Mostly Massachusetts
The east coast proved to be a bit more difficult to find free camping in. And when you have a dog and creeper van, it’s a hard to blend into the neighborhoods for the night. Luckily we had a couple of options in the big cities. On the way down to Boston, we had to stop at Salem. Predictably it had a whole host of spooky touristy attractions, but what we didn’t know is the history before the witch trials. Salem was a huge shipping port back in the day and had a nice national park run museum showing it. The only reason it didn’t become big like New York or Boston is that the harbor was too shallow for growing boats.
We then crashed with my aunt and uncle, Tony and Denny as they were temporarily living in Boston for three months. Convenient timing! When arriving, we walked the last half of the Freedom Trail, which points out historical places and events that happened throughout the city in the early days of the United States’ conception. Pretty cool suspension bridges, too:
Old Ironsides was restored and they let the public on to look at the low, low ceilings that sailors used to deal with!
The Freedom Trail ends at Bunker Hill Monument, which is an impressive, accessible granite tower that overlooks the city. It took a long time to construct due to lack of funds, and even more interesting is that the first commercial railroad in the us was made to carry rock to the site.
View from the top:
Tony and Denny’s apartment was right downtown, which was walking distance from a brew pub tour and full of great views. Denny’s theory is that buildings are required to leave lights on at night so the city doesn’t look dead:
I didn’t take pictures of the historic brew pub tour, which turned me off of beer for a few weeks.
Next we had to visit Cape Cod. It was literally the last day of the season so we had some delicious, cheap seafood at one of the restaurants. Then hiked through the national park’s preserved shoreline, where we had seals follow us up and down the whole time!
To visit every state, we needed to check out Rhode Island. This meant a stop in Providence, and another historical tour by the National Park service on the founding of the city. It’s pretty much the storybook definition of European immigration to the U.S. with religious refugees guaranteeing the right to practice whatever religion you please as long as you contribute to society. Much more to go into, but my memory will botch it if I try!
While not free, camping in the state park was $10 a night so we had some rare campfire time for a few nights:
