GRISWOLD 2009 - DAYS 5 & 6

GRISWOLD 2009 - "GRISWOLDS GO FOR BROKE - THE RECESSION TOUR" - DAYS 5 & 6 WEDNESDAY & THURSDAY, JULY 29 & 30

We got out the door a little after 6:00 AM, hopped into the Toyota Matrix and headed for Philadelphia, PA. Going a route that swung wide enough around NYC to avoid any really bad traffic, we made it to Philadelphia a little before noon. We parked the car at a garage across the street from the hotel where we were spending the night and then headed out for lunch.

It's Philadelphia, right? So what did we have for lunch? Cheesesteak of course! Jim's Steaks came highly recommended and we had no complaints!

After lunch, we made a beeline for the Liberty Bell.

It was exciting to see a national symbol like this in person.

After the Liberty Bell, we walked around a bit, seeing things and killing a little time until our pre-booked tour of Independence Hall at 4:00 PM.

We also took the time to look around the outside of Independence Hall.


Our tour actually got under way a little early, so inside we went to see more history. Here's the room where the Continental Congress debated, approved and eventually signed the Declaration of Independence.

Here the crew looks out from the second floor of the hall.

Right next to Independence Hall was Congress Hall, where another very important act took place. The platform that you see here is where George Washington handed over the Presidency to John Adams, a peaceful exchange of power which at the time was pretty unusual globally.

After our Independence Hall tour, we went back to see more of the Liberty Bell and the building it was housed in. It's magnificent the way they have it in front of a window that overlooks Independence Hall.

After this, we headed to our hotel. We checked in and then headed over a few blocks to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner. Back at the hotel, everyone got a kick out of the towels folded up like a shirt and tie.

The next morning we got up, enjoyed a continental breakfast at the hotel and then left. We took this picture on the way out. Yes, that was our hotel. It's 32 units and 5 stories high, so it's a very skinny hotel. It was very nice though.

Our first stop of the day Thursday was at the Philadelphia Mint. This is where they make not only coins, but also a lot of medals that are awarded for different reasons. It was pretty quiet when we were there. They were just starting up the lines and we could see blank penny stock flowing on the conveyors, getting ready to be stamped.

We also took some time to see Carpenter's Hall, where the First Continental Congress had met.

From there, we went to Franklin Court, the site of where Ben Franklin's home was once located. After his death, Franklin's children took down the home so that they could build many homes in its place, row house kinds of things. This metal outline shows where the home was originally before it was torn down.

A little archeology on the site reveals some remnants of the house, including the old "privy" or "necessary".

After seeing this stuff and a film about Franklin, we learned how printing presses worked and saw someone demonstrate the printing of a Declaration of Independence, the type that would have been printed and then read out loud in a public place around the time of the writing of the original document.

After Franklin Court, it was time for a nutritious lunch. Ice cream counts as nutritious, doesn't it?

After lunch (?) we toured the Betsy Ross house, where we learned a lot about Betsy Ross and about the women of the times who ran the households while their husbands were off at war or politics.

From the Betsy Ross house, we visited the cemetary where Ben Franklin and his wife are buried, along with a number of signers of the Declaration of Independence.

Needless to say, Franklin lived a very full and eventful life!

We got a kick out of this squirrel who was relaxing in the cemetary, completely prone.

From here, we walked back to our car and began the process of leaving town. First we stopped at a park where the iconic "Love" sculpture is on display in front of a fountain.

Then we headed to the Philadelphia Museum of Art to see the Rocky Statue.

"Yo Adrian!"

Then we walked over to the museum's steps, the steps that Rocky ran up in the movie.

We all ran up the steps...

...some of us faster than the others!

Then we stood where Rocky stood at the top of the steps...

...and took a good, long, last look at downtown Philadelphia before hitting the road and heading home.

We got back to North Reading a little before 11:00 PM, after experiencing a few minor delays on the highway, most notably in the Newark, NJ area. (Just another reason to hate Newark!) We had a very enjoyable and educational two-day trip!

REBECCA TURNS 17!

Rebecca turned 17 today. She did a little celebrating with some friends during the day, then enjoyed a family dinner and cake with the four of us and Grandpa & Grandma Gillen.

