Episode Transcript
Welcome back to the Pass the Broccoli podcast. This is episode four. We'll be exploring Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Stay tuned. We traveled through Pennsylvania and New York to get to Vermont so we could miss the traffic. Didn't wanna go through all that. Crazy traffic in New York to get all the way up to to Vermont New Hampshire. So we took the back road in those, that trip will come up in a later episode. What we did on the way there we made our way through the state and we stopped at some national historical sites. Went to Bennington, saw a historical bridge there near Bennington. National Monument in Bennington. And as we made our way up into Vermont even further, our destination was Waterbury, where the Ben and Jerry's ice cream facility factory, make all that stuff on the way up there. We stopped at several of the shops, touristy stops on the way up through there. Got some April syrup, of course. Then when we got to our main destination, Waterbury. It was the Ben and Jerry's ice cream stop at that stop. It was pretty cool, actually. I was actually amazed at the number of large preva tourist buses that came in with the older crowd who comes in. I guess it's a stop on the tour, people take the doors for several days and bus and go to stops and go to hotels and stuff. This was a lot of stops on a lot of those buses. That was interesting to see that. At the facility though, we got to tour and take a show on how they make all their ice cream, all the equipment involved and ingredients involved. We actually got the test sample testing of some of their ice cream. And then. For the finale, we actually got to go through ice cream flavor graveyard. That's where they put all the flavors that they have retired, they put in that graveyard. So it was a cool and interesting little stop, honestly. Took about two hours, maybe three, depends on how, how fast or slow you go, what you wanna do. We took a lot of pictures and had a little bit of ice cream. Not a whole lot then went through the graveyard. It was pretty nice. The parking was the hardest part there. They did have RV parking, but some of the buses, number of buses that were there that ed some of that park, so be aware of the park. After that. We made our way through Vermont to New Hampshire. We didn't really have a lot of stops in New Hampshire. New Hampshire was really a scenic drive, two or three hours. Through the state after we got through Vermont into New Hampshire, and our destination then was to get to Salem, Massachusetts. But the drive and the fall foliage on that trip to towards Salem was amazing. It was worth every hour that we drove through that state just to see the foliage, rocks and everything. And that I would definitely. I recommend making that, that trip through that state, especially in the fall as we come out of New Hampshire. We then come out right at the bottom of Maine actually, and we couldn't help but notice the Scarborough was like 10 minutes north, so we just made a little d small detour, went north, and we had to have our Holy donuts as we mentioned in our last episode. That was the best donuts we had. So we went to the Holy Donuts, had some donuts went and saw the chocolate again in Maine and then we made our way back down to towards Salem, Massachusetts. And we wanted to visit Salem in October of obviously the Halloween spirit and witches and all that stuff. We got there. We did, we got there. We had a hard time finding a place to park the RV overnight, but we were able to park. In the city, fine. It's just overnight Parking hookups for an RV was pretty slim there that we saw. Especially during that. But when we went there, we went to, like a witch museum, attended a show there. The show, I, eh, it wasn't all that great. They needed some more technology to make it better. Then we went to see some monuments. We actually saw the Be Witch Monument had Elizabeth Montgomery as the Bewitch Monument from that show Be Witch back in seventies and early eighties. We went to the Witch Mall and that's where the show were witch Miles. Were all the vendors are where all the Halloween stuff. And then the House of Seven Gables was an interesting stop. My wife loved that one story. Loved that one. So yeah the House of Seven Gables. Then we went to the Salem Maritime National historical part. We travel around with our passport book and we get stamps that everywhere go. So didn't pass up the opportunity to get a stamp here, system site as well. Then we, as we were walking around the city, there's all kinds of people dressed up. There was tours being given. There's all these little houses. It's funny to see as you walk down the streets, a lot of people in the city probably purposely have black hats and they were a lot of black hats in the windows, so it was pretty, they were real, they were alive. That was interesting. So that overall, the expectation for it was we thought it would be more scary than it really was. However, we were not there at night, so that vibe month. But it was a really cool thought. And I love that we did it in October. It was very much work. Weather was good. We didn't have a problem parking for the day, just the overnight parking Harvey. Not the best. We didn't have a lot of choices that way. And then, yeah, looking at the monuments the graveyards where the early witches was buried, I left that out. That was interesting seeing where the early witch. But again, maybe go at night if you could listen and looking for a more intimate interaction. Halloween vibe there. All right, so once we were done with Salem, we planned out our trip prior. So what we did, we went past Boston. Down to near Plymouth and there was a campground outside of Boston, about 45 minutes. We plugged in and hooked up and stayed there. That way we didn't have to deal with the traffic going to Boston all the, to the two or three days that we were gonna have to go explore Boston. We got to the campground and, our strategy was to get deer one. Train station, and we were about four miles from the train station. Worked out really well, but it was the last stop on the train station. So we would drive our RV to the train station, parked there for a day, purchased our tickets to go into town