Awoke to brilliant sunshine in our little channel cottage though temperature a little brisk. Packed up and walked next door to Donna Jean's diner for breakfast. Roey's first US diner experience - loved his breakfast burrito and I decided I had to try a short stack of blueberry pancakes! Yum!
Headed off for our drive south to Boston, continuing through areas of delightful lakeside accommodation and attractions. This Squam Lake area is really picturesque. After Laconia, once our route joined the 93 again we were back to freeway conditions. Southern route continued via Concord, Manchester and Derry - decided to try a detour into Salem but unfortunately proved uneventful as no tourist information or signage to direct to points of interest. Back to the freeway and not long till we hit the outskirts of Boston. Arrived in Boston before midday - bit of fun with our GPS friend as Boston city has several long tunnels ......seemed to lose connection .... eventually managed to outsmart the system and find the Milner Hotel in Charles Street not far from Boston Common. Understandably our room wasn't ready so we left our bags and dropped the car off at the Hertz depot round the corner at the Park plaza Hotel. Farewell to our great Ford Escape - after 1265 miles, once again not a bad effort! Wandered the block up to the corner of the Common and bought tickets for 2 days on a hop-on-hop-off trolley bus and a freedom trail walking tour that included a boat cruise. Jumped on a trolley straight away and we were off checking out Boston! Unreal! Got off at the Prudential Centre shopping area so Roey could get his sim sorted. Grabbed a coffee, bit of shopping including a camera store for Roey..... then back on the trolley past Fenway park, across the Harvard bridge over the Charles river and through some of the Harvard MIT campus area, back across the Longfellow bridge through the Beacon Hill area, getting off near the harbour at the Boston Tea party Museum. We walked along to the major South Station and after much procrastination sorted our train trip to New York for Saturday - so all done! Jumped back on a trolley and continued through the historic North End area and past TD Garden (home to the Boston celtics - much to Roey's amazement), getting off at our original Charles Street stop. By this time almost 5pm so wandered back to our hotel and actually checked in. A hotel with much character seeing as circa 1877, so all things considered although quite a small room really quite comfortable.
Ended up having a great dinner of sushi and teriyaki at a nearby food court. Cheap as and great. Roey headed back and Raym and I had a couple of drinks at "the rock bottom tavern". People watching is always entertaining but even more so in a totally foreign environment!
Boys are watching baseball on TV while I do some washing though Raym's "watching" would be more on the inside of his eyelids I'm sure!