This year's cake celebrates Rebecca's time in her high school drama group and their production of "Singin' In The Rain". Rebecca worked mostly on the crew preparing for the play and then moving set pieces around during the play. One of her biggest responsibilities though was being the rainmaker and making it rain on stage at the appropriate time.

Yes...Rebecca got all 17 candles out with one breath! (No further editorial comment needed.)

Afterwards, Rebecca opened presents and models one of them in this picture.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY REBECCA!

GRISWOLD 2009 - DAY 4

GRISWOLD 2009 - "GRISWOLDS GO FOR BROKE - THE RECESSION TOUR" - DAY 4

WEDNESDAY, JULY 15

Wednesday, July 15, was two different things. It was the day of Griswold 2009 - Day 4 and it was also the opening of the 6th Harry Potter movie, "Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince".

We began the day by attending the 9:30 AM showing of the movie. The theatre was fairly full, but given that the movie has opened on so many screens, it wasn't completely full.

We enjoyed the movie a great deal and we're eagerly awaiting the final two movies in the series, which are splitting the 7th and final Harry Potter book.

We left the theatre and headed a bit northeast to the town of Gloucester, MA. There, we visited the Hammond Castle. John Hammond built this castle in the late 1920's. Its intention was to serve not only as a home, but also as a place to keep all of the things that Hammond collected. Hammond was an inventor, second in total patents held to Thomas Edison. He was also a very wealthy man who loved to collect artifacts from all over the world. His tastes seemed to be broad and there were a lot of interesting things in his collections.

The outside of the castle is very traditional in appearance, at least for castles.

Of course it also had its share of creepy looking gargoyles.

It had a very large hall that housed a large pipe organ. Hammond did a lot of entertaining here and this room is still used for various functions today.

He had a lot of armor and suits of maille in his collection.

He was very intrigued with Christopher Columbus and one of his most prized possessions was this skull which he acquired in his travels, which reportedly was one of the members of Christopher Columbus' crew.

There were a number of tight passageways and stairways in the castle. We can only imagine that most furniture on the upper floors had to be assembled in the rooms themselves, since we couldn't see them getting things like that through these tight places.

The castle had a number of wonderful ocean views, both inside and out.

So that was it for Griswold 2009 - Day 4. It was a fairly relaxed day, but also entertaining and informative.

GRISWOLD 2009 - DAY 3

GRISWOLD 2009 - "GRISWOLDS GO FOR BROKE - THE RECESSION TOUR" - DAY 3

FRIDAY, JULY 10

We began the day with a drive from North Reading to the town of Bristol, RI. There, we visited the Audubon Environmental Education Center. This center was a combination nature trail and indoor museum. We began with a walk through the exhibits in the museum, where we saw this enormous 33-foot, life size right whale. (Which would have made it a younger one.) We were interested to learn that the clusters on the whale aren't barnacles or something similar. Instead, they are excess calcium inside of the whale that breaks out in clusters. No two whales are identical and they can tell each other apart by the clusters.

I'm pretty sure that Erik and Rebecca aren't Pinocchio, but they're doing their best impression anyway.

In a tide pool tank, we saw this unusual blue lobster, starfish and other creatures.

Then in a tank, we saw this most unusual fish. I can't remember it's name, but the face almost looked human.

We left the museum and headed out on a nature trail. We observed a number of lovely wildflowers, among other things.

I think I startled this bee. Thankfully, no one got stung.

We were quiet enough to walk past this bullfrog without disturing it as we walked through the salt marsh on an elevated walkway.

Once we got to the end of the walkway, we took time out to look out at the water and even skip a few rocks. (Dad is still the best rock skipper!)

Then we took the walkway back towards the museum.

From the Audubon Environmental Education Center, we got some lunch and then took a relatively short drive towards Newport. Just outside of Newport, we visited the Newport Vineyards, where we took a short tour and enjoyed a little wine tasting. (Well at least Steve and Anne enjoyed the wine tasting!)

We left the vineyards and headed towards Pawtucket, which is just outside of Providence, RI. There, we took in a Pawtucket (PawSox) Red Sox game at McCoy Stadium. The PawSox are the AAA minor league team of the Boston Red Sox, so we saw a few familiar faces.

