well. i guess i lied. before arriving in boston, we stopped off at where my sister has been living for the past two years. a little place called northampton. i usually just tell people that she lives in boston to make it easier, but as you can see she's about an hour or two away.

it's a small town with a large college draw. something like 5 colleges nearby.
stopped by my sister's boyfriend's place. he does glassblowing. i'm not sure if what i witnessed is actually considered glass blowing rather than just plain manipulating. but anyway. here's the
kiln. what he did was take a red stripe beer bottle and stick it on a metal pole then on into the kiln. then he'd pull it out and manipulate the mouth and neck until it was the same circumference as the rest of the bottle's body. then he goes out and sells them as glasses around xmas time. kinda cool for the beer lover. this is just a random picture of me missing him actually pulling the bottle out and only getting the afterglow.

the next morning we headed for boston where it was wet and poopy. but the weather seemed to fit the atmosphere of our first stop. an old ass cemetery. not only were the headstones pretty cool and indicatory of the christian epoc, but people like Paul Revere and John Hancock were buried there.

all this stuff was along a path called the "freedom trail". an ingenious way for the city to promote self-guided tours. they mark either a fat red line or a darker-colored brick in the sidewalk that takes you all around town. it starts in boston common, takes you by a spired building where colonial meetings went down, past Paul Revere's house and the church he had to climb his ass up to hang the warning lantern. beyond there was a bridge where the tea party started which lead to charleston and the bunker hill monument. up the 294 steps was a nice view of boston that was somewhat hindered by the foggy windows.

ending the freedom trail was "old ironsides". this was a colonial ship that was ahead of its time. it could withstand blows from a cannon and also carried a few of its own.

off the trail was one of the oldest, still standing ball parks--fenway park. one of the few that has yet to succumb to being named after some big company, i.e. safeco or forbes park. so long candlestick . . . this park hangs on to its history, by flying banners on one of its outer walls.

night was about to fall, so we stopped back at northampton to pick up my sister and head out west just as the sun was setting.
from then on, good weather followed us the rest of our way home.

next, continuing with the baseball theme, we headed to cooperstown, NY.
allegedly this is the birthplace of the sport, and therefore the location of its hall of fame.
i'll illustrate what we saw there the next time i post. so, once again, maybe tomorrow.
or whenever.