily we made it to the house and toured it. Actually my favorite room was not even in the house, it was a separate building out to the back. John Quincy Adams wanted his son to build a fireproof building for his books and papers, so he built a stone library to the side of the house.

After we finished the John Adams tour we drove to the Minute Man Historical Park, which is right in between Lexington and Concord . We watched a movie about the events of April 19, 1775, which is the day of the opening battle of the Revolutionary War. We then went to the North Bridge, which is the place of “the shot heard ‘round the world.” Also in Concord is Walden Pond, which we drove around. It was a lot bigger than I expected actually. After we went to Lexington and stopped at their square where their minute man statue is. Apparently both Lexington and Concord have these statues and they get into fights over who should rightfully have it.

After all of this we drove around (after getting lost) and found the Boston Temple which is next to Lexington in Belmont. So let me just interject here- by this time we still hadn’t eaten anything all day (except breakfast at like 8:30) and the parents had been promising to feed us all day. We were going to eat after the John Adams stuff, then before the Lexington/Concord stuff, then right after…it was ridiculous. Finally at like 6 we find this restaurant called Bugaboo Creek steak house and we eat there. Probably the best part of this place was that there was an animatronic buffalo on the wall that would randomly start talking and making really dumb jokes. But actually the best part was that the place had food!