The North-East and Ben Affleck

This is way behind but it's better late than never right??? So for our anniversary and for our quest to conquer all 50 states together we decided to take a North-East trip. We flew into Boston October 23rd for a four day weekend. It was short but WAY fun! There is so much to do up there we are for sure going to have to go back someday. Jason is a huge history buff and I think it's pretty cool too, so we saw a lot of historic stuff like Minute Man National Park, the USS Cassin & Museum and Old Iron Sides. We even drove down to Plymouth to see "THE" Plymouth Rock. But you don't think we went up to the North-East and just stayed in Massachusetts do you??? HEAVENS NO! We also drove into Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont and of course Maine! We stopped at a couple of places in each state and saw what there was to see that close to the boarder. We went to an Armory in CT and it was pretty cool to see how the guns and rifles have evolved. Granted, I still don't quite understand how someone can come up with that kind of stuff, but it was still cool. OOH and did I mention the leaves??? Oh my goodness! I am a freak about autumn and I LOVE LOVE LOVE the colors of the leaves. I love trees. There is just something about them that is so mysterious. Just think of the things they have been able to see? I love how they can get to be so old and all the intricacies of how each branch is entwined with the other.... I KNOW, I'm a tree hugger (in a different way.)

So some other fun points are:

*Going to the Family Guy Corn Maize
*We saw the actual Oscar Meyer Wiener mobile driving down the road (it was awesome!)
*We tried to go the the site of the Boston Tea Party but "Aunt B" (aka, our GPS) got us lost to many times and with all the toll roads we were having to pay, we gave up.

Side Note---Jason and I are Family Guy addicts. This is one of our guilty pleasures. I know, it's crude but it is JUST SO DANG FUNNY! We actually saw a commercial about the corn maize and decided that we HAD to go. A corn maize is a corn maize and you really can't tell if it was Stewie and Brian that we were walking through, but it was still cool.

Another cool place we went to and it was totally appropriate for the time of year, was Salem, Mass.! Yep, where the Salem witch trials were. The town gets so into Halloween it was really cool. We drove there on Sunday and it was PACKED. So we decided that we'd come back on Monday. After seeing the town, I got really excited to go the next day. (So instead, on Sunday we drove up to Maine, saw a light house and had a Lobster lunch). So, Monday came and we went to the Museum and I was soooooooo disappointed! I mean, this was supposed to be real cool and have all this cool stuff about the trials and witches. NO. NO. You pay ten bucks per person and go into this room where they have scenes set up around the room, and mind you the mannequins looked like they were made in the 60's and the people who made them were high or on something else cause they were way old and out dated and looked like they were melting. So they just spotlighted the scene in the story from a recording that I swear was first made when recording was possible. It was way ghetto. After that, they took you in a "museum" that had pictures of witches from movies and all that and then at the end they had a little Wicca (today's witch religion) schpeal saying that, "If you meet a Wiccan you should stop and listen to what they have to say" UMMMMMMM. I'm gonna have to pass. Thanks though :/ WEIRD. Oh well. Now we can say that we have been there and DONE that and it's checked off the list.

Ok, so another cool history thing we saw was Bunker Hill. It's right in Boston and it's this way tall obelisk lookin' thing so that the soldiers could see way far away for when the enemies were coming to attack. Anyway, you can climb up to the top if you want. I mean it was ONLY 244 stairs up. What's the big deal, right?? HOLY SORENESS! The thighs felt like they were just going to melt right off my bones. I really didn't think 244 steps was that big of deal..... until I climbed them. It was actually pretty cool when you got up there. The view was awesome but you really could spend like 45 seconds up there and be done. But after climbing all those stairs, I wanted to make it worth it so we stayed at least 7 minutes or so. I think it was mainly so our legs wouldn't give out on the way down and make us tumble down 244 a stony, winding staircase. I was grateful for the break.

Here's a story in a story for ya..... While we were driving around the block, past all these really pretty and really old houses (which I absolutely love!) we saw a bunch of cameras and film canisters and trailers and all that junk. I was like, "Cool, they must be filming a movie here!" So before we took the exhausting trip up to the top of the obelisk, we asked one of the guides what they were filming. He was like, oh they've been here for a few months. They are filming a movie, The New Town, with Ben Affleck. COOL! Not that I'm a huge fan of Ben, but I thought it was pretty cool that I could possibly see a major movie star. It would be my first. So after we took the journey up the stairs we walked down where all the commotion was, and there he was. It was really weird actually..... He really is just a normal person. You always think it's gonna be this way cool thing to see someone so famous but it was just like, oh. There he is. Wow. Ok, take a few pictures just to document the occasion and lets go. It's not like he knows me or anything so he's not gonna come up and strike up a conversation. It was still cool and I did get a little giddy, if you will, just cause it was a famous person and I can say I saw him in person.

So there you have it. Our little weekend up in the North-East. It was short, but full of adventure and LOADS of fun. I love the fact that we will be able to tell our kids all the places we went together and all the cool things we've been able to see. So after this trip, we only had 9 more states to visit before we've gone to all 50!

'Til next time........