East Coast Trip - Part 1 - Boston to Connecticut

For the past year I've been planning an epic trip back east. My brother, Mike, lives in South Carolina and is planning on moving to Vegas soon. So I thought now was a good time to go and see some of the sights over there. Originally it was going to be me, my parents and my brother, Doug, driving from Boston to South Carolina. But my parents decided to save the money to help Mike move in December. So Doug and I were on our own. In July, Mike came to visit and scope out the town, and while here he discussed my trip and decided to join us. So he and his wife, Nicole agreed to meet us in Boston. It saved us getting a rental car. I booked the hotels and got the flights. I had the hardest time booking a hotel in Philadelphia and I didn't find out why until a week before our trip...more on that later.

Mike and Nicole started earlier than us and had been visiting her relatives in Rhode Island. Her brother Joshua also joined us. So the day arrived for Doug and I to fly out. We had a quick layover in Indianapolis...and by quick I mean we got off our flight and our connecting flight was about to board.  But we made it to Boston without any problems. Mike was waiting for us at the airport. They had been up to Maine that day.

We started our adventure by doing a drive by of the Boston Temple. It was so pretty at night. Here are a couple pictures:

 

There were also these crazy trees covered in huge flowers on the Temple grounds.

Then we grabbed some dinner at Wendy's and checked into our hotel in the suburb of Woburn in Boston. After a nice night's sleep we started the day by driving back into Boston and over to the Bunker Hill memorial. Bunker Hill was where the first fight of the Revolutionary War took place. It was a huge tower, over looking the city. We found a parking spot in a nearby strip mall and walked up to it.

Monument towering over the buildings.

The trees had started to change but there wasn't as much color as I had hoped for.

The memorial was pretty cool. We got to climb up it. It had about 290 steps. Our legs were killing us when we finally reached to top. The view was amazing. And we stopped over at the museum across the street before heading off to see some more of downtown.

I'm so tiny.

This was the entrance to the monument

 

 

We got back in the car and tried to find a few famous spots downtown. The buildings were amazing, the streets were narrow and the cemeteries were ancient. I loved Boston...so much history.

Old North Church, the start of Paul Revere's ride.

Really old cemetery

 

 

After spending the morning in Boston we made our way to Rhode Island. We stopped at a cute little visitor center...I don't think they get very many visitor because all the workers were very excited to talk to us.

Who knew there was a Douglas, RI

We stopped in Providence, RI at Roger William's Park. There was some pretty trees changing colors, really friendly geese and some frozen Lemon Aid.

Even Swan Boats...awesome!

 

 

 We headed further south and stopped for lunch at Subway:

Josh and Doug

Mike, Nicole and Me

Then we made it to Newport, RI...very cool coastal town with a ocean cliff walk that takes you behind some huge mansions. We even found an old tower, some people think it's an old Free Manson's monument others say its the remains of a old windmill. Either way it was pretty cool.

 

Free Manson's tower?? Who knows

Here are some pictures of the Cliff walk, the mansions were amazing.

Doug spent most of the time looking at the Ocean

 

The picture kind of made me chuckle.

 

 

Then we got back into the car and headed to Stamford, Connecticut, where our hotel was. It wasn't our favorite hotel...we had to pay for parking and the beds were really small. But it was walking distance from an Ihop where we ate dinner. And then we got some rest. Our next stop was New York City.