829. Boston, Suffolk County (MA03)

Welcome to the jewel of the Northeast, the Cradle of Liberty, and the only city on the trip I had been to previously!  The Suffolk County Courthouse was, at first glance, a little disappointing.  After a few moments, I realized that the attached John Adams Courthouse, which I thought of as more attractive, was the old county courthouse.  Since it was still attached to the newer building (and by newer, I mean built in the 1930s), it made the entire thing more attractive as a whole.  Of course, though I expected one of the country’s premier cities to have an impressive courthouse, it could never be the political center of gravity around here.  Not while it was a few blocks away from …

… the Massachusetts State House. I sure do like a gilded dome. But even that was secondary for me, despite the Virtual at the gates. Though the capitol was impressive, I had several goals for our limited time in Boston, and one of them was right across the street. And no, I’m not talking about the US’s first public park, the Boston Common. Facing the gates of the statehouse was …

… the memorial to Robert Gould Shaw and the Massachusetts Fifty-Fourth Regiment.  For those of you to whom that’s not immediately recognizable, have you ever seen Glory?  That’s the Fifty-Fourth Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry.  And there was a Virtual there as well! 

Of course, I sound like I was running around alone. Krissy4884 and Razorbackgirl were tagging along with me as we claimed the Virtuals and the Adventure Labs on the Common. They also took a little detour with me around the corner to grab a Lab and one of my last personal goals of the trip at the Granary Burying Ground.

One of the oldest cemeteries in Boston, the Granary Burying Ground lies square in the middle of the city, a block from the Common. And it has a few famous graves in it, among them …

… John Hancock of giant Declaration of Independence signature fame …

… Samuel Adams of Declaration of Independence and beer fame, and the most important one for me …

… Crispus Attucks of Boston Massacre fame. 

I would have liked to take one of the Boston Freedom Trail tours that we saw visiting the cemetery. Boston has always done a really good job of remembering that freedom means different things to different people. I would have enjoyed doing the Historic Boston GeoTour as well. It only has twelve stops but, unfortunately, one of them is the bonus cache for nine Adventure Lab series. While I have no doubt that two or three of us could have knocked out forty-five Labs had we arrived the night before, we had no time for anything like that at the moment. Besides, the others tried hitting some of the other locations’ caches. Bunker Hill’s Virtual was blocked off for construction, and there was something wrong at Paul Revere’s house, but I never got details on what that was. It didn’t matter, though. We knew our time had come. We got back in our vehicles, knowing the last Boston thing we would see would be the concourses of Logan Airport.

We turned in our vehicles and carried our bags through the security theater.  No maple syrup was discarded, thanks to perfectly sized containers.  We all sat and talked in a bit of a daze.  4everlyn noted (and quite rightly, I might add) that any time you travel with other people, and you still like each other at the end, it was a good trip.  Razorbackgirl and I slipped away to get some food.  Yes, airport restaurants are going to fleece you, but we were in the mood to get fleeced one final time.  Besides, I had to have one last special thing before the end.  Along with my early dinner, I had a slice of Boston cream pie in Boston because I’m an unimaginative hack.  Soon after, we boarded our plane and flew back to the city we call home (except for Krissy4884, who lives farther north, and 4everlyn, who lives in San Antonio).  We landed, hugged our goodbyes, and went to our own beds.  I slept as I hadn’t slept for a week.  Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.

And the next morning, when I awoke, I chose my cache for the day.  I logged the Delaware Counties Challenge. 

But the next morning, I wept, for I could not log the Connecticut County Challenge Cache.

And that is how I finished my eighth state, the Land of Holly and Corporations, and my ninth state, the Land of the Quinnipiac.