The Eternal Optimist

I took a different route home from Massachusetts, partly to avoid I-95 at the end of Columbus Day weekend and partly to see some different scenery. The path took me through western Connecticut, New York (south of Poughkeepsie) and Pennsylvania. This is where I saw the best fall colors. Of course, that was all while I was driving (without many good places to stop). So the few shots I got were through the windshield.

Scranton
I passed through Scranton on my drive, so I decided I needed to stop to visit the home of “The Office” TV show.

The sign from the intro of “The Office” is now located in Steamtown Mall. Haha.

But, seriously, Scranton was really cute. Hills and trees and cool buildings. (I might have been driving while shooting this picture, thus the bits of windshield dirt.)

 

To see a more complete set of Northeast trip photos, visit my Facebook album.

During my time in Massachusetts, I stayed with my cousin Joe and his wife, Ashley, and 3-year-old daughter, Sophie. They live near Worcester (Wuss-ter). Although Sophie was wary of me at first, she eventually decided I was OK and let me paint with her and decided I needed to read lots of books with her. Ashley says she has even asked about me since I left, so I guess I turned out to be OK.

The weather was definitely a bit cooler than D.C., but it was excellent fall weather. We even got to sit outside around a firepit and drink wine with the neighbors one night — a great fall activity.

My last day there, we all visited Old Sturbridge Village, a re-created village from the early 1800s.

While we were on the Freedom Trail, Ashley said we needed to see the Holocaust Memorial, which is nearby. I readily agreed. It turned out to be my favorite sightseeing. It is very well done and definitely makes you think. It does an amazing job of representing the numbers of people affected. I also hear the memorial is lighted at night, which has to be spectacular. On top of all that, it offered some chances for interesting photography to try to show the experience of seeing the memorial in person. This is my attempt.

Six glass towers, each 54 feet high, commemorate the major Nazi death camps. Smoke rises from charred embers in chambers under the sidewalk below each tower.

Six million numbers are etched in the glass, suggesting the tattooed concentration camp numbers.

 

 Numbers are etched all the way up the towers.

 

 

Shadows of numbers.

 

 

Some panels also have quotes from survivors of the camps. This one talks about one survivor’s tattooed number.

 

 

Famous quote by Martin Niemoller at one end of the memorial.

They came first for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics,

and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up.

 

Since I hadn’t been to Boston before, I had to spend a day on the Freedom Trail. My cousin-in-law Ashley came with me for the day. Rather than detailing each spot, here are some of the best (or at least best photos).

State House
We couldn’t take a tour since it was the weekend, but this is a pretty impressive building sitting up on the hill.

Granary Burying Ground
We visited the graves of Sam Adams, John Hancock, Paul Revere and Mother Goose. Angel and skull carvings are common on the gravestones.

Old City Hall
This isn’t technically part of the Freedom Trail, but we passed by it. Out front is a donkey statue. Two footprints with elephants inside face the statue and say “Stand in Opposition.”

Paul Revere House
We paid the $3 (or whatever) to take the tour inside Paul Revere’s house. They even had some original furniture and such.

Old North Church
I’m a big fan of the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem “Paul Revere’s Ride,” so I was excited to see the Old North Church. The placement of the Paul Revere statue here was excellent for photography opportunities.

As I was planning for Boston, I decided I wanted to visit Harvard University and take the campus’s historical tour. So, my cousin Joe and I visited Cambridge. I have a friend from Mizzou living near there, so we met her for lunch. Then we had a little extra time, so we walked around the area looking at the shops before the tour.

I liked Yale’s campus better, but Harvard, of course, has plenty of history. And it was interesting to learn a bit about it. It also had its share of cool buildings.

The statue of John Harvard on campus is also known as the statue of three lies. 1. No one knew what he looked like, so it’s really just a statue of some guy that was chosen as the model. 2. It calls him the founder but he actually was just the first benefactor. 3. The university was founded in 1636 but this says 1638.

During our meandering on campus before the tour, we discovered Adolphus Busch Hall. Yes, another Midwest connection. Busch gave a bunch of money to build the hall, of course.

Memorial Hall was a large building that was very cool on the outside and very beautiful on the inside.

On my first day in Boston, I visited the Public Garden with my cousin Joe. I had read there was a group of statues based on “Make Way for Ducklings” by Robert McCloskey. I had fond memories of reading it when I was little. In the book, the mother raises her ducklings in that park. So, we looked for the statues, and ended up visiting the whole park during our search. (It was in the last corner we explored.)

As we left the garden, we stopped by the Cheers bar, but it was still pretty early so we couldn’t go inside.

Brewery
Later in the day, we visited the Sam Adams Brewery. It was a lot smaller than I expected. All their bottling is done in their Ohio and Pennsylvania locations, so all that beer is brewed in those place. The Boston location serves more as a research facility. However, we did get to smell some hops and drink some beer samples.

Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) and his family lived in Hartford for a portion of his adult life, so I took a tour of his house. It was in an area that, at that time, drew a lot of writers and artists, so Harriet Beecher Stowe’s home is next door, though I didn’t have time to tour that.

The Twain house is beautiful, inside and out. The architecture is really intricate with lots of balconies all over. The home has much of the original furniture and other pieces that belonged to the Clemens family. Although much of his writing was done in the summers when the family was in New York or elsewhere, he had an office upstairs with multiple balconies — and a desk in the corner for writing to avoid distractions.

I already planned to tour Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., so when I realized I’d be passing Yale University, I thought I might as well see that campus, too. I had a bit of a mix-up when getting off the interstate but eventually I made it to the campus. It was absolutely gorgeous!

I’m sure my pictures don’t do it justice. I didn’t have time for a tour, but I would love to go back and take one. I just wandered around past all the old stone buildings with intricate carvings of pictures and words and through the old archways and courtyards.

I walked through one large building, which seemed to be open to the public. It was Woolsey Hall/Memorial Hall/Commons. The main portion I saw was Memorial Hall, but I peeked in the Commons and had to take a picture: It looked exactly like the dining hall from “Gilmore Girls.” (Rory did go to Yale, so it seems the show had a pretty accurate reproduction.)

I left at 6 a.m. on a Thursday for my trip to Boston. I was hoping my timing would help me avoid heavy traffic on I-95, and it seemed to work. This was my first time driving on I-95 north of Baltimore and my first time driving past/through New York City. While I hit some expected slowdowns around the bridge and through New York, traffic was pretty great. If I hadn’t made some tourist stops, I would have arrived in Worcester, Mass., (where I was staying with my cousin and his family) in 8-9 hours. Instead, I made a few leisurely stops to see parts of Connecticut.

Stop 1: Bridgeport
My hope was to see the P.T. Barnum Museum, and when I saw that this city was on the coast, I was excited for the water, too. However, once I parked, I ended up a little far from any touristy areas near the water. I did, however, see the water during my short walk through downtown. I loved the outside of the Barnum Museum. Sadly, when I tried to go inside, I was told it’s closed for renovations. The only part open was a meager display of circus sculptures in an adjacent building.