A Day at the Zoo

Posted on August 27, 2013August 27, 2013 by Dusty Roads

I think the saying is “a walk in the park” but for me and my friend and her family it was a “day at the zoo”. Nancy has been working 3 jobs all summer so squeezing in our annual summer jaunt was turning into a challenge. We were down to the wire when a Tuesday opened up in all our schedules at the same time! YAY! I picked up Nancy and her two children, Alex and Dawn, and we made a bee line to the Franklin park Zoo.

I love zoos and it had been a couple of years since I’d been to this one. Nancy said the kids hadn’t ever been to this one. Located in the Dorchester section of Boston, Franklin Park Zoo is truly an urban zoo. You can even get to it by subway.

A really unusual feature is FREE PARKING! In Boston that’s more rare than the animals on exhibit!

We had a beautiful day for our visit. The weather was sunny and warm but there was a breeze.

There was a new playground since my last visit and we spent a good deal of time there.

We spent the whole day! The Zoo was closing up shop as we made our way out the front gates.

We’d covered everything from the petting zoo to the Bird World.

We saw the gorillas and the tigers and lions.

My favorite is the Budgie Aviary and I think the kids liked that too. They didn’t want to leave.

We also enjoyed the Butterfly enclosure.

Alex was reluctant at first but pretty soon the turtles had his attention.

The giraffe was a treat as it was right at the fence stretching it’s long neck to eat right over the heads of the crowd.

I had to stop by the prairie dog enclosure. The sentry even smiled for the camera.

Leaving the ostrich behind we made our way to the car after a great day!

Lighthouses of Boston Harbor

Posted on August 23, 2013August 23, 2013 by Dusty Roads

The Boston Harbor Cruise Whale Watch provided an opportunity to get a peak at 2+ of the lighthouses that protect Boston Harbor.

As I mentioned before there are 2 Boston Harbor Cruises that feature Lighthouses. Expert members of the American Lighthouse Foundation narrate the tours. They begin in Boston with passes by Long Island Head Light and Deer Island Light, and then a pass by Boston Light, the oldest lighthouse station in America. Heading north, the tour will pass by Graves Light, Hospital Point Light, Marblehead Light, Fort Pickering Light, Baker’s Island Light, Eastern Point Light, Ten Pound Island Light, Straitsmouth Island Light and more. The Northern Lights tour culminates with a view of Thacher Island, site of the only still operating twin lighthouses left in the country.

On our jaunt to look for whales we passed Boston Light with Graves Light behind it.

From certain angles the two lights line up front to back. Boston Light is located on Little Brewster Island in Boston Harbor. The current lighthouse is not the original structure.

During the American Revolution, the original lighthouse was held by British Forces and was attacked and burnt on two occasions by American forces. As the British forces withdrew in 1776, they blew up the tower and completely destroyed it. The lighthouse was eventually reconstructed in 1783, to the same 75-foot height as the original tower. In 1856 it was raised to its present height of 98 feet.

Graves Light is visible from Little Brewster Island and Boston Light. Graves light is located on The Graves, the outermost island of the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area, 9 miles offshore of downtown Boston.

Minot’s Ledge Light, officially Minots Ledge Light, is a lighthouse on Minots Ledge, one mile offshore of the towns of Cohasset and Scituate, to the southeast of Boston Harbor. It is a part of the Town of Scituate. The current lighthouse is the second on the site, the first having been washed away in a storm after only a few months of use.

The Nantucket Lightship which we passed moored in Boston Harbor is now a museum. The Lightship Nantucket or Nantucket Shoals was the name given to the lightvessel that marked the hazardous Nantucket Shoals south of Nantucket Island. Several ships have been commissioned and served at the Nantucket Shoals lightship station and have been called Nantucket. It was common for a lightship to be reassigned and then renamed for its new station.

At 8:00 a.m. on December 20, 1983 the Lightship 613 was relieved by a Large Navigational Buoy, making Lightship 613 the last Lightship on station in the US and on Nantucket Station. In December 1983 the Lightship 613 was sold to the New England Historic Seaport to become a museum ship in Boston.

So lets see. So far this summer I’ve seen Gurnet Light, Bug light (Duxbury Pier), Chatham Light, Boston Light, Graves Light, Minot Ledge Light and the Lightship Nantucket.

