Nature, travel, pets, home renovation, and geekery
While in Stage Fort Park in Gloucester in Massachusetts’s northern shore, there were several huge granite boulders that were covered with lichen. It was thus therefore required for me to bring out my macro lens and take photos of it. I love lichen. I love granite. I love lichen on granite.
While in Boston for a few days, my friend Kristen said I need to get out the city and see Massachusetts’s northern shore. I think she was hunting lighthouses, but I was just looking for pretty views and classic New England. We found all of that visiting Gloucester and Rockport.
Stage Fort Park
Stage Fort Park
Gloucester Fisherman’s Memorial
Lobster pots
“Motif Number 1” on Bradley Wharf in Rockport
Rockport
Thacher Island Twin Lights
I have this thing for bridges. I love them. However, I have a particular thing for cable-stayed bridges. They are my favorite. I love the simplicity of them. They are modern, sleek, functional, graceful, and gorgeous, all at the same time. Boston has a cable-stayed bridge right next to downtown, the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge, by which I-93 crosses the Charles River. So naturally, while in Boston, I took a lot of photos of this bridge. Here are just a few.
While in Boston, I walked the entire 2.5-mile Freedom Trail. It is a nice walk except for avoiding all the street construction. I have to admit also, as a tourist, it is nice not to really have to check a map, but rather just follow a red brick path in the sidewalks. I previously posted photos of the Massachusetts State House and the Bunker Hill Monument. Here are a few more photos from sites and just views along the Freedom Trail.
USS Constitution (“Old Ironsides”)
Winthrop Square
Copp’s Hill Burying Ground
Old North Church
Inside of Old North Church
Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway above I-93
Faneuil Hall
Old State House
A brief explanation of why I am posting the below photo. There is a T (subway) train station right below the Old State House, with an entrance through the building. As an engineer, I find this amazing. Consider how old the building is and the studies of the building that must have occurred to determine it could handle both the space being dug out of its foundation and also the ability to take vibrations from the subway and people going in and out of it.
T Station below Old State House
Old South Meeting House wedged between old and new office buildings
Old City Hall
Granary Burying Ground, where Paul Revere, Samuel Adams, Mother Goose, and others are buried
I was in Boston for a few days, and I decided to walk the Freedom Trail. I got to the Bunker Hill Monument, and I was told I should go to the top because the views are great. This seemed like a perfectly good reason to climb 294 steps. My legs afterwards had some thoughts on this idea. Anyway, here are some photos from the top, so you don’t have to climb it.
Bunker Hill Monument, which I climbed, for reasons
View of Navy Yards and USS Constitution
View of Mystic River
View of Mystic River
View towards Somerville
View of downtown Boston
View of downtown Boston and Back Bay
I have a goal to visit all 50 state houses. I am in Boston for a few days, so I was able to visit the Massachusetts State House. The State House is very pretty with a whole lot of marble. There is a definite sea theme in it, with waves and fish in many different areas. There is a large fish in both the House of Representatives and the Senate Chamber. The main portion (or pretty area as one worker there called it), is smaller than I originally thought it would be. However I guess the actual working area is generally more functional, not as pretty.
Massachusetts State House
Nurses Hall
Nurses Hall
Memorial Hall
Glass ceiling of Memorial Hall
Main Staircase
House of Representatives
Viewing balcony of House of Representatives with large fish hanging
Senate Chamber
I’m in Boston, and my friend Kristen, who lives here now, tells me there is something I have to see. Kristen knows me really well. She knows I am a member of the New York Transit Museum and a transit nerd. She says I have to visit Boston’s Transit Museum. Boston has a transit museum? No, but they seem to have unofficially made a tiny but not really accessible one that can be visited for the cost of a T ride. Go to the Boylston Station on the inbound side tracks, and that is the Boston “Transit Museum.” How permanent the exhibit is, I have no idea, but there are two old streetcars parked there. They are behind a huge fence, so it is difficult to get photos, but they are kind of cool to see.
Exterior track that is not used for normal cars
PCC Car No. 3295, according to display, this car was received in 1951 and was of the last PCC cards built by Pullman-Standard Company
PCC Car No. 3295, according to display, this car was received in 1951 and was of the last PCC cards built by Pullman-Standard Company
Type 5 Car No. 5734, according to display material was purchased after World War 1
Modern Boston streetcar, which is truthfully not that modern, at Haymarket Station