Boston

We had understood that the American Revolution was unwanted by most of the people living in the colonies, and that only a small percentage of people supported it.  What we didn’t realize was how much the truth was stretched and how much propaganda drove the forces that started this country.

On our tour of The Freedom Trail in Boston we learned that the Boston Massacre was called “The Incident on King Street” by the British.  After an angry mob harassed British guards with rocks and sticks, yes, the Brits fired and killed 3 people, and mortally wounded two more.  

Then the revolutionaries made hay, termed it a massacre, and recruited sympathy from other colonies with bold propaganda, such as this picture.  In the meeting halls and churches of the day, a few people stirred up a revolution by bullshitting people.

So, …did the oratory skills and political influence of a small minority actually bring about such a change as the founding of our country?   Turn the clock forward 250 years.  Do we have the institutions and structure, such as a free press and an educated public, to deal with such propaganda?  Think how we were sold the Iraq War, or how we’re going to build that wall, and on and on.

On the other hand, if our system of government gets so bad in the future as the British were in 18th century, could a small group of rebels convince enough people to revolt, or have even the smallest chance to win?  I doubt it.  

Propaganda and political influence.

Time to stop thinking and be in the moment.  We took the passenger ferry to Boston, enjoyed our tour and a 8 mile walk through the city.  Boston has charm and its history does provoke thought.

We had our city tour during the US women’s world cup final!

Coming into Boston from our water ferry.

The old State house, interesting, the Lion and the Unicorn statues were vandalized and burned 3 times.

Built in 1713, the Old State House was a seat of British power, and became a point of origin for vital debates about self-government that sparked the Revolution. It is the oldest public building in Boston.

On July 18, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was first proclaimed from the balcony, to the jubilant citizens of Boston. Later that day, the rooftop statues of a lion and unicorn, along with other symbols of royal authority, were pulled down and burned in a bonfire.

We liked Boston and had a great time!

Boston, July 3rd DCR Hatch Shell 4th Rehearsal

We barely had finished setting up camp at Wompatuck State Park and quickly then found our way to the Quincy Adams train station. For old Bellinghamsters, figuring out a big city train can be intimidating, but thanks to a sympathetic and super-helpful Bostonian, complete with accent, we got the Inbound Redline to “Chahls.” Feeling this urban hipness starting to surge, Fred tapped away on his cellphone (like everyone else on the train), found a restaurant and ordered a picnic dinner online so that we could pick it up on the route from Charles St to the Hatch Shell, the venue where America’s Orchestra, the Boston Pops, performs its 4th of July Spectacular.

With chairs and dinner in hand we joined the crowd funneling onto the Esplanade for the July 3rd rehearsal, the same show without the fireworks of July 4th. As a dress rehearsal show, it was not supposed to be as crowded (they estimate 500,000 attend on the 4th), but we couldn’t imagine many more people, having lost count at 427,342 including the Boston Police, EMTs and Military Police.

We squeezed in almost two hours before the show started, somewhat to the dismay of the folks nearby who must have gotten there another two hours early to stake their spot. For the actual event on the 4th, people start lining up at 4:30 AM; that’s sixteen hours early. Some people have way too much leisure time.

We settled in, enjoyed dinner, and, as usual, Milissa struck up conversations with the neighboring concert-goers. The show was a wide mix of patriotic music from the Navy Sea Chanters chorus to some Woodstock nostalgia from Arlo Guthrie.

With the Boston Pops cranking it out in the background, Queen Latifah, Amanda Meno, 16 year old phenom from “America’s Got Talent,” and the Texas Tenors belted out Americana to crowd of young and old who seemed to have left their widening biases and worries about our country behind to sit in the park and appreciate the day. Yet we thought the best part of the evening was poetry, in this case from our Youth Poet Laureate, Amanda Gorman. What a talented young woman. We highly recommend you check out her poem, “Believer’s Hymn for the Republic“.

Happy 4th everyone!

https://funitude.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/quik_2019-07-04_11-12-37-1.mov

Lesson learned, bike bouldering in the Promised Land

If the map says “hiking only,” don’t take that trail with a bike. Even if the other trails marked the same were wide, abandoned roads and even if the first part of the same trail was an easy old road, don’t take that trail.

We thought it was peculiar that after the road we were riding narrowed into a single track there was evidence of someone having cleared the overgrowth about two years prior. We were riding on stubbly shoots of rhododendron, oak, and undergrowth. It was clear no one had walked this 1/10th mile of cleared path. Then the work stopped and the path disappeared under the branches merging together to reclaim the forest. We should have turned around right then and there. Yet if we looked hard enough, the path was still discernible and, after all, we didn’t want to go back over the last mile of pushing and dragging our bikes across the trail that connected us to this deceivingly fateful one.

