Today was a day with friends. After a morning drive, we enjoyed lunch at the home of an Old Testament professor and his family. To this point, our relationship had been through books (me reading his) and email, and it was a great privilege to spend the afternoon with him, his wife, and his daughter and son-in-law who are both PhD students in biblical studies at a prestigious university in Ohio. The highlight for our kids will probably be the backyard swimming pool. I enjoyed his outstanding collection of ancient artifacts (a virtual museum at home!) as well as photos of Israel from his earlier years. But I was most impressed by his submission to the Lord through decades of physical suffering. This is a man who is gifted in so many ways and who no doubt realizes what he could have “accomplished” for the Lord if he had his health. I was encouraged by his humility and patience, and I am praying that the Lord will enable him to complete a large project that will be of immense value to the church (a two-volume work on the relevance of each of the laws of the Old Testament to the believer). There is more that may come out of our visit, but if this is all, I will always be thankful for our time with them.

Our friend Becky joined us for lunch and the afternoon as well, as this professor was the one who brought her to Israel the first time. After we took a goodbye photo (but not on my camera; I don’t have any pictures from the day), we drove through a bit of “Amish country” and stopped at a store that caused more sorrow than anything else. The prices at this “scratch-and-dent” store were so very good but Kelli could only purchase a couple of small items because of the lack of space in the car.

We then located a Cracker Barrel and treated Becky to dinner. This is a special time in her life as she is only a few days away from flying back to Israel to pack up her things and resign her long-time position at IBEX. She served us/them well for 11 years and she will be missed. It is good for us to be able to visit her as she makes this difficult transition.

I appreciate the encouraging words written in the comments about these vacation posts. It is enjoyable to share our blessings.

Today was to be our “New York” day. Though we did not spend a single night on this trip inside New York, we had a lot of ground to cover today between Vermont and our stopping place in Pennsylvania. Thus I was undecided until this morning as to whether we would visit Fort Ticonderoga or not. The site is a bit off our route (requiring a turn north instead of south) and I wanted some extra time for roadside stops on our drive through the Adirondacks and Catskills. Furthermore, the primary significance of Fort Ticonderoga was during the French-Indian War, a period that we did not have the time to study. But as we pulled out of the hotel, I decided that we were just too close to skip it. And I told everyone that it would be a “quick stop.”

I do have a photo with the kids in position, but I like this action shot better.

The problem with my plan was that Fort Ticonderoga is just too good. Over the last hundred years, devoted workers have attempted to make this a full-day stop. To that end they have characters in period costume, musket firings, specialist talks, and a fantastic museum display. It didn’t take long after walking in that I realized that my “one-hour” plan was a joke.

Of course, the happiness was ours, as we had a fun place to explore and learn. We enjoyed a 15-minute video reviewing the history, checked out the kids ‘ crafts (e.g., tricorn hat), and saw an unbelievable display of muskets, rifles, swords, and other military equipment.

Along the way we made a bathroom stop.

(I picked this photo because it was humorous, not because it reflects Jonathan’s normal position. He was quite happy and enjoyed being in the carrier.)

After several hours we simply had to leave. If I’m in the area again, I ‘ll plan to make this a bigger part of the day.

Our drive in the afternoon was one of the most beautiful yet, through the Adirondack mountains in upstate New York. The forested slopes and the blue lakes were ever beckoning. Many people come here to vacation in the summer and we understand why. Along the way we passed by Scroon Lake and saw the Word of Life campus. I see the attraction for Bible teachers and campers to come here each summer.

With six hours of driving in the southward direction, we feel like we are really “headed home” now.

The state of Vermont is beautiful in the summer. Today we drove through some very scenic areas, but I only took photos of the place where we did a more extended hike.

The city of Stowe is famous for various activities and businesses, but we limited our time there to walking around the town and a hike to a nearby waterfall.

We spent some time at one spot along the river where the kids could splash in the water and play with the rocks.

The rest of the afternoon we drove south through the Green Mountains, enjoying the scenery and wishing we had more time to stop and hike or go for a ride on a river. At one roadside stop we sampled some of the maple products of a local vendor and purchased some yummy maple cream to enjoy at home.

We reached the hotel early enough for the kids to jump in for a (rather brisk) swim and then to enjoy a meal at a non-fast-food establishment.

I knew I would like New Hampshire when we crossed the border and the sign had the state motto, “Live Free or Die.” Its southern neighbor, known for its oppressive laws, seems to live by the slogan, “We ‘d Rather Die.” I don’t know how conservative New Hampshire really is, but they don’t have a seatbelt law (for adults) which is a good sign.

We woke up again at the Wings ‘ home. We were, in fact, the first people to sleep in the new master bedroom, and we counted that a privilege! After a hearty breakfast of Dunkin Donuts, we headed out for the day, first making a stop at a farm that was home to Robert Frost in the early 20th century.

If there is one place to go in New Hampshire, we are told, it is to Flume Gorge. Indeed, it is spectacular. After a couple hours of driving north through the beautiful state, we stopped and had a picnic lunch before embarking on the hike.

