Old Iron Sides

Bonjour, friends. Our method of commute this morning was supposed to be the same as yesterday's, what with the commuter train and dropping off Kizmet but, surprise of all surprises, we were running behind so we missed the train. We were going to then try the subway but all the parking lots were filled up and we ended up just driving into town. It took a while but we finally made it and found a parking lot only a couple blocks from the USS Constitution

museum. Made up of solid oak planks, the USS Constitution is over 200 years old, the only one of her fleet still in the water. She earned the nickname Old Ironsides, because the oak on her sides was so thick, cannonballs would literally bounce off. She was never once defeated in all the battles she took part in during the war of 1812. Tours of the ship didn't start until later in the day so we

decided to check out the museum. A lot of the stuff about the war of 1812 made me laugh because they had made it sound like England tried to "reinvade" the United States as opposed to the States trying to invade Canada and our burning down their White House was put so as to make the reader feel sympathetic to the American cause. The stuff about the boats was interesting though. There were six boats built for the war of 1812, and that made up the American fleet since they had sold all their other boats in order to pay off the dept to France that had built up during the War of Independence. Three of the

boats were a smaller model, skinnier and shorter, able to manoeuvre more easily. The other three, including the Constitution, were a larger model, wider and with more guns. We spent around an hour in there before we all started to get hungry. We decided to take the tour bus as close as we could get to Cheers, because that's where Dad wanted to go for lunch. We were dropped off next to the statue of Edgar Allen Poe and his raven and the walked across the Boston Public Gardens to get to the restaurant. Along the way we stopped to look at the Make Way For Ducklings statue, modelled after the children's book by Robert McCloskey. The inside of the Cheers pub, which is actually called the Bull and Finch Pub, wasn't actually used in the show, just the outside steps, but there was a recreation of the pub upstairs that was the same design as what you would see in the show. I had a salad and a Roy Rogers, which was odd tasting. It was fun and they were playing a

playlist of entirely 80's music, so that was pretty cool. After we ate, we went back out to walk through the Boston Commons. Honestly, they weren't as nice as the Public Gardens but they did have a wading pool/skating rink and there were large statues of frogs fishing on one side, so that made up for it. After wandering, we picked up the freedom trail again and walked it to a couple of graveyards to see where Paul Revere, Mother Goose, and the five victims of the Boston Massacre are buried before heading to the harbour to take a tour boat back over to the USS Constitution. There is a World War II ship docked next to the Constitution and was closing in a couple of minutes so we decided to to a quick walk through of it. Her name is the USS Cassin Young. There wasn't much time to take a lot in, but we got to see the anti-aircraft guns and the U-boat missile launchers. Dad also taught Isaac and I about the benefits of having your boat made up of multiple sheets of metal instead of just being one solid weld, i.e. how do we get the boat not

to crack in half. After we hopped off we headed back over to the USS Constitution for that tour. It's a very deep ship, extending four stories down into the belly. It's being repaired at the moment, so a lot of stuff had been removed from the ship, including the guns, crates and the top 100ft of the mizzenmast. There were about five or six marines on the ship and it's their job to sail her and to get her ready for docking and sailing. When she's not in dry dock, as she is now, she sails about twice a year and the marines will climb up the masts and such things, like they used to do, without hardly any safety

equipment. Sounds fun to me. We had a quick tour, guided by a marine who has been on active duty for 7 years. Since he was doing the tours, he was wearing the traditional sailing gear of the early 1800's. All the marines who are put on the Constitution will learn how to sail on the job, knowing nothin when they arrive. It's a pretty good job to have I would say. After the tour we decided to take the rest of the harbour cruise after a quick stop at the museum gift shop where I bought a couple of glass quills with several bottles of ink. When we got back we walked through the Quincy Market since Mum was hungry but we didn't find anything so we started back towards the car through Little Italy, which is quite different at

night. It didn't take us too too long to get back to the truck. We got a couple of pictures on the bridge on our way back across and I got a picture with the Converse building, who's sign lights up neon pink at night, which is why I noticed it today all though we'd gone past it multiple times. Along the drive back, we ended up going through the tunnels, which was a little terrifying if you've ever seen the episode of Doctor Who, Gridlock, in which people are trapped in a multilane highway for their entire lives because they've been made to think it heads to a better place but it actually is just a giant circle. We got out, so it wasn't the same thing thank god. After we picked up the Kizzy, it was time to head back for bed. Peace out m8s.

#camping #boston #massachussettes