Pilgrims, Authors, and Chocolate

We drove up to Plymouth and spent a day at the Plimoth Plantation, a living history museum.

 It was a lot of fun. First we went to the Wampanoag homesite, and saw a native man burning out a log to build a boat. We stopped and watched a young lady braiding some leg ties, while cooking some succotash in one crock, and mussels in another. 

Then we went into a winter home covered with bark, and sat on one of the beds, which was made from tree branches and covered with mats made from grasses and topped with animal skins.

After that we went into a summer home made from grass reeds.

   Then we headed up to the Craft Center where we saw a cabinet maker busily constructing wooden chests using wooden plugs instead of nails.  He was also decorating the sides of the chests, and it was fascinating to watch.  There was a potter working on a potter's wheel there too.  He was making mugs at the time, and we enjoyed watching him.  There were places for a dressmaker to hand stitch garments, and a basket weaver to work too, but they weren't there working.  I would have enjoyed watching them work too.

We headed to the English village and went into the homes to see how the people lived. They were simple one room houses with a bed, a table and a couple of chairs, with a hearth for cooking. A few had cradles. We did come across one man in his house who had quite a conversation with us, and a woman in one house who was doing her laundry and separating curds and whey for dinner.

Some of the homes had goats or cows in their yards, or chickens running around.

Most of the people were out working in their gardens, or in the fields.

We also went to the barn and saw some cute baby goats, lambs, and pigs.

Then we headed over to the Mayflower II, to see a replica of the ship the Pilgrims had traveled in.  It had people onboard who were dressed in period costume too.  We spoke with a few sailors while we visited the ship.

the captains quarters were tiny

We walked from the ship to see Plymouth Rock.

It was a rainy day at the harbor!

We drove to U Mass to the Commonwealth Museum to see the Hall of Documents.  There they have on display the state copies of the Declaration of Independence, and other important documents in Massachusetts history.  Many of the documents were from the 1700s, and in glass cases in a dark room, so we couldn't take pictures.  But it was really exciting to see them.  They also had the original plate Paul Revere made depicting the Boston Massacre.

 We drove up to Concord to see Walden Pond, and the replica of Thoreau's little cabin in the woods.  It was pretty small and cozy, but big enough for one person to survive in. 

We also went to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery to Author's Ridge to see the gravesites of some famous authors.  There we saw the graves of Henry David Thoreau, Louisa May Alcott, Nathanial Hawthorne, and Ralph Waldo Emerson.  It was quite a cemetery with huge family plot markers and some very old graves.  There were quite a few civil war veterans buried there.

Emerson

Hawthorne

Thoreau

Alcott

From there we headed back to Cape Cod and its shingled houses, forests, and sandy beaches, for one last night.  We stayed in a State Park in a yurt.  It was quite comfortable, except for the beetle bug that found Rebekah!  We enjoyed our last night in the forests of the Cape with a roaring campfire. 

In the morning we headed to Boston one more time.  We went to the Langham Hotel for their famous Chocolate Bar.  It was wonderful!  They had all kinds of chocolate creations, fruit, crepes, puddings, cakes, popcorn, candies, a chocolate fountain, cotton candy, .... oh I can't remember it all! It was a wonderland of treats.  I'm not a chocolate person and even I found it wonderful!  Rebekah, who loves chocolate, had a glow about her the whole time!!  We shared many of the confections and had a great time. 

When we were finished, we said goodbye to Boston, a city we liked. It was time to head on to Rhode Island.