Massachusetts and Rhode Island

 Sunday we attended the Franklin 2nd Ward, Blackstone Valley Massachusetts Stake

Monday we headed to Rhode Island. Hasbro's headquarters are in Rhode Island, so we stopped by to see Mr. Potato Head.

All the reserved parking spots looked like Monopoly squares

 

We stopped by Slater Mill, one of the first successful cotton mills and the start of the Industrial Revolution in the United States

We saw this incredibly odd statue and later found out it was supposed to be William Blackstone, whom the Blackstone River Valley is named after. I mean, a Puritan riding a bull, reading a book seems pretty normal, right???

 

 

We stopped by Roger Williams' final resting place, now a park on a hill overlooking Providence. He was the founder of Rhode Island, treated the native peoples very well, and was booted from Massachusetts because he was a religious reformer and not as strict as everyone there wanted him to be

 

 

The view of the capitol building from the park

We stopped by the Roger Williams National Memorial, it was closed. We walked around the park area near it.

Then we headed to the capitol

We had to walk past some anti-vaccine/mask protesters to get in.

This was the House of Representatives

And this was the Senate. Why did the Senate get protective dividers and the House didn't?

 

Rhode Island state seal

Beautiful details everywhere

The rotunda also had the state seal inlaid in the floor

 

Looking up in the rotunda

When we got back to the RV park, we went over to see the livestock there.

Our dog and this donkey were very interested in each other!

Tuesday we drove to Lowell, Massachusetts, a major location of the Industrial Revolution in the U.S.

We saw a mill girls boarding house exhibit. They had to pay for room and board, usually in a building not far from the factory. They would have three meals a day there

The girls were usually 4 to a room

The mills were HUGE! Look at how many floors that building has!

We clocked in

 

Then we entered the weaving room

 

This was actually less machines than would have been in the room in the mill's heyday. It wasn't TOO loud, but of course, I didn't have to stand there all day and have my ears assaulted. When we were upstairs, we could feel the rumble of the machines running.

Coolest exhibit in the museum was this miniature model of the mill. You could see how many people and machines were in there and look at all the different floors and processes

 

 This was a listing of ALL the jobs needed in a mill. The job title that caught me off guard was "overseer", which harks back to plantations and slavery

We have places like these mills to thank for OSHA and workplace safety laws

Also, for child labor laws

Lowell on is the National Park quarter

As we walked through Lowell, we got to see these improvised outdoor seating areas for restaurants

We passed by the Lowell Five Cent Savings Bank

Wednesday we went to Quincy, home of two presidents

We had to slow down to let the turkeys cross the road...

John Adams owned this house when he was first married, John Quincy Adams was born here

That house was right next door to this house, the one that John Adams was born in and his parents lived in.

Check out these HUGE fireplaces!

 

Thursday we went to Concord

This was the site of the beginning of the hostilities between Britain and the colonies

This bridge is where the "shot heard 'round the world" occurred

I took this photo of the river before I noticed everyone was watching a beaver swimming. His head is right in the middle of the river, but even zooming in, you can barely tell

We drove past the home where Louisa May Alcott wrote Little Women

Saw Ralph Waldo Emerson's home

We went to see Author's Ridge at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery (not the one in New York with Washington Irving)

Emerson

Alcott

Hawthorne

Thoreau

We drove out to Walden Pond which surprised me that it was a serious lake, not a "pond" at all!

Saturday we went into Boston. We stopped by the Boston Massachusetts Temple

We started our day at Boston Public Garden, also known as the Boston Commons

We saw turtles! (And squirrels and ducks, much to the dog's consternation and anxiety!)

On one side of the Commons, it is very much a garden, with the swan boats and fountains etc. The other side is leash free and has playgrounds

We saw a LOT of street performers

We saw the Make Way for Ducklings statue!

And the swan boats

We did not take a ride... see those prices???

Before we headed off, we saw this Poe statue. It has a raven, a heart, pages tumbling out of his satchel and across the pavement

First stop was the Massachusetts State House... which in spite of the website saying it is open, IS NOT!

It had been closed for the past year and was going to be closed for who knows how long

 

Check out this cool piece of art--what you can't see is how it shimmered and sparkled

 

Someday I'm gonna take a duck boat tour

We walked the Freedom Trail, 2.5 miles through Boston, all kinds of historically significant sites. Plenty of famous people were buried at the Granary Burying Ground, including John Hancock, Paul Revere, the men killed in the Boston Massacre, and Benjamin Franklin's parents

A lot of the tombstones have skull and crossbones on them

Hancock

Revere

Samuel Adams

Boston Massacre men

 

....and Mother Goose! (needs to be cleaned, but this is the supposed Mother Goose of nursery rhyme fame)

The Freedom Trail is so easy to follow. There are signs like this along the way

We passed the Old South Meeting House

 

 

 

 The Old State House where they read the Declaration of Independence from the balcony

 

 Look, another street performer!

The site of the Boston Massacre

Faneuil Hall

Hey, more street performers!

Paul Revere's home

Another sign, pointing our way

Also: red brick or painted red lines to show the way. You just follow the line all the way through Boston

Bunker Hill

"Don't fire 'till you see the whites of their eyes!"

 

We got to see a musket demonstration

 

We went to see the USS Constitution and the USS Cassin Young

 

 

 

We took a ferry from the Charlestown Navy Yard to the Long Wharf, almost back to the beginning. It made the dog super anxious to be on the ferry. Too many unusual noises and sensations!

We tried to find dinner in Chinatown but our restaurant of choice had closed for the day

 

Some fun sights around Boston--a cute teapot at Starbucks

 

At Quincy Marketplace there were a lot of signs for "lobsta" at the eateries. This was funny to see on an ice cream truck

 

 

 This car was AMAZING! The driver looked like Elvis but he was blasting the Beatles...