On Wednesday, we followed the red bricks…aka the Freedom Trail through Boston. 

We started in the Public Gardens and the Boston Common (Oldest public park in the United States).

From there we went to the Massachusetts State House (State capitol/house #3 of the trip). It was built in the late 1790s. The inside was very cool with grand stair cases and a room filled with flags.

We walked past the Park Street church and headed to the burial grounds where Paul Revere is buried along with other famous Bostonians. The headstones in this cemetery reminded me of how we cartoon headstones look. I found that amusing.  The next stop at King’s Chapel also included burial grounds but I can’t remember anybody famous there.

The next stop was Old City Hall and Ben Franklin Statue. They also had a donkey statue and of course Eric had take an inappropriate pictures. Haha.

The next important places were the Old South Meeting House (where they meet before the Boston Tea Party incident) and Old Corner bookstore (which is a Chipotle now). I’m not sure why Old Corner bookstore was important but its great advertising for Chipotle.

Although I love Chipotle, we opted for Cosi instead. Minneapolis used to have Cosi…I loved it. They all left the area and my stomach was never the same. I was so happy to have my delicious Chicken Pesto Melt. YUM!

We stumbled upon Ben Franklin’s birthplace. Surprisingly, this was not on the map or an actual stop on the Freedom Trail.

The Old State House was next on the tour. I don’t know much about it and we didn’t go in because they were charging $10. I’m just not into Old State Capitol/Houses. Hehe. Nearby was the site of the Boston Massacre.  You want to take about “Fake News,” Paul Revere was the first. On March 5, 1770, Bostonians and the British soldiers got into a little scuffle and the soldiers killed 5 people.  The next day in Paul Revere’s paper it was called a “bloody massacre” and the name stuck. John Adams defended the British Soldiers and most got off and I think two had their thumbs branded…weird sentence.

As usual with me something is always surrounded by scaffolding and this time it was Faneuil Hall. It is market place now. This was also another popular meeting place for the pissed off colonist.

From there we sent to Paul Revere house. We didn’t go in because again they were charging money and I wasn’t that interested. Here is a picture of the house. It was built late 1600s and Paul wasn’t the original owners (Obviously).

Our last stop was at Old North Church. You know the “One if by land, two if by sea” church. This is not the last on the Freedom Trail…by the time we got here we were hot, sweaty, tired and thirsty. We stopped at the 7-Eleven and got a pop and headed back to the hotel to relax. 

After cooling off we drove up to Salem for some of the witch history. It was only 14 miles from our hotel but took us an hour. Traffic there is awful!  We watched the presentation at the Salem Witch Museum where I learned some silly girls (preachers daughter) made up stuff about people and those people suffered and died because of it. Not cool!

After sleeping in a bit, we had breakfast at the restaurant in the hotel and headed off to the Rhode Island State House. If you haven’t realized it yet, I love going to state capitols/houses. I’m glad we didn’t run in Providence…hills!  The state house was cool and we stopped in the gift shop and found the state capitol book where you get a stamp at each one you visit. This is my type of thing! Ha!

We eventually made our way to our Boston. Our first stop was the Harbor Cruise. It was 90 minutes of corny jokes, weird stories and interesting scenery. 

After that we swung by the finish line of the Boston Marathon…something I will never get to do. 

We went up to the Skywalk Observatory in the Prudential building to see Boston from the top floor. 

From there we walked to Fenway Park to see the Minnesota Twins beat the Boston Red Sox 6-5. It was a good game and the place is very old (built in 1912) and kind of dumpy but full of interesting history.

We started off the trip with an early flight to Boston. We hopped in the car and drove straight to New Haven, CT for packet pickup for our first half marathon of the trip, New Haven Road Race Half Marathon. After that we checked into our hotel, we found a local pizza place that had delicious wood fired pizzas. Our first day was pretty relaxed, just a lot of time wasted in the plane and car.

The New Haven Road Race Half Marathon was hot and humid. I have a separate post that tells you all about the race. It went ok! After a stop at Wendy’s for a burger and a quick shower we headed up to Hartford to see the Connecticut Capitol Building. 

We also stopped at the Cathedral of St. Joseph with their large beautiful stained glass windows. 

When we were driving back into New Haven, I saw a large monument on top of a big hill. We decided to drive up to the top of East Rock Park for the great views. We ran through the lower part of the park. I didn’t realized that the upper part was so cool. It did not disappoint.

New Haven Road Race Half Marathon

The race started out HOT and HUMID. We started right by Yale University in the New Haven Green. It was very confusing start as the 5K and the Half started at the same time but in different corners of the square. We were heading to the 5K start before we realized what was going on. I was stressed about this race because my last half was over 3:15 and the time limit of this race was 3:15. I eyed up all the other runners around me and none of them looked like me. I was certain I would be last. The first couple miles where ok miles for me but the damn cop car was right behind me which totally stressed me out. I thought this is going to suck for the rest of the race. Thankfully I wasn't alone. There were quite a few of us back of the packers which made life easier. 

The first half ran through some nice neighborhoods and there were so many people out supporting us. Many had sprinklers going which was great to run through. It was awesome! 

The half way point brought us back to the square and where I would eventually finish...it was so mean to do that to us! After this stretch we ran in an industrial part of the city. This was rough and boring. I really struggled with running at this point. The last 5 miles were mostly walking. But it was fast walking!

Thankfully we hit a park at mile 10. It was very shady and downhill. I loved that part. I passed a few people in this section. Just before mile 11 the 20K runners turned left and we turned right for a short out and back section (down a hill that we had to immediately run back up, how mean!) It was a huge relief to see quite a few people heading out to the turnaround when I was coming back...I wasn't last!!! :)

In the last stretch I meet an older local man who has run this race every year. We talked quite a bit about Minneapolis. He is a teacher and has run the Torchlight 5K when he was in town for a conference. He said he really liked the area. 

I finished in 3:11:42, 3 minutes under the cut off. I was 920 out of 928. I got my medal and water and that was it. They were tearing down the finish area and there was no food. What the heck?  No banana?  Big disappointment!