The week after I finished my proposal presentation I flew up to Boston to visit my little brother and his wife. Boston is near New Hampshire and Maine so I drove up to see them. One of my life goals is to visit all 50 states – NH and ME were numbers 41 & 42 (States I have left: Vermont, Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, the Dakotas, Alaska, and Hawaii).
In Maine I visited a historic coastal fort (Fort McClary). It was originally built during the Revolutionary War. During the Civil War granite blocks were brought in to reinforce the coastal line, but the war ended before they were all placed so they are just strew around the grounds. It was a rather strange looking fort, but was in a very picturesque location. After leaving the fort, I explored Portsmouth, NH for a few hours. It has a cute historic downtown with houses dating back to the 1600s. The woman at the visitors bureau gave me a map and told me about a short street that had just been turned into a pedestrian lane to commemorate the slaves who lived in NH. Apparently slaves were buried there in the 1700s and their remains were discovered in 2003 during road work. The city created a nice park designed by an artist from Georgia with statues representing the graves. My favorite part was the headstone at the beginning of the park that had a husband on one side and a wife on the other. They are almost touching hands on the side, but cannot quite reach each other. It is a powerful reminder of the way families were torn apart by slavery.
The next day I explored Boston on my own. I started with a stroll through the Boston Common. My favorite part of the Common was the Make Way for Ducklings statue. I loved that book as a child (and still do) and enjoyed seeing the locations I had pictured in my head as a child. My second favorite part was the sunscreen dispensers they had around the Frog Pond, a shallow wading pool containing tons of splashing kids. Free sunscreen = public health in action!
I left the Common and walked the main stretch of the Freedom Trail, a pathway that takes you through the historic sites of Boston. It was a great way to see the highlights of Boston and appreciate just how much early American history happened there. One of the things I really liked about Boston was how successfully the city has preserved their historic buildings. I also enjoyed how easily walkable the downtown area was.
As I wandered the trail, I noticed a linear Holocaust memorial in a small park. I have to confess, at first I internally rolled my eyes because it seems like every city has a Holocaust memorial. The Holocaust was undoubtedly horrific, but sometimes I feel like people memorialize the Holocaust as if it was the only genocide to ever occur. However, this memorial was really well designed and I ended up truly appreciating it. There were a series of glass towers, each symbolizing a different concentration camp. The walls were covered in the numbers used to identify the prisoners and the floor of each tower was an air grate that blew up warm air (reminiscent of the gas chambers). The walkway between the towers had various facts and quotes about Jews’ experiences during WWII. My favorite part was that the wall reading “Holocaust” had a container attached to it holding small stones to place on top of the wall. It is Jewish tradition to place stones on the graves rather than flowers as stones indicate a permanent remembrance of the deceased. I thought it was really powerful to provide stones at the memorial and, of course, left one on the wall. The attention to detail at the memorial was magnificent and I found its simplicity quite moving.
While I was in Boston I also managed to see the US Women’s National soccer team defeat Germany in a big public square, visited the JFK presidential library (fabulous), hiked along a river, and trekked out to Kimball Farm for ice cream (it was worth the trip). Once the rest of my family arrived we headed out to Cape Cod for a beach week.
We stayed near Woods Hole, which is home to a large marine science research community. In fact, my uncle is a marine ecologist at Woods Hole. We were at the Cape for a big family reunion with all of my aunts, uncles, and cousins and we had a great time exploring the area. There are lots of cool ocean-y things to see and do around Woods Hole. One day we visited the free NOAA Woods Hole Aquarium. My favorite part was the harbor seals swimming around outside. They were so fat and cute!
Another day we went to the NOAA Ocean Science Exhibit Center, where the highlight was a real submersible used to study marine life in the deep ocean (or “the midnight zone” of the ocean, as my nieces called it). This submersible was used to study life around hydrothermal vents and the girls (aka “The Captain” and “Mission Control”) played in it for about 30 minutes. We literally had to pick them up and carry them away. While we were still “diving” to the midnight zone, The Captain also lost her first tooth. The excitement of loosing a tooth in a submersible was so great that at one point she asked, “Am I dreaming? Is this real life?!” It was that exciting.
We also had two beach days. Cape Cod was lovely, but I’ll take a Southern beach over a New England beach any day. We sadly did not see any sharks.
New England lighthouses, however, are superior to those in the South.
We also visited an old estate called Highfield Hall that had beautiful gardens. They have an exhibit this summer where local artists made a series of 30-something fairy houses that are scattered throughout the gardens. The fairy houses were seriously amazing – lot of small houses with tiny little details. There were many styles and sizes, but they were all impressive. One of my favorite’s was the tooth fairy’s house that has paper mache teeth hanging in the tree above it. There was also a library, a post office, and a beach house that I liked.
This girl had my phone in the fairy garden. She mostly took detail shots of the houses (a tiny pair of shoes, a lot of small ladder photos for some reason). We stumbled across an art installation of thin mirrors in the woods and I found this selfie the next day.
One evening we went on a short walk to The Knob. The nieces promptly ran down the steep stone embankment because some adults did it so why can’t they also climb the boulders out in the ocean? They lived and it was very pretty.
Our family reunion took place at a restaurant on the pier. It was so fun to see all of my cousins again! It had been many years since I had seen some of them. And some of their kids are so grown up! We had a great time that night.
On our last day at the Cape, we took the ferry over to Martha’s Vineyard. It was gorgeous and we all loved it. I hope we get to go back someday. We walked around two towns, ate lunch, enjoyed the views, and even did a little shopping.
Neil and I had one last day in Boston together before heading home. We met up with a college friend for lunch and then rested in the afternoon. For dinner we headed to the North End for Italian with Nathan, Kathryn, and Kirsten. It was delicious. We walked off dinner by wandering around for a while trying to find an art installation Kirsten wanted to see. I felt like it was worth the walk. The artist, Janet Echelman, is a textile artist who creates these large installations in various cities. The color of the threads changed every few minutes and were lit up so I’m glad we went at night. I like how the piece contains so much symbolism of Boston.
Two weeks in Massachusetts was not enough! Next time I go to Boston I want to see the art museums, catch a Red Sox game, and take a harbour cruise. Let us know if you have any Boston suggestions!
mormish: married life as God's chosen people 
