Look who came to See us!

Thursday afternoon on Wolftever Creek - felt like another summer day in upper 80's.  It was great having Ryan and Carrie and kids home to go out on the boat one last time for this season.

After we stopped to swim awhile, the boat wouldn't start up for the longest time.  We were wishing it wasn't such a quiet day on the water, with only a paddle boat there as a towing option - NOT!  Fortunately, the boat did finally start, thank you Jesus!  So we won't be taking it out again until Randy has put a new starter on.  They are already dropping the water level so we were happy to call last Thursday our last boating of the season anyhow.  The water was noticeably cooler than the last time we were in it over a month ago.

Super sun screener

I got one last turn in on skis for the season.  Sorry that Carrie didn't before the starter mishap.

Playing games after dinner Friday

 We taught Claire how to play Pit - it was a little wild for her liking when the spoons started flying.

Claire loves Uno and won the game! 

Grandpa Randy's birthday card for Easton's Sept. 29 birthday

What do we have here?

A Mater Duplo set (from Cars movie)

. . . and a Nike athletic suit

They do quite well at playing gently actually.

"That silly sister of mine"

Fun with Grandpa - Easton was just giggling away.  I got a cute video of their fun.

Croquet Sunday morning

Can't wait to see 'em again when we go camping together the end of October.

Boston Ends our 3-Week Vacation

We moved into our motel room at LaQuinta Inn in Somerville after our cruise ended Sun. morning, Sept. 10. It was just .5 mile from the T Assembly station where we took the subway down to the Common in Boston.

Our purpose was to walk the 2.5 mile Freedom Trail that everybody told us we should do when we visited Boston.  (It seemed like a LOT longer than that to us all.)  It leads to 16 nationally significant historic sites.  It includes museums, churches, meeting houses, cemeteries, parks, a ship and historic markers that tell the story of the American Revolution and beyond.  

The Old State House is the oldest public building still surviving from British colonial America.  In 1770 the Boston Massacre unfolded outside the Old State House.

This is where the midnight ride of Paul Revere started, at the Old North Church, seen below.

Old North Church steeple

The colonial congregants had to buy the box pews in order to sit in them.  They were most uncomfortable! This church is still an active Episcopal congregation and is one of the most visited historic sites in Boston.

"Listen my children and you shall hear of the midnight ride of Paul Revere..."

Bunker Hill Monument was across the river from the rest of the Freedom Trail sites we saw. We'd been told it wasn't really worth the long walk to get to it.  It is where the first major battle of the American Revolution occurred.  

The T = our "wheels" around Boston.  A ticket to go anywhere on the system cost $2.75 one way.

Monday we went to the Public Garden and Randy enjoyed making friends.

I took this picture - nice boca effect, eh?

The famous swan rides that you pedal - we were there on Monday, 9/11,  so they weren't operating.

Having this beautiful green spot in the midst of Boston is sure nice.

We saw some steeples from the Public Gardens so went to check them out.  They had beautiful tiffany windows in both churches we visited.

The Reception Hall in the MA State House that has a flag for each city in Boston.  The guide told us there were four cities that hadn't yet gotten a flag to them and they requested them something like 13 years ago.

The House of Reps chamber

The back wall was this beautiful wood.

We took the T to Harvard from the Public Garden.  This statue of John Harvard has a shiny left toe you can see.  If you rub his toe, it will bring you good luck, or so they say.  We were there when a big group of Asians were there, all taking their turn putting their hand up on the toe of his boot for a picture.  Randy took about 10 pictures to get one without a hand on the his boot!

This church was on Harvard's campus and we enjoyed listening to an orchestra practice for awhile.

This part of the campus is sort of what I expected Harvard to look like.  But another part was so different where the science center was and the law library, etc.  A lady told us that tuition for a year is $63,000 for an undergrad.  She said that if the student's family income is not at least $60,000, they get a free ride!  They have about 6,000 undergrads this year and a LOT more graduate students.

We came back to Somerville where our motel was ready for a good meal Mon. evening  We tried this open air Mexican restaurant across from the river (Papagayo's) - MISTAKE!  I learned not to get green sauce on enchiladas again - it was way too spicy for me. I scraped it all off.

Our motel had free shuttle service to the airport which was handy on Tuesday, Sept. 12, when we flew back to Chattanooga, a day after Hurricane Irma blew through Collegedale.

Last Port - Halifax, Nova Scotia

St. Mary's Basilica was on our way to the Halifax public gardens.  They had lovely stained glass windows.  Most of the churches we saw in Norway and Denmark did NOT have any stained glass.

We walked about 30 min. from the ship to get here. The entrance to the Public Gardens was impressive!

Nobody does gardening better than Canadians! 

   I loved the flashy red tuberous begonias in this planter.

On our way back, we stopped at the new Halifax library and enjoyed some comfortable wifi time. I wish we'd gotten a picture of the outside but we couldn't get a good angle with decent light.  I found a picture online to include below.  It's cantilevered and looks quite impressive!

On the boardwalk in Halifax not far from where our ship was tied up

Our last day on the cruise before we got off the ship in Boston. It was a beautiful sunny day.

We enjoyed a beautiful sunset Sabbath evening, Sept. 9, our last on the ship.