Connecticut Trip -- Freedom Trail, Boston MA (Part 3)

The last stop that we made on the Freedom Trail was to see the U.S.S. Constitution, known as "Old Ironsides". We were pretty rushed at this point as it had just started to sprinkle and the sky was really cloudy with some very interesting formations that we had never seen before. Several people told us about the impending tornado warning. None of us had ever heard of a tornado in New England, so we weren't too concerned.

The Constitution is located in the Charlestown Navy Yard and has military personnel assigned to it. In fact, we went through a security check that was very similar to the TSA checks at airports.

This is the museum that illustrates the entire career of Old Ironsides. It has some very cool interactive features for kids. Aby, Jayden and Taylor repeatedly sunk submarines and other "bad guys" in one of the games.

It was almost time for the navy yard to close when we got there, so we were allowed ten minutes on the ship, top deck only.

We passed the sign and boarded....


Dan and Kyle looking around; below is a closeup of one of the small cannons on the ship.

Some wood carving on the ship....

...and a life preserver in case anyone falls overboard!

After disembarking, we went to the museum to hang out for a bit. It was already starting to rain, so the guys went back to the parking structure to get the vans and the rest of us stayed in the museum until closing at 6:00; then we walked back to the navy yard entrance and waited in a covered shelter nearby.

We drove through some of the worst rain, thunder and lightening that I have ever experienced. At one point, one of the girls said, "Wow! We really need better windshield wipers!" to which Steve, the driver, replied, "No, we don't! We need less rain!"

When we got back to the hotel, we turned on the news and watched coverage of the tornados (I guess there were several in the same general area), which resulted in quite a bit of damage and at least one fatality. It turned out that it was a good thing we were driving at night because we would have been scared out of our wits -- the tornados were approximately 200 yards from the 84 freeway that we were driving on!

That concluded our day in Boston....the next day we packed our stuff up, went to a nearby park to play frisbee golf and let the kids out to play on the swings and run around, then off to the airport and home. We flew into LAX at about midnight and got home at 2am -- my own bed never felt so comfy!