on what they call the T. Chicago was called the L here, it's called the, so we went in, did the tea, wrote it in 45 minutes, took us right to Union Station, downtown Boston. Best decision we ever made as part of traffic goes and parking an RV and all that every day. That was a really nice, it was a nice ride. Took us by Gillette Stadium there and back. It was pretty nice. We get there. You're out right in the middle of town. Choose ready to go to the harbor. You could go to the Capitol building or you can jump right into the Freedom Trail. Our first choice was we got out there, we just trying to get our bearings and figure out where we're going. One thing I wanted to get outta the way right quick was go to Cheers. So we found where that was and walked about a mile up through the parks to the cheers, and we went in and had some chowder. First, first local Boston chowder we've ever had. We had chowder and ate at the bar, drank at the bar. Went and acquired, some gifts and memorabilia from there. And it was really nice and got to see where they filmed it and did all those things. But it was really cool. Stop. I really liked that cheer. Then we walked over to the Massachusetts State House, which wasn't far from probably half a mile up the did and poured all that. Then came back down and then just walked around the harbor a little bit. But the next day was a big day for us. We were going to do day, we went back, on the train to the rv, stayed for the night. Next morning we repeated the train ride in and did the Freedom Trails. Started from that Massachusetts State House by the Cheers. Started there and I think they said it was like three or four miles maybe, actually. More like six to 10 miles from our watch and our tracking. Plus we got lost and took some turns but it was a long day. It was a long hike. We did stop several times, stopped at the market the Quincy market on the trail. We stopped there and had lunch. Crashed a guided walking tour of the city. Saw several graveyards and just listened to 'em, and the one where Paul Revere was buried, that was pretty cool. We went to the USS constitution and toured that ship. That was a nice tour. Did the Boston Tea Party and did that show and tour. We actually got to go onto the constant and throw our tea into the ocean. See that was pretty fun. The, and they put on the show where had the people dressed up at, like the people in the time that the leaders in at that time and how they were dressing with the accents and everything. And they really put on a good show. Even all through it, even getting you tickets and all that, they all had those, their scripts down. It was really cool. And the tour as stated from Salem, the technology in this tour. If Salem had that kind of technology, their tour it would be a lot better. But the technology in the tour put it over the edge and made it really? That was, but yeah, Boston going to Cheers, going to the State House, doing their Freedom Trail and all their attractions on the trail, the tours, the pictures eating at Quincy Market. Going to the, doing the tea party, doing a constitution ship and then it was really beautiful downtown on the harbor, just walking down that harbor and water in the city. So after we were done with Boston, took our train back down, got in our rv, headed towards Plymouth. Plymouth was we learned, was about a maybe a four hour stop. So we went down to Plymouth. And while we were there, we walked around the town to see what there was to do. Obviously there's the main attraction there, but we watched a local reenactment of war. We had dinner on a local wharf called at the crabby shack, and we had. Chowder bowl like we had at Cheers. Cheers. Couldn't compare to this. Me and my wife, Dory, we could have both eat that and had leftovers from that chowder bowl. Plenty of potatoes and really, and overall it was just second to none from all the places we brought up there. Yeah, it was really good. Then we had a seafood platter that was good too. But the chowder at that, that crabby shack was really worth just going to Plymouth just to go, to get that chowder, to be honest with you. Then obviously we visited the Mayflower ship replica there and the Plymouth Rock, and we were disappointed with the equipment threat 'cause we expected it to be more of a larger stone. It was just a normal rock on the coast, if you will. And closing, some covers made of the monument. So that's what it looked like. We were disappointed. That was our first time there, alright, so we were, when we were done with Plymouth, we then made our way to Cape Cod, which wasn't that far away from prim. Hour. Had never been to a body of land like this surrounded by that ocean, like Cape Cod. And we took the entire journey. You can choose just to go in a little bit, or you can go all the way up to the top of it if you'll we went, I think it was like a an hour or so, maybe hour and a half journey from the bottom to the top. Made our way from the bottom to the top that we would stop and. All the, see, all the lighthouses up. We toured most of them. We climbed most of them. Some of 'em were not open, some of 'em were crowded, so we just went and took our pictures and looked at the areas around it. We learned a lot of about lighthouses, how they operated and moved. Actually, that was an interesting thing we learned is how architects and engineers actually move lighthouses on. Point A to point B, that was pretty, once we got to the top, it was like nothing but beach. Like you've reached the end of the land, which actually we did. But it was just nothing but water and beaches. Really nice beaches, lots open beaches, private, not a lot of people there, lots of parking. It was, but it was a really nice area. Went to Cape Cod and that was our first one now, and it was interesting saying it's been our first body of water like that. But later on in future episodes, we embarked on similar body of water like that the Outer Banks. That'll be coming up episode. Talk about how we like that. All right, so that was it for this episode. Hope everyone enjoyed it. Hope you tune in for sup Next episodes episode five will be coming up where we'll be exploring Rhode Island, New York City and Atlantic City. Hope. Hope you join us soon.
