Plymouth and Mystic

Plymouth and Mystic

This week we spent Wednesday at the Plimouth Plantation(yes, it's spelled right - probably had to change spelling because of a crazy lawsuit!) in Plymouth, Massachusetts. It is a recreation of the settlement early settlers – specifically the Pilgrims who first arrived to the “New World.” You really do step back in time here. All the costumed actors know nothing past 1670. We met a farmer, a housewife, a thatcher (he was actually in the process of thatching a roof!), and a few others townspeople. There was also a Native American portion of the plantation with Native Americans from different tribes. One had just finished skinning a coyote, a few had different building projects, and others just answered questions. We went through the museum display on Thanksgiving – but we realized that at both the Native American portion and the Thanksgiving display, there were some definite political agendas. From there we went over to the Mayflower II – a replica of the actual Mayflower. It was amazing to find out that there were 102 travelers on the famous voyage that were stuck in almost complete darkness for over 9 weeks - I can’t imagine! Just a short walk away was the well known, but highly overrated Plymouth Rock.

Friday we spent at the Mystic Seaport Museum in Mystic, Connecticut. It’s located on 17 acres along the Connecticut coast. (Technically I guess it’s actually on the Mystic River – but it’s still on the coast!) They have several ships – the big attraction was a restored wooden whaling ship – the last of it’s kind. They also have recreated a seaport town with over 20 buildings – many original, moved there from other locations. We also saw how ropes for the ships were made, a working blacksmith’s shop, an old-fashioned printing press, a current ship restoration project, and much more. We spent over five hours there and still could have seen more!

The weather was great this past week – a nice break from the rain - although the nights are starting to get a bit chilly and we’re forecasted for rain for a few more days. Thankfully the heaters are keeping us warm – we just might not be doing as much boondocking (dry camping at Walmarts, truck stops, etc.) as the heaters really put a strain on the batteries. We do have a generator – but it’s a bit noisy and costly to run for long periods of time. The bus is running great but is looking well lived in at this point (after awhile we get tired of putting everything away just to haul it all out again – so the boxes end up just staying out much of the time!) Luckily, most of our time is spent out site seeing – so it doesn’t get to us too much!

Next we’re off towards Pennsylvania…lots to see there!