Upon entering the stadium, we encounted Paws and Sox, the mascots of the PawSox.

We got to the game early, so we went out to the area outside of left field to sit around and watch batting practice. A home run practice swing sent a ball right next to Steve, but he just leaned out of the way because he was holding a camera. (What a wimp!)

We were able to look into the PawSox bullpen. Yes, on the right of the picture below, those are tomato plants in the bullpen. I hope someone waters those plants during road trips!

Well the sign did say something about "Flying balls, bats, equipment and players".

It was a beautiful night and and enjoyable game, even though there wasn't much hitting or scoring. In the end, the visiting Buffalo Bisons defeated the Pawtucket Red Sox 1-0.

Minor league baseball is a lot of fun. It was a good game and also a quick game. We were able to make the 60+ minute drive home and still be home before 11:00PM. All in all, it was an excellent day!

Griswold 2009 - Day 2

GRISWOLD 2009 - "GRISWOLDS GO FOR BROKE - THE RECESSION TOUR" - DAY 2

After some morning church and yardwork, we set out today on the second day of our prolonged Griswold 2009 vacation. After a nice lunch at Kelly's Roast Beef in Saugus, MA, we headed to Saugus Iron Works National Historic Site.

In the mid-1600's, the Puritans came to Massachusetts set on practicing their religion away from the increasing cultural wildness of their homelands. They realized early on that if they wanted to establish and sustain themselves in the new world for an extended period of time, they were going to need iron, so they searched eastern Massachusetts looking for a suitable spot. After a failed attempt south of Boston, they settled on Saugus, MA. Here they built a relatively successful location that functioned for around 20 years.

There were three main buildings in the manufacture of iron as seen in the casting of the property below. The main building on the left is the blast furnace and casting shed. Here the iron was melted at a very high temperature and then released into a kind of trough in the ground where large pieces of iron formed. The building in the middle was the forge, where the large chunks of iron were formed into more workable bars. The building on the right was the rolling and splitting mill where the iron was made into smaller bars and rods, which were ultimately shipped out to blacksmith shops and such. (There was a small blacksmith shop on site.)

Here Anne and Erik are looking down into the top of the blast furnace. It's a long was down!

Here's the inside of the forge building. Note the large bellows behind Erik and Rebecca.

This interesting piece of equipment split flat bars of iron into thin rods. These rods were ultimately used for a lot of things, one very important item being nails.

Here Erik, Rebecca and Steve look out over the Saugus river. This river is currently being cleaned up and brought back to the way it was in the 1600's, or at least to a rough approximation of those days. This river was very important to the operation of all three buildings as water from the river was channeled to waterwheels for each building to supply power.

Here are the forge and rolling & splitting mill as seen from near the river.

Here's the blast furnace from below it.

This is where the molten iron was released from the blast furnace and into the trough in the ground. Some of it could also be scooped out with specially designed tools.

We found our visit very informative and couldn't believe that we've lived in the area so long without ever visiting here.

From the Saugus Iron Works, we headed down Route 1 to a rather visible Route 1 landmark, the "Route 1 Miniature Golf" course.

This course is very visible to cars traveling down Route 1 and is a well known landmark mostly due to this large orange dinosaur that kind of looks out over the highway.

The team of Steve & Erik triumphed over Anne & Rebecca with a combined score of 97. The LOSERS shot a combined 103. We all quickly put our rivalry behind us though and celebrated the event with slushes at the ice cream stand next to the course.

From there, we came home and watched the end of the Red Sox victory on TV. A little later, it was time to fire up the grill for some steak tips. (No...we don't usually eat that much red meat in one day!)

Speaking of "red meat", while Steve was out on the deck grilling, this lovely doe was chomping on green plants in the woods behind our house. We see these deer quite regularly and as long as they leave our garden alone, they're okay.

So Day 2 of Griswold 2009 is in the books. It was a very pleasant, sunny day in the 80's, which was a nice change from the cool and rainy weather that we've had for the past month.

We hope everyone had a very nice 4th of July weekend!