But there’s more. I’m not done yet! Tomorrow we go to Gloucester and Cape Ann.

Meet Niles

Posted on August 10, 2013August 10, 2013 by Dusty Roads

It was a nice day for a boat ride but everyone wanted to see whales so there was a lot of clock watching going on. Mumbles about how we’d been sailing for an hour and seen nothing and were we going to slow down to look etc.

I was just enjoying the sun and ride. It didn’t seem that long to me. One lady was here from Louisiana and she was bundled up to her eye brows. She thought it was really cold. She was following the temperatures in Louisiana on her phone. She showed me it was 93 there to our 80. She also talked about how crowded Boston was and expensive…$60 for 3 people to have dinner and the MBTA was twice what they pay for the subway. (I didn’t know they had a subway in Louisiana) I’m not sure what town she was from but she did say it was the northern part of the state and her husband and oldest son were both “in oil”. Oh yes she thought gas process here were insane. I have to agree with her on that point.

By now we were nearing the tip of Cape Cod. We could see the Pilgrim Tower in Provincetown off in the distance. This was just about where we were with Capt’n John.

And just as with Capt’n John we spotted some Minke whales first. Then the naturalist said she could see another whale near one of the other boats. She thought it was a finback. Just then right in front of us (12 o’clock as they say) we had a whale surface and blow!

The captain swung the boat left as she broke the surface again and this time I got a quick look. Humpback! Now it was time to wiggle my way to the rail trying not to throw any little ones overboard.

Humpbacks are identified by markings on their tail flukes and this whale was “fluking” regularly. I couldn’t see the side with the markings but the Naturalist on the bridge could and said it was a female named Niles. She has a squiggly white line on her flukes that someone thought looked like the Nile River so she was named Niles.

We hung out with Niles for the rest of the tour watching her dive and feed. At one point she went under the stern and popped up again right next to us pushing her big head out so we got a glimpse of her nose. The Naturalist said she was filter feeding and that action helps drain the water out of her mouth leaving the food behind.

More and more boats began to arrive so reluctantly we had to leave Niles behind. She was the only Humpback we saw and because we had to go so far to find her we didn’t look for any others. It was time to turn around and head back to Boston.

Going back we were heading into the wind so I was glad I brought a hoodie with me. Most of the folks who had been sitting and standing here in the bow with me retired to the enclosed seats now that they’d seen their whale.

As we entered the inner harbor a plane flew low over the boat and came in for a landing at Logan Airport. The runway they came in on ran parallel to us so for a few minutes we paced the huge plane until it turned away to it’s gate.

It’s hard to believe it’s 5:30. The time went really fast. With the Aquarium closed I’m going to head over the Faneuil Hall to kill some time and let the subway clear out a bit before I head home.

Spring is in the Air

Posted on April 11, 2013April 11, 2013 by Dusty Roads

Boy the last couple of days have been busy! As you probably figured out from my recent posts I made a trip to Newport for my “Mystery Monday” and then grabbed the “T” into Boston for one of our first really nice days which also happened to be OPENING DAY AT FENWAY.

Baseball is back in Boston! I also attended an all day seminar in resume writing and job hunting and applied for a position as a travel writer. Wouldn’t that be a nice gig?

Meanwhile back at Fenway I didn’t have tickets and wasn’t about to spend $50 for one of the “Cheap Seats” but it was fun to be a part of the excitement. Boston is a sports town where excitement always runs high but the Home Opener at Fenway Park is always something special.

Once most of the shouting mob was in Fenway I slipped into Uno’s in Kenmore Square for lunch and missed the best moment of the opening…the Fly Over! I’m not sure what kind of planes but as I was being seated I saw it on the big screen TV. What I wouldn’t have given to be outside to try to get a picture of that! It caught me completely by surprise!

But now I needed sustenance so over steak tips and salad I chatted with my waiter who hailed from South Africa. Must add a trip or two to that county to my bucket list.

From Uno’s I headed back to Park St.. The previously crammed subway cars were now empty making for a much easier ride if not as exciting.

I was now on my quest to see the “Duckling” statues. You remember the story Make Way for Ducklings? Well I had heard that someone had outfitted them with spring bonnets and I wanted to see this. Since rain was in the forecast I knew if I didn’t go right away they would be a wilted mess. Hard to believe that it was going to rain when I looked at the brilliant, cloudless blue sky.