Wrapping it Up

Here is about half of my group on the beach in Hyannis, a short way from the JFK Memorial.
After that we went to Plymouth and Plimoth Plantation. They really enjoyed that and I really enjoyed watching and hearing them interact with the characters because they actually knew the places in England that were spoken about and there was certainly no language barrier.

We leave tomorrow at 9:00 AM to head for the Cliff Walk in Newport, Rhode Island http://www.cliffwalk.com/ and then just in case they have any money left, as a surprise finale to the trip I am taking them to the Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut.

Abbreviated blog tonight...have to finish up paperwork for this tour and pack and get ready to begin the next tour.

Plimouth Plantation is Better than Walmart

This day requires two posts....here's the first...

On Tuesday we went to Plimouth Plantation, the amazingly authentic re-creation of the 1627 village where the Pilgrims settled. If you haven't seen this, it's a "living museum" where everything is exactly as it was 380 years ago. The structures, the costumes, the tools, the food, and the people are all as they were.
The people are modeled after real people who came over on the Mayflower, so they tell of their lives in the language they used. You can interact with them but they never come out of character, so you can ask them about their experiences and their lives...it's an amazing technique that makes history so understandable and interesting.

Peter actually tried to get this guy to come out of character by asking him where he really lives when he is not working here. The guy said, "Where else could I live? Out there? In the wilderness?"

Everything, I mean everything they say and do is in character. After a while you feel like you are actually living in 1627. He talked about the clothes they wear, that they brought them over with them from England and they are no particular size...he said "it's not that we can't make our own clothing, we are very skilled at that in our homeland but we just don't have the time because we have so much to do to survive here in this new land, and we have the women and children to protect from the natives." I finally had to drag Peter away from this guy since he was hell-bent on getting him to break character.

There are also present-day crafstman who produce the utensils, pottery and furnishings for the village using the techniques and tools that were used in the 17th century. While they worked they answered questions and talked about what they were doing.

Here is a potter...and a carpenter.

If you are ever looking for a place to go on vacation I highly recommend Plymouth and Plimouth Plantation. It's a great place to take the kids too. I have no jokes about this place...it was simply amazing and way better than Walmart!

Springfield Walmart to Plymouth Walmart

As we continued the Great New England Walmart Tour of 2008, we left Springfield this morning and drove the rest of the way across Massachusetts to a little southeast of Boston to the Nantasket Beach Hotel http://tinyurl.com/5zvaju%20whichwhich is on a little peninsula in a town called Hull. Talked to the person in charge of groups, got info, brochures and had lunch.

Then we drove on to Plymouth. There we saw the Mayflower II which is an exact full scale replica of the original Mayflower. I think this should be Nancy and Bruce's next boat. It was built in 1957 and there is a plaque commemorating the transatlantic voyage of 33 men who made the same trip from Plymouth, England to Plymouth, MA. I wonder if they got scurvy.


We saw Plymouth Rock where the Pilgrims first set foot on land in America, except that the structure that houses it is under renovation and we could not see it really well.

Across from the rock is the monument to the women who came over on the Mayflower in 1620, called "The Pilgrim Mother."

We got here too late to see the Plimouth Plantation, we will start out tomorrow and go there first then on to Hyannis and Cape Cod.

Tonight we spend the overnight in the lap of luxury as we park in the extra large parking lot of the Plymouth Walmart SuperCenter. This is the cadillac of Walmart free parking lots and we are feeling pretty elite. After all, is this not the land of the Kennedys? This is really living!

Update: We just found out that this is the Walmart that the Pilgrims shopped in when they landed at Plymouth Rock...amazing! There is even a frozen turkey still in the freezer case left over from the "First Thanksgiving Storewide Sale". I told you this was a SuperCenter.