Moose and Monkey's Great Boston Adventure Part 1

That's me, Moose at the computer! Ok...Let's begin the adventure:

Like sands through the hour glass....nah, that doesn't fit us. Um...

In a galaxy...far, far, away...nope doesn't work either.

(Think Law and Order) In religious life there are younger religious who gather in a special unit for those under 40. They put puppets on their fingers and go about cities in the United States...these are their stories...bum bum.

(Gotta have the "bum bum"...that totally works)

After a great night's sleep, I woke up in Boston! I'm staying at my friend Moose's convent in Newton Centre (Boston area). I'm here for a little R&R, time with my Nun Friends, Elephant's Jubilee, and a meeting. What's great is I got to sleep late and take my "perfect morning."

Now, like Katy, I'm not a morning person. (C'mon...I'm her finger puppet) So the perfect morning is this...wake up, look at the clock and say "no way lady" and roll back asleep for a while. Then decide it's time to get up. Grab some coffee and take some quiet pray time...like a retreat schedule. Ease into the morning...take your time...oooooh....I love these kinds of mornings. (or early afternoons depending upon when I begin them.)

So that's exactly what I did! There's me listening to my God music and writing in my journal. It was nice because I really could take the time to think and just be; which was GOOD. Yay!

Then it was time for our adventure! We decided that we wanted to go walk the Freedom Trail it is such a wonderful walk! The weather was good too...unfortunately it wasn't sunny, but the temperature was perfect walking weather. So we hopped on the T (or the Chaaahley) and headed downtown to the Boston Common (which eas ahh behg Pahhhk--that's my Bostonian accent spelling) where we met Paul Revere (look in the far right of the picture)! Wow...we came on a special day!

From the Common Pahhk we walked to the State House and then on to the Granary Burial Ground. Lots of famous people are buried here including Paul Revere, Sam Adams, and Mother Goose (which is actually how Maria (OSU) got her "Mother Duck" puppet). Monkey and I couldn't believe how old the graves and everything was. It was really eerie and beautiful.

There's a picture of the Burial Ground, a close up with the State House in the background and here's us at the entrance to the Burial Ground (Can you find us in the picture? Look up!)

Following the Freedom Trail we went on...until we stopped at a big statue of Ben Franklin! WOW...We tried very hard to take a picture with him. There was also an interesting sculpture of a donkey and then opposite of the donkey were two feet with elephants facing the donkey; the plaque said, "Standing in opposition" Well...we weren't too sure about those feet; I think we "accidentally" covered up the elephants when we got our picture taken..oops Moose, Monkeys and Donkeys standing together!

Off to the North End because our little tummies were hungry! The North End has the Italian Village. There is this cool sign with all arrows pointing to the different regions of Italy; of course I HAD to have my picture taken with Umbria (that's where Assisi is!), being a Franciscan Moose and all. The Italian Village looks like Italy with the narrow streets and cafes and flower boxes. We said absolutely we want pizza. So we found Ernesto's which was this little bitty cute place and MY GOSH they had wonderful PIZZA! Mmmmm....After pizza, well we had to have a Gelato; I mean c'mon...we were in Italy weren't we?

After our tummy's were full, we headed on our "Red Line" (The Freedom Trail is literally a red brick and in some spots painted red line, all through the city. You know you are on the right track when you are following the red line!

Anyway...next stop was Paul Revere's house and then on to the Old North Church...you know the historic "One if by land, two if by sea" shin-dig.

The Old North Church was really beautiful, and the congregation sits in these boxes. In the time of Paul Revere, families "owned" boxes. It was crazy to see name plates with the year 1796 on them!

Across from the church there was the ST FRANCIS GARDEN! WOO HOO! I was so excited. Monkey was excited too...she's got some Francis in her. We had a thoughtful conversation with Francis about how nice the garden was. Of course we were welcome guests...a Moose and a Monkey? Francis loved animals!

We also thought it was neat that in the Francis garden were bleeding heart flowers. Monkey is a RSCJ or Religious of the Sacred Heart of Jesus; hearts are to them as um...Taus are to us? (We'll go with that analogy!) So we had our Franciscan picture and our RSCJ picture...and really what is boils down to is being on the journey together! Yay...pals for life!

Back on the red line trail for us...Phew we're getting tired! We just have to see Boston Hahbah and you can see the bridge in the background.

One more old old old burial ground stop (they are really beautiful in a strange way), and we were on the bridge over looking the Harbor (hahbah). Then we decided to turn back...look for a T station and head on home to be with her Sisters for supper. When we got back to Newton Center, we just had to have one more photo of our T station. Wow what a great adventure we had!

We got home and enjoyed a lovely meal and conversation with Monkey's Sisters and then a nice prayer. Monkey and I were beat, so we decided to watch a movie. What a great day!

Tomorrow we're off to Salem to do the Crucible/Witch History stuff. Cool...more adventures coming soon!

....Bum Bum...