And as you can see from the video, this new somewhat jungly trail was rideable – as long as you went slow and didn’t mind very sudden stops for logs and rocks. This new brush-riding experience lasted until we got to the first of many swamps where even the heartiest of mountain bikers would have succumbed to the silver green water and stinky black mud. As we emerged from the muck with blackened soaked shoes, the real fun began. The trail crossed over long sections of rocks and boulders that would have been a challenge for the average hiker. But we were crossing with 50 lb bikes, lifting, checking footing, pushing, jerking and groaning as we pushed on. Surely, we thought, this would be short and it couldn’t get any worse. Wrong.

It got worse. The swamps were wider, the bike-bouldering was harder, and the growth between the boulder patches became thicker. Our pace slowed into the early evening as the trail became harder and harder to find and we just had to push through snagging thick growth that we hoped was trail until we could spot the very faded blue trail-marker paint on a tree. No one had hiked this trail for years, as evidenced by the downed trees and pesky overgrowth.

Going this slow meant that we had depleted our supply of fruit leather, nuts, and water. Sweaty and exhausted through our last few sections of bike-bouldering, we cursed anyone who had left this trail on the map. And then the mosquitoes arrived. In numbers. We must have smelled better to them than the swamps, so they decided not just to hang around, but to send word to their thousands of cousins that there was fresh meat in the forest.

The fun had left long ago, and as exhaustion was setting in, we just had to push on. At about 6:30, Milissa asked if we should rethink our plan, maybe just abandon the bikes and find our way home. The end of this hell couldn’t be too far off, I thought, and even though we were tired to our bones, it still seemed that our place on the map wasn’t far from the civilization of our campground. We finally emerged to something rideable about an hour later, dirty, sweaty, exhausted like we hadn’t remembered being. Setting our bike batteries to full assist, we rode like eighty-year-olds back to the trailer.

With the high volume downing of water and fruit, then standing in the hot water of the shower, our senses outpaced our dull exhaustion as we slowly came back to near-human condition. Chowing down reheated leftovers required less energy than cooking dinner, so we ate as we stared vacantly into each other and realized the day’s lesson.

There were many times I asked Fred to wait up, because I could not see him just 30′ in front of me. This picture and video are still before we got to the gnarly part of the trailhttps://funitude.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/img_9532.mov

Promised Land State Park, PA

The land that became Promised Land State Park was once hunting grounds for the Minsi Tribe of the Wolf Clan of the Lenni Lenape American Indians (Delaware).

The Shakers, a religious group, purchased land in the area. They tried to farm and build a life on the rocky land. Their attempt to build a partnership to log the land was unsuccessful. After finally contracting the forests to be timbered, the Shakers left the area. According to legend, the Shakers sarcastically named the area “the Promised Land.” The land was repeatedly clear-cut. By 1903, the area was almost completely bare of trees. With the loss of trees came erosion, forest fires, and migration of wildlife from the area.

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania purchased the land from 1902-1904. The purchase price ranged from $0.18 to $2.00 per acre. Between 1902 and 1933, the commonwealth planted more than 370,000 trees. During 1905, the first campground was established.

During 1933, to relieve the rampant unemployment of the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). The young men in the CCC received food, clothes, and a small paycheck, in return for:

  • Building roads, trails, recreational facilities
  • Fighting fires
  • Planting trees
  • Performing many other conservation activities

On Sunday evening, May 31, 1998, an F-2 tornado with winds of 113-157 mph passed through Promised Land State Park.

And here we are camping in this really nice campground. The facilities are as nice as we have seen in any state park.

Chh chh-chh, uh, chh chh-chh, uh”, Lake Kandle Campground, NJ

How many songs about the summertime can you conjure up in your mind?  Here’s a few for you.  Be careful…they might become ear boogers.

Mungo Jerry  https://youtu.be/yG0oBPtyNb0

Sly and the Family Stone https://youtu.be/32inwlWSRpY

Alice Cooper https://youtu.be/XH4JL42iWLI

Neat King Cole https://youtu.be/IOV96BCAvZc

We realize with each new place we go that summer means so many different things.  In northeast Florida, people who stay there talked about it with a certain twisted bravado, like other people describe liking lutefisk.  High 90s in both temperatures and humidity brings out a peculiar, almost masochistic pride in the locals.  Folks in DC said they couldn’t imagine being anyplace else.  The camp host at Delaware’s Cape Henlopen said, as the sweat poured off his brow, that he loved the heat.  It’s gonna hit 94 degrees today.

