Day 3 - Worcester, MA - Jaffrey, NH

Best Western, Worcester, MA

Up at 5am for breakfast at 6, check out 7.

Today we will be visiting Boston where we hope to do the Freedom Trail, which is a 3 mile path through Boston, that passes 16 locations significant to the history of the United States.

The journey to Boston was 30 miles from our hotel but seemed to take forever due to heavy traffic.

Traffic lights!

I had quite a bit of time in the car to blog so thought I would give some of my first impressions of America as a first-time visitor.

• Being familiar with American popular culture and growing up on a diet of American 80s TV shows, sitcoms and soaps like Dallas, Happy Days (I was a massive fan of The Fonz ), Diff'rent Strokes, Laverne & Shirley, The A-Team and who could forget Mork and Mindy - to name but a few, I loved them all but I suppose I'd always imagined that life in America was exaggerated for TV but now I have discovered that’s exactly how it is in reality.  You feel like you are walking around in a film set.
• It has to be said that they really don’t understand coffee – it’s very weak and there is no choice – it’s just coffee - and if there is cappuccino it's just very milky coffee .... and when will I find a decent cup of tea?
• There are traffic lights everywhere, it's stop/start all the way.
  The road surfaces are non-existent, so bumpy.
  Hardly anyone rides a bicycle – you’d take your life into your hands if you did
• The cars are all enormous.
  Lorries are really cool – Kenworths and Macks.
• The big yellow school buses really do exist, they’re not just on ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’, they are everywhere!
• Americans are extremely patriotic
• Americans are also very religious
• What is it with ‘half & half’ milk? It seems to be a mix of cream and milk.
• The toilet flushes are really powerful, I’ve never seen anything like it.
• Don’t get me wrong, I love the taste of cinnamon but come on, everything cinnamon coated??  After Day 3 I feel it’s sweating out of my pores.

Some of these things I was expecting and some were more of a surprise.

They were just a little too healthy before

Finally arrived in Boston, after a long 2½ hour drive to go 30 miles, stop-start traffic all the way.

Start of the Freedom Trail

We parked under the Boston Common Park and headed to the Freedom Trail Visitor Centre to start the Wherigo.  The Freedom Trail is Boston’s most popular tourist attraction so we were expecting it to be quite busy.

There were a few guided tours along the way but we happily followed the wherigo which explained all the points of interest.

Including the return to the car we walked about 6 miles.  Well worth doing and the climb to the top of Bunker Hill monument was a real bonus (free)  The 294 step climb was tough going in the heat of the day but worth it for the views at the top.

Then it was back in the car and off to Maine.

Once again the traffic was heavy (seems to be the norm) and the roads diabolical (seems to be the norm) in fact the poor road surfaces are really starting to take their toll – my nerves are shot and I’m feeling sick…..

Stopped off in Kittery, Maine to find a cache.  This was a brilliant cache, just outside the town museum and opposite the Police station.

Then onto New Hampshire where we stopped and did a webcam – this has to be the best I’ve done.  You had to gain control of the webcam by zooming in and out and fine tuning the camera until you were in shot in front of a large wildcat statue.  It took some doing but it was great fun.

Day 3 - 188 miles

After a long drive we were glad to check into our B&B in Jaffrey.   Night night.