Of these, Boston was the coolest. I'd always wanted to go, and had never been. And my work ended early enough each day that I got to do a highlight tour. And my hotel was right at the site of Bunker Hill, and right next to the USS Constitution!
I got to go on a ghost walk in Boston Common, which is a beautiful park with some serious history.
I even hopped over to the Omni Parker Hotel to have Boston Cream Pie, and this place boasts to have invented this, the original!
On my last morning before the plane ride I had a few hours to visit Salem, just 15 miles from Boston. It's definitely the oldest US soil I've ever stepped on, and the home of the Salem witch hysteria of 1692. I'd remembered some of the story from high school but it was something else to walk through history with a local tour guide who is a modern day witch.
Not a headstone below, but part of a memorial to the 20 innocents who were murdered as witches. Turns out it was propagated wrongfully by a bunch of girls and heightened by greed (for property).
Bridget Bishop was the first.
This is the gravestone below of judge Hathorne, known as the hanging judge.
Tour guide says this one below wasn't really a pilgrim, but an indentured slave on the Mayflower, and died in '64, not '62.
A few episodes of Bewitched (remember Samantha the witch) was filmed here, so you must have a statue.
The very first church in the US. For real.
Definitely as cool as I thought it'd be, I'd love to take Anna and Paul back when she's old enough to have some school history under her belt. It's so very neat. And Boston has the most beautiful skyline! And craziest streets, and old buildings.
In LA a few days before the Boston trip, I got to be a judge for the International Intel Science Fair. A bunch of smarty pants high school students with pretty cool science fair projects. It was a fun thing to be a part of, and the hotel was right at LA Live Staples Center! The LA Kings hockey team had a playoff game while there, which I hear they won. We even had a morning to visit the La Brea tar pits, and watched Keb' Mo' give an interview and concert to a small group of us. I'd never heard of him before because I basically am not interested in Blues music but he was amazing! Loved it!
In between the two trips, Paul and I split a Girl Scout camp day (so I could get to the airport in the evening) and she had an exhausting fun day!
She's still having fun with basketball, and the ice cream woman remembers us as regulars from last year :) We always pay with change from our change bowl on the counter, as the ice cream woman says she's saving up all the change she gets for a trip for her family to Disney World!
Anna spotted this ant outside, claimed it was a queen ant, and this is her photo :) She asked me to send it to her teacher who then showed it in class the next day!
I know there's lots of travel needed for my job, and there are more trips through July (but that's all I know of!). Paul and Anna (also my mom and Ray) are coming with me next week to NYC while I work the World Science Festival, and then Anna and Paul are coming to London and Scotland with me in July (I also have a Brussels trip without them in between, right out of NYC). I'm going to miss her dance recital (but Paul and mom are going to sneak her performance for me through FaceTime!) and I will miss her last week of school. She doesn't seem bothered by either, which helps me! And thank goodness for FaceTime! On these trips she FaceTimes me and texts me from her iPod and it's so helpful when I miss her.
Then again it's never too early for good grammar!
I love them both and so glad they get to come with me this summer!!
