Martha, Ducks and Ghosts....Oh My!

Between some spotty Wifi in the campground and a couple of late nights out and about, I haven't been able to update the blog until now.  So, this post will be a bit long as I attempt to bring us up to date.  It was quite a weekend out here on the Holiday Road...so here we go!

Saturday was a crazy day.  If you've ever seen the movie Planes, Trains and Automobiles you'll follow along here just fine.  We decided we wanted to see Martha's Vineyard.  After all, we had come this far, and Bud is a big Martha Stewart fan, so we did some Googling on how to get to her place and off we went.  We left the Holiday Road in the Toad at around 9:30 am for the 70 mile drive to Woods Hole to catch the ferry.  Had to stop for gas along the way, and in typical Massachusetts fashion there was no way back onto the highway from where we exited.  The detour set us back just a bit, but we were back on our way.  And hungry.  So we pulled off again.  Our choices were Dunkin Donuts or McDonalds.  Not what I had in mind.  Wait, what's that up ahead?  Could it be??  YES!

Awesome breakfast, and cheap!  The griddled blueberry bread was the best.  And with full tummies we continued on to Wood's Hole, MA on the south side of Cape Cod, where you catch the ferry.  I imagined that you would find parking, walk to the dock and get on a boat.  No.  We parked in the ferry parking lot, which is about a 15 minute bus ride from the dock.  And we waited 30 minutes for the bus.  And we missed the ferry.  Not to worry, there was another ferry in 60 minutes.  So we waited for that one.  And it was big!

The girls enjoyed watching the cars and motorcycles unload.

 

And the ride over was pretty cool.

 

Finally, we approached the island.  It just popped out of the fog like something in a movie.

 

We walked around Vineyard Haven, the town the ferry left us at, and stopped for a bite to eat at a little bagel and soup shop.  The NE clam chowder was pretty good.  In fact, I think I bought that brand at Publix once.  I even saw the girl heat it up in the microwave behind the counter.  Now that's service!  We then hopped on ANOTHER BUS, to take the ride to Edgartown, the island's largest town, where we walked around, ate a piece of candy, were almost accosted by an evil swan, and waited for another bus. 

 

That bus took us back to the ferry, which took us back to the mainland, where we caught another bus to take us back to our car, where we drove 70 miles with one break for dinner and ice cream...back to the Holiday Road.  We arrived home at about 11:00pm.  It sounds like a difficult and exhausting day just to eat bad soup and a piece of candy, which it was, but like every day on the Holiday Road, it was an adventure.  And it beats going to work!  But I never did get a glimpse of Martha. 

So that was Saturday.  After that adventure, we figured we'd just relax around the campsite on Mother's Day.  Which we did until 3pm.  But, other than a chilly wind, it was a beautiful sunny day, so we decided to do something.  And as if we weren't exhausted enough, we decided "let's head back into Boston for some relaxing city fun!".  Oh, that's right, "relaxing" and "Boston" don't go together.  But we did have fun!

First stop was the famous Boston Duck Tour.  These are those World War II contraptions that drive on land and then go into the water and turn into boats.  Our's was blue.

The tour started near the Prudential Center in Boston.  The Duck drove around Boston where the driver points out a ton of interesting things, some historical and some just interesting.  He then drove us down to the Charles River, where we splashed in and toured the city from a completely different viewpoint.  And, both Isabel and Stella got to take turns driving the duck!

If you're ever in Boston, I highly recommend this tour.  After the Duck Tour, we headed over to the Boston Common Cemetery to meet our tour guide for a Ghost Tour!  This was a lantern lit tour of some of the haunted spots in Boston, but wasn't a scary tour as we didn't want to frighten Bud into an early grave.  The guide told us some interesting stories, some creepy, some weird, and some just gross.  And we had a good time!  Check out this creepy shot of the girls with a statue of Mary Dyer, a Quaker woman who was hanged in Boston Common just because she was not a Puritan.  She now haunts the area. 

There was an annoying strange bluish blur shaped like a woman in the shot standing next to Gwen.  It took away from the picture, so I photoshopped it out.  Now it looks nice, don't you think?

We arrived back at the Holiday Road around midnight, after sitting in a traffic jam on I-93 at 11pm on a Sunday night!  Gotta love Boston.  Anyways, we'll have another quiet morning to rest up today, and then who knows what the afternoon will bring.  Thanks for all the comments everyone...it helps us to not feel disconnected out here.  We are having a blast, and running our kids through the mill, but so far I think things are going well on the trip.  Till next time....