Catching up III - Boston 3 - The Mad Sharman goes to The Tea Party

And so to some history. Back down into Massachusettes and Concord which they pronounce conquered, the place where the first bullet of the war was fired (oh no it wasn't say the soldiers at Lexington).
But first here lived Louisa May Alcott (she wrote my life...Little Women)

and there is also a picture of Nathaniel Hawthorne's gaff too but because I can't lay claim to knowing anything abut him and it was too expensive to buy I haven't included it.
This one was an accident in terms of the framing, it is a shame the car is there and also that the image of P isn't better.

Walden Pond was also planned but we only got as far as the car park because Plymouth and other heady destinations seemed feasible.
You know you have to hand it to the Americans (and that is not meant in a patronising way) they are fantastic at talking up anything and sometimes it is absolutely fantastic but others it is absolute cr..bull...boloni. Here is an example of big boloni sausage....Plymouth Rock. Plymouth itself is pretty though not convinced they have done that well in preserving the houses.

The reproduction Mayflower II is not bad

and then we come to the Pilgrim Father's Wizard of Oz...Plymouth Rock or should I say Plymouth Boulder. Why did I think it would be like say the Needles or Durdle Door off the Dorset coast i.e. it was the first thing the Pilgrim Fathers saw off the coastline. More like they tripped over it and shouted "Who put that there!" when the set foot on land.
And to understand its life you need to conjure up the backing music of either Benny Hill or a cop chase in a slient movie. In order to maximise its tourist and veneration potential it has been up and down the hill twice, only the second time they did it, they dropped it and it split in half. Clearly the master craftsman commissioned by the local dignitaries (either that or it was the first case of the Mafia infiltrating the buidling industry) did not understand its significance. So you know what it's like he'd had a long day burying bodies in party walls and just thought he would slip this little job in at the end. And here is the subtle makeover job that resulted. Crack?????? What crack????

Trust me we've nearly done on this. Our penultimate stop. Can you guess where it is yet?


And that is Boston in the background


Confused?

A day in Boston walking the freedom trail and only once did P say if it hadn't been for the bloody French


The oldest commissioned warship in the US Navy with the oldest sailor in town stood by (he will not be impressed)

A closer Boston skyline taking in its new bridge.

Here endeth the Boston expotition....900 miles round trip covering Massachusettes, New Hampshire and Maine We didn't make Vermont.

Rather Behind II - Pigs Might Fly

The Texas state fair is the place to experience a serious concentration of Texan family
presided over by the slightly chucky (oops I missed out the l) Big Tex

For those who live locally to me in England it is a cross between Hull Fair which is the old Nottingham Goose Fair minus geese
and Hull Show which is like the great Yorkshire Show but with domestic livestock which in these "chav" ridden days extends from dogs, guinea pigs and rabbits to anacondas and tarantulas. (There is a punch up just waiting to happen there when all the white mice competitors disappear and all the snake competitors have a whacking great digestive smile on their face.)
Anyway, you know the car is King in the US and the TSF is a great opportunity to display it's muscle. This year they introduced two new models, the first being the dinghycar.

followed by the carblaster.

We have to own up and say though that we did sit in a shiny shiny Mazda more horse power than at Kempton races thingy, it was very nice and amazingly we didn't get pestered (maybe word had got round from our last car buying experience that we only had $9000 max to spend).
Apart from the jaunty US Marines band

with the "minciest" marching style you have ever seen; the day was spent roaming from one corn dog stall to another plucking up the courage to try one, being momentarily swayed by the gastronomic chalenge of a chop on a stick.....until we gave up and finished almost eating here until we realised typically it was America's way of proving that Hook a Duck is for Patsies.

We rounded off the day going to see those chops who had been saved from a skewer up the jacksie by volunteering to race against each other.

But we were too late.... the pigs had despite popular conviction flown and because I have realised that the photo is too distant this is the Pig racing arena.