Breakfast was at Starbucks this morning. I think we all needed coffee. The barista there seemed to think that we didn’t understand how to order at Starbucks and was talking down at us as a result. I think he needed more training; all our orders would not have been out of place at any Starbucks in California. I think California Starbuck employees are a bit more sophisticated, and their patrons definitely have more demands as well. This little Starbucks in Mystic had the opposite problem: There is a Dunkin Doughnuts on every corner here, but a Starbucks is rare, so the barista assumes that the patrons have no previous knowledge of how to “work” a Starbucks as they walk through the doors.
With coffee in hand, we zipped through Rhode Island and landed in Plymouth, MA. While there, we saw a replica of the Mayflower. It was a nice boat. To think: there were 40ish crew members who largely stayed on the top deck and 102 Pilgrims who never left the bowels of the ship. It was pretty tight quarters.
Jeffrey wasn’t feeling too good, not having had any breakfast except for a coffee; he was dehydrated. He did a very quick tour of the boat and then went to the bathroom. I went to find him some Gatorade. He felt better after that.
Next stop was Plymouth Rock – where the Pilgrims landed. The rock itself was just a small boulder with “1620” written on it. It was housed in a large colonnade structure (that looked like a bus stop on Google Earth). OK, not very impressive, but it did show where they landed.
Courtney and Barbara shopped across the street after that while Jeffrey and I (definitely NOT shoppers) waited outside. For lunch, Barbara ordered a lobster roll, which was pretty good, and much cheaper than we had seen elsewhere. I wasn’t too impressed with it, but at least the price was right and we could then say that we had tried it.
Next stop was John Adams’ house. Barbara has been reading a biography on John Adams all summer, so this was going to be the highlight of the trip for her (To get the girls back to the car at our last stop, I told Barbara that there was a John Adams monument right by the car park, and I told Courtney that they were having a puppy parade near that monument. The girls are “unmovable” when they are shopping, but they will move for John Adams and puppies).
After Plymouth, we drove to Quincy, home of John Adams and John Quincy Adams. We actually got to see three houses on the “trolley tour” that the Quincy Parks Services offered. The first house was where John Adams was born. The house next door is where John Adams lived in his early years and where John Quincy Adams was born. Across town, we came to the much more grand home of John Adams (post presidency). This was also the home of John Quincy Adams and two generations after him. Nice home! But what I really liked was the stone library outside the home. The library was placed there to avoid being consumed by fire in case the mansion burned down (being a wood structure, this was a very real possibility). John Q had this library commissioned, but he died before he saw it completed. The single room library has two floors of leather-bound books; 8,000 volumes in all. I would be very happy to stay in here for a while!
But return we did to where we started on the trolley tour. All of us were tired and dehydrated, and it had started raining, so we decided to skip Lexington and go straight to our hotel. This was probably a good idea because we also hit the leading edge of the afternoon commute.
The hotel was very nice. Since we were all hungry, we decided that dinner had to be now. Well, I had booked this particular hotel because it was next to a Chili’s, and this is the one restaurant that both my kids liked. My wife decided that we could not possibly eat there because we can eat there any time back in CA. Fortunately, right next door was an Italian place called “the Chateau” (now, why an Italian place would have a French name is beyond me). The food was both good and filling. I think we also packaged up lunch for our drive back – it’s now in the hotel refrigerator.
When we got back, Barb and the kids went swimming, and I spent my time writing this. I sure hope these beds and pillows are better! I’ve lost a lot of sleep!
Extra: Funny stuff that’s happened.
1. The kids are making fun of mom (Barbara) because she can’t pronounce Massachusetts. She skips the two “T’s” and always has. Even with some impromptu diction lesions by the rest of the family, she still can’t say it.
2. This brings us to another word that apparently Barbara can’t say. While visiting parents recently (without me) in Pennsylvania, Barbara mentioned that there were wildebeests roaming around in Australia (there aren’t, but that’s a separate issue). She calls them “wild-e-beasts.”
3. The kids were also telling me of their hotel stay in Pennsylvania. They thought it strange that grandma brought a vacuum cleaner with her. She vacuumed the floors, and asked the kids to make their beds in the morning. Her reason: She’s a long-time patron of this particular hotel, and she wants to make sure that she continues to make a good impression so that they will continue to offer her good pricing and service… like what? From what I understand, she actually needed to vacuum the floors, and the maids routinely skip her room. I’d never go there again, but grandma is determined to endear herself to them.