Today, we find ourselves in a place where another cultural Mecca of summer is on proud display: the membership park with two pools and a lake – and a small campground (“only 110 sites,” said the proud, friendly and sweat-drenched owner) mercifully shaded by tall trees.  To say that there are throngs of kids would understate the moment.  They are the reason Lake Kandle Campground and Swim Club exists, the very reason why almost all of the sites, including some small cabins, are rented for the season.  A steady stream of mini-vans flows in with loads of kids anxiously waiting for their turn at the rope swing, splash park, or the decisive moment at the order window of the snack bar when they have to choose, french fries, a popsicle, or M&Ms.  Growing up in Poughkeepsie, I remember those summer adventures, and now it’s fun to watch and recall.

A friend asked us if, on this trip through the eastern part of the country, we would miss the wilderness of the western states.   Yes, but that’s not the point.  We chose to map our trip out this way so we would see the country in its entirety.   So we seek and explore.  Here in the Garden State of New Jersey, we stopped at a family-run roadside produce market, proven by the large photo of a recent wedding with an enormous tribe of New Jersey-ites posing at the head of the church.  Peach cider, fresh corn, and tomatoes sold by the boxful, tomatoes so good and that just don’t exist elsewhere.  As kids, we used to eat them like apples and devour half a bushel in one sitting.

Coming back to camping after our six week hiatus thrust us into summer.  Now that school is out, campgrounds are arenas for teams of amazing bicycle stunts and high volume declarations of whose turn it is on the swings or who made the best s’more.  In its own way, it’s fun to see kids groovin’ and parents chillin’.  Yet at times it’s the sheer numbers of these summertimers that reminds us we’re on the east coast.  

A nice bike ride along a trail down the Delaware coast from our previous campground took us to Rehoboth Beach.  I wanted to show Milissa what a classic beach town was like,  The people watching there, with beach umbrellas stacked seven layers deep from the (tiny!) Atlantic waves and a boardwalk packed with strollers, teenyboppers, grandparents and sunburns, was one of a kind.  If we weren’t passing-through travelers, we would have turned and run.  But here was how millions of people have their hot fun in the summertime, so we open our minds and appreciate.  We’ll have plenty of time for Walden Pond, now it’s time to enjoy the rollout of summer.

June 24th – “What are the five freedoms in the First Amendment?”

Wait…there are five?   I thought it was just about freedom of speech.  Apparently I’m not alone.  The McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum recently found that 22 percent of Americans could name all five Simpson family members, compared with just one in 1,000 people who could name all five First Amendment freedoms.  Can you?  (And I won’t tell you here; just as my father refused to spell anything for us kids looking for homework help, you should look them up).

At an impressive exhibit at the Newseum (www.newseum.org) in Washington DC, the point was well-made that we have these precious freedoms in our country that are so important to our society.  A huge map showed just how few countries of the world have a free press, with a large number of countries where journalism is heavily restricted or partially restricted.  

Powerful exhibits and films, tracing the history of gay pride from Stonewall to present, revisiting the tragedy of 9/11, the beginnings of the civil rights movement, a tribute to Jon Stewart and The Daily Show, all summoned more thoughts and emotions about this great country than seeing all the other monuments in DC.  

It was a fitting capstone to our days in DC, profound in its impact.  

-Fred

OK, here they are (Freedom of, Religion, Speech and The Press – Freedom to, Assemble Peacefully and Petition the Government for a Redress of Grievances.

You are welcome, (I hate being told to go look things up!)

Our time in WA DC was well spent, I am really glad we took the time that we did, we still do not see everything there is to see as there is too much for one visit. We also visited the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, great place. Each of the museums take most of the day to go through.

-Milissa

This photo is from the American Indian Museum;

Washington DC – (June 19th – 24th)

A tour of the Capitol Building was arranged with our Senator Patty Murray’s office. It was a great tour with only 5 of us compared to other tours if you just show up, the groups were around 20+ in size. We looked into a White House tour (Fred wanted to wear his RESIST shirt) but it was booked into August. So if you want to see the White House book ahead!

Most of the museums are free and very large. It seems everything here is larger than you would think it is. Looking to avoid crowds, we toured the National Gallery of Art, the Botanical Garden, and spent some time just “taking it in” at the Grant Memorial with its views of the Capitol and the Washington Monument.

Scooters are the mode of choice for getting around. So fun, and a great way to get a cool breeze on a hot day. At rush hour though, it’s a challenge to find one. Several times, we would see one on the app map, then as soon as we get within a few feet, somebody else would walk up to it and grab it. Or worse, we might win the dash, only to find the scooter out of battery or “reserved” by some other person.

We enjoyed a terrific Mexican lunch with Fred’s friend from grad school and his partner, and the next day a fun Ethiopian dinner with Fred’s good friend from high school and his wife. There is a wave of retirement happening among these folks, and its fun to swap plans as well as recapture old memories.

Fred taking a moment to lobby in the Senator’ office.

The view from the Grant Memorial.