Duck tour, Museum of Science, Cape cod and the Plymouth Plantation

On our second day of the Boston trip, we visited one place. The Boston Museum of Science. It probably needs a few days to visit this thingy in all its vastness but we did what we could. We started the day with a "duck tour" of Boston that leaves from the Museum Parking lot.

It was a little over an hour of seeing the old Boston landmarks in and around the Museum from the amphibious vehicle (most notably city hall, trinity church and the shopping district) followed by a ride on the Charles river for 30 minutes. Given we went early in the morning, it was a nice ride on land and water. The kids got to sit at the wheel and drive the duck! It was a highlight for them..

The museum is similar to the California Academy of Sciences, with differnt wings for different areas. The big difference was the Pixar area. The kids and adults just loved this exhibit. 

The monster fans in our group were thrilled! 

There were also many exploratory areas and the kids actually learned a lot in one day. There were chicks hatching from eggs in front of us, things to measure on our body from heart rate to the arch of our feet! You could send all the data from your experiments to a site using your arm bracelet tag. It was impressive!

The little one seems to be all into science. I know things change over time.. but hoping this one keeps the light in her eyes alive for science.  She raised her hand to be volunteer for every experiment and enjoyed it.

Here she is moving the starry nights painting by shaking her hands on a setup that used Kinect to bring motion to the famous painting.. 

The kids had to use rubber bands on a frame with a cloth to create a surface that would bounce a ball the highest.. it had a testing Jig to test the height of the bouncing ball. They had stats from every bounce by day, by week with records on a computer. The kids were all set to beat the record but they lost. It was a great experience for them to see how their theories worked or not when applied in practice.

Then, there was the bed of nails, lightning bolts, animal and bird exhibits, shell collections, a nano science exhibit, an endless list to cover for a single day!

The only downside to this place is that the food shops close at 5:30 or so. We were hungry and tired after all that walking and had planned to eat at the museum before driving back. There was nothing to eat. So we ordered pizza, picked it up on our way home and watched the kids finish pizza like never before. 

It was a day well spent and the kids though tired, were very happy and excited and still talking about some of the things they saw at bedtime!

That was day 2. On day 3, we left for Cape Cod, bright and early. We made a good decision to drive as far as possible when traffic was low and drive back towards Canton and cover the vista points.

Turned out to be a great decision because the traffic had gotten much worse over three hours. 

We went all the way to Provincetown. Walked around the place and the pier and started driving back. 

The plan was to cover a few famous lighthouses and also spend time at the beach.

we made a small miscalculation on the beach part. It was Noon when we hit the beach. It was a very hot day and we could not even set foot on the sand. It was that hot. The kids went into the water for a few minutes but the rest of us could not sit there for long. So we packed up and headed for a quick lunch in the shade in the parking lot. One thing that was new to us here ? We cannot go park at the beach. You park 2 miles away and a shuttle bus takes you the beach every 20 minutes or so. There are long lines for this shuttle. So the wait could be 40 minutes before you get back to parking! 

After lunch, we went back towards Canton with a quick stop at the Plymouth (Plimoth) plantation museum. It was to commemorate the whole Indians meeting and helping the first settlers thanksgiving thing.. Someday there will be a musum to commemorate the settlers screwing the Indians was my thought. Then again, history is always written by the victorious, not the virtuous. Cynicism aside, the museum was a great attempt to recreate events and give a glimpse of what life was like 400 years ago in this place.

The kids saw how boats were made out of tress to go across the river..

grind corn, see how the Indians lived.. 

play games the Indian children played.. 

walk through an Indian village.. 

with folks in costume (and real Indian tribesmen) 

and English actors and actresses who recreate life on the village. They talk like it is 1650AD when you ask them questions. The kids were amused. They kept looking at us and asking "she is kidding right? she is just role playing right?"

This woman was challenged by the little one to see if she will slip up and make a single mistake to acknowledge we are in the current century, but NO! The conversation went on for 15 minutes and she was locked into 1600's. The kids were impressed with that.

That and a private birthday celebration pretty much sums up our trip. Will post the HDR photos soon. 

It was a whirlwind trip but like any of our other whirlwind tours (have started asking ourselves if there is any other way to tour any place), we managed to cover a lot in three days and come back just in time to start the back to school routine. 

This was exactly a month ago. Already feels like ages ago!

The kids are growing up fast. It is one thing that grandparent visits are few and far between. We don't even get to see our siblings often enough. My siblings are in Chennai and Boston. Wife's siblings are in Melbourne and Seattle. Family reunions are getting to be a rarity. Really looking forward to my Sashtiabdhapoorthy(turn 60) or Jr.'s wedding (whichever is sooner) to see everyone under one roof!

That is a lot of forward looking.. but cest la vie!