The hike is through a narrow gorge through which water still flows. The built path makes it easy for everyone to visit. Below Brandon pauses to take a photo. Their youngest daughter, Natalie, enjoyed the ride on his back.

New Hampshire is famous for covered bridges and this one crosses the river near a pool not far from the gorge. (In looking up the name of the place, I came across some beautiful photos of this scene.)

This beautiful girl may distract you from the tree growing on the rock. I guess it really wanted to live.

Here the girls pause for a break. I wonder what they were talking about. Perhaps Bethany was asking Olivia if she would be her roommate at IBEX in the year 2020.

These more relaxing days in New England are a welcome break and will be full of good memories.

This day was happier than the photos and gloomy weather might suggest. To start with, we were staying with the Wing family. Rachel was an IBEX student now ten (!) years ago, and it was a privilege and blessing to spend time with her and her wonderful family. As I mentioned yesterday, our visit with them was made possible by a question on this blog to which Rachel responded.

We started the day in New Hampshire, spent most of our time in Maine, and then returned to New Hampshire. That sounds fairly incredible if you’ve spent all of your life in the Western states or Texas, as it simply isn’t possible to go to one state, do stuff, and then go to another state, all in a single day. But in New England they make everything small, including their states. And, to be sure, we only saw the southern tip of Maine. I would love to go back and spend a week month there, and perhaps I ‘ll do that one day when I don’t have a job or a family.

My photos today are limited and don’t show the fun the kids had playing at the house before we left. They don’t show the tasty picnic that Rachel’s mother prepared for us. They don’t show the playground the kids played on. Nor do they show the fantastic dinner we relished at Rachel’s parents ‘ home. But it’s ok to not take a picture of everything. We were too busy enjoying.

Our primary destination in Maine was the Portland Head Light in Cape Elizabeth. This is said to be the most photographed lighthouse in the world. I did my part to help it keep that record.

Then we had our photo taken with the lighthouse in the background. I think it looks smaller than I was envisioning. This photo does reveal why in many pictures you do not see me or Jonathan.

I hope the Wings won’t mind if I share this photo of their beautiful family. The Lord blessed us with their friendship in many different ways. Our kids and their kids bonded very quickly.

For the better part of the afternoon we hung out on the beach at Pine Point. Kelli and I watched Jonathan crawl in the sand while the Wings and the kids went various directions in search of all kinds of shells and beach things. They came back with quite a haul, but I have no pictures of that.

Is this too many pictures of Jonathan? There is a danger, I suppose, in having a filmless camera that takes 5 pictures a second.

I ‘ll end with one of Luke and Bethany just playing on the beach. The water was surprisingly warm considering how far north we were. But the air was chilly enough that no one was swimming.

It was nice to finally make it to Maine, even if it was only a day trip.

Though our car’s odometer doesn’t reflect it, we covered a lot of ground today. Thinking back over it, it’s hard to believe we did so much. I’m going to break the record with seven photos in today’s post but there are still a number of good things I won’t note.

We spent the morning at Harvard University, visiting the Semitic Museum. I gave the kids a tour of the Israelite room before releasing them to greener pastures and proceeding to photograph other rooms. Naturally they got a full explanation of an Israelite four-room house.

I enjoyed teaching them about artifacts from Israel. I don’t think I’ve ever done that before. (Crazy, isn’t it?)

Not too far distant is Lexington, famous for its role in standing up to British soldiers on their way to Concord. We took a picture with the Minute Man statue.

Behind that statue is the Battle Green where the revolutionaries and Redcoats had their standoff. In the enactment below, the boys are the British and the girls are the Minute Men.

At the Hartwell Tavern, a lively ranger gave us an explanation of how the guns worked and then he (unintentionally) demonstrated how they didn’t always fire as intended. I don’t know this for sure, but my guess is that many of the rangers who do these talks at historical sites are school teachers off for the summer. It seems like an ideal way to indulge in one’s passion and (perhaps?) get paid for it. I wonder why we don’t see Jehu dressed up at Jezreel giving tourists a demonstration of chariot driving. Maybe I should get it going; my dissertation will of course make me the expert on it.

It was at North Bridge in Concord where Americans killed the first British soldiers (I think that’s right, but better not trust me to keep all of this history straight). We enjoyed another ranger talk here. The bridge that you see is actually a fifth reconstruction of the famous one.

We were too late to go inside, but we did see the area and exterior of the house which was the basis for Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women was written. Not far away was the Wayside, home to the Alcotts and Nathaniel Hawthorne. And near the North Bridge is the Old Manse, home of Ralph Waldo Emerson. There are lots of historic places in a very small area.

Our last stop was at Walden Pond, made famous by Henry David Thoreau. There were tons of people here; apparently it is a very popular recreation area today. Too bad we are all books and lessons and no fun and games!

We ‘re spending tonight and tomorrow with a former IBEX student and her family in New Hampshire. In fact, it was this blog that connected us and led to a very warm welcome. Tomorrow should be fun.

The most memorable part of the day for me was the walk back. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy seeing all of the sites (I did!), but for some reason I really enjoyed walking the two miles from the end of the Freedom Trail back to the parking lot. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that I was carrying no bags and herding no children. I was all alone, walking through the streets of Boston on a beautiful day.

From our reading, we assumed that it would be a shorter and easier day because walking the Freedom Trail was said to take only 2-3 hours. So we took our time. When we were less than halfway done midway through the afternoon, we realized we had to step up the pace. We made it to everything, though the monument on Bunker Hill (or is it Breeds?) was closed when we arrived.

The Boston Commons was a pleasant place to start our day’s journey. The city parking lot is conveniently located beneath the park.

We saw several cemeteries today, including this tombstone belonging to “Frank, Servant to John Hancock.” That prompted some thoughts, but weariness prevents me from interfering with your own reflection.

This next sign made me sad. You may have to click to enlarge it in order to read it.

We spent a good bit of time inside the Old South Meeting House. There is an admission fee, but it is worth it to read about all of the history in the well-designed displays. Jonathan would likely put this stop at the top of his list, but for different reasons.

We made it to the U.S.S Constitution in time for the last Navy sailor-guided tour of the day. It was great to learn about this historic ship from a serving Navyman.

This photo, aboard “Old Ironsides” strikes me as symmetric.

I snapped this photo on Bunker Hill before I left my camera and bag behind and started my trek to get the car. I believe the kids had a lot of fun on this grass while I was gone. (I suppose that makes us even.)

A trip to Walmart for boy’s shoes and groceries was one of the reasons we didn’t get in to our room until after 10. A more restful stretch is coming, but it does not start tomorrow.

Visits to the Plymouth Plantation and a replica of the Mayflower made for another relaxing day of experiencing American history. Before our trip we studied three major periods: the settlement, the Revolutionary War, and the Civil War. Along with our stop at Jamestown, today fulfilled our study of the pioneer settlers of America.

Plymouth Plantation is a re-creation of the original colony, with a section devoted to the Indians Native Americans Native Peoples and a section for the Pilgrims. In the first part, we learned from an old woman making clothes, watched a young man building a house, and listened to the fellow below describe how he makes canoes by burning out the inside of a log.

A descendant of the Wampanoags spends a couple of months making a canoe.

Jonathan got to see some of the toys that were made by the Native Peoples.

The Pilgrim Village was much larger and had even more characters. I think rather than a two-hour visit, I’d prefer to live there for a month and do things the way they did. It’s difficult to jump into and out of the shoes of another time period so quickly.

The family walks up the main street of Plymouth Plantation.

Cute.

The boat that brought the first pilgrims to Plymouth in 1620 was probably scrapped a few years later, but in the 1950s an exact replica of the Mayflower was made and sailed to America from England. Now it is open to tourists.

The kids and the Mayflower II

Travelers on that first ship had to build their own “bedrooms” (if they could afford it) and this is an example of how some might have slept. It does seem like we could do some furniture re-arrangement at our house and free up one of the bedrooms for an expansion of my library.

Kids testing out the accommodations on the Mayflower II.

The boys and I are currently reading Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick and it provides a lot of detail into the earliest days of the settlers and Indians in Massachusetts.

Today was a much more relaxed day, and everyone enjoyed that. The cities have been good but we need a break. Unlike most days when we drive to a place and then spend a lot of time there, today we drove a bit and stopped. Then we drove a bit more and stopped again. And so on. We drove about five hours total, so we didn’t have a lot of time to explore, but we enjoyed what we did.

We started in Connecticut (after an evening drive last night from NYC to a hotel on the “other side” of Monday morning traffic) and decided we ‘d first swing by Yale. They have campus tours but we opted to spend less time and just drive around the old buildings. I wanted to see the campus but I want to be careful not to exalt it too much in the eyes of the children. The professors here may be brilliant but most of them are no less blind than those at the local community college.

The big stop of the day was in Rhode Island for the famous Newport Cliff Walk. That was a fun trek, with the ocean on one side and some impressive mansions on the other. Nearly all of my photos from today were of this walk.

Cliff walk, Newport, Rhode Island

From here we drove into Massachusetts and out to Cape Cod. We arrived at our hotel (high price, low quality) early and decided to drove out to the tip of the cape and find dinner along the way. We found a nice beach for the kids to peer out into the waters where the Mayflower first arrived.

Herring Cove Beach, Cape Cod

We were too late to climb the tower in Provincetown, so we headed back looking for a fish place to eat at. One that stood out to us had a long line out the door when we passed it earlier. We figured that that’s the best advertisement but were surprised that when returned (about three hours later), the line was still out the door. Everyone had their fill of shrimp, oysters, scallops, and cod (and for some, that “fill” was less than others). This will probably be the most memorable meal of the trip.

Fish dinner on Cape Cod