We have been on a madcap, two-month coverage of local events – from hockey and basketball games to concerts and other music venues.  Lost in the traffic was our reporting of our mid-winter trip to the East Coast, way back in late January.  We published “Cold to Cold” on February 11.  This is report No. 2, also known as the second one.  Above, after an evening in a downtown Boston hotel, we have the supervisor proudly displaying her Kurt Vonnegut travel bag (a gift from the Indiana kids – Vonnegut was a native Hoosier) while we waited for our bus for our all-day tour of historic Beantown.  It was incredibly cold, though snowless (you may recall shortly after we returned home, Boston received about a million feet of snow).

[We’re on the bus now.  Front row seats.  The supervisor demands such.  😉  Boston is incredibly small for a major city – 2 1/2 square miles – so almost immediately we were heading “out of town” toward Cambridge, home of, among other things, Harvard and MIT.]

[On the right is Boston Common.  I know this because it’s what it says on the sign.  It’s Boston’s Central Park.]

[It’s green!  It’s January!  Boston gets 88 inches of snow per year.]

[This is Charles Street.  I know that because it’s what it says on the sign.  It’s a famous street and also the name of Boston’s famous river.]

[ . . . the rain, the park, and other things.]

[This is the original “Cheers.”  We were told people don’t go here anymore because nobody knows your name.  Well, actually it’s a spendy tourist trap.  I went in there years ago to see if Norm was still there.  You will see later a “Cheers” duplicate was built at Faneuil Hall/Quincy Marketplace.]

[As we’re heading toward Cambridge, this is a row of million dollar plus brownstones on Charles Street (or maybe it was Cambridge Street, who can remember such things?).]

[Crossing the Charles River on the Longfellow Bridge.]

[Cambridge ahead.]

[That’s MIT on the left.  To my knowledge, they don’t have a football team.]

[If you lived on the bridge, this would be your view.]

[An MIT building with columns.  Maybe the headquarters for their rowing team?]

[Closing in on Harvard.  Those are Christmas decorations over the street – unless, of course, they are there all the time.]

[If we just kept driving straight, we would run right into Widener Library on the Harvard campus.  Widener is the centerpiece of the largest university library system in the world.  In fact, when I first visited in 1956 (why, yes, that was a long time ago, but by then the dinosaurs had moved to the outer suburbs), I seem to recall Widener was the largest library in the world.]

[Harvard’s front gate.  We drove by apace, so I missed the opening.]

[The university is all along the right side.  We’re looking for a place to park.]

[We’ve parked, albeit illegally (bus driver said they do it all the time, because . . . there are NO parking places in Boston, errr, Cambridge.)  Here the supervisor heads in the main gate.  It was bone chilling cold (wind chill in the 20 below zero range).]

[Across Quincy Street, a church and statue long since forgotten.]

[Can’t remember in the vertical either.  If you search the internet for statues in and around Harvard, all I could find was the statue of John Harvard, upcoming!]

[Inside the hallowed ground of Harvard Yard.]

[And here is the supervisor heading toward the John Harvard statue.  Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the country, established in 1636, a mere two years before I was born.]

[Mr. Harvard went out and found himself an NCAA tournament men’s basketball team this year.]

[Upon closer inspection, same guy.  We have very much in common – his first name is my middle name!  And when I was at the ‘U,’ I bought all my goodies at Harvard Market!  😉 ]

[If you rub his left shoe, you supposedly increase your IQ by 10 points.  Didn’t work for me?  I fact, I was ticketed for malingering.]

[Views around the Yard.]

[I believe still in the Harvard Yard area, but who knows.]

[See above.]

[See above, also.  Being Harvard, the residents were bright enough to realize cannons are most effective when pointed outward.]

[Radcliffe, a women’s college, before it became part of Harvard.  I believe now it is a church.]

[Turning onto Brattle Street where we were told the elites of the elite reside.]

[One of the average size homes on the street.  You know, you’re not really considered rich until your servants have servants.]

[And historical sites . . .]

[The Longfellow house.  Norma Longfellow was many times club champion at the Alexandria Golf Club.]

[The bus driver’s favorite.]

[Some place of historical significance.  All I can remember was the fellow passenger was from Chicago.  But we were on the way to . . .]

[Lexington, where the Minutemen apparently had something to do with the commencement of the Revolutionary War.  When a young America told they Brits they were overcharging for the cable rights to Monty Python’s Flying Circus all heck broke loose.  This is Munroe Tavern, a famous meeting place for the Minutemen, where it was reported the meetings actually lasted several minutes.]

[Entering Lexington.  It’s no problem unless you’re wearing a “redcoat.”  (Little historical humor there.)]

[The visitor center . . .]

[Where this monster tree stands guard.  I wasted about an hour trying to find it on the internet.  I seem to recall the bus driver said it was some type of beech or birch tree?]

[Buckman Tavern, whose import will be noted a few photos hence.]

[THE Minuteman, on Lexington Common.]

[Meanwhile, across the street at the aforementioned Buckman Tavern . . .]

[Back shot toward town.]

[Recall that these photos may be supersized by double clicking on them – thus making them readable!  😉 ]

[On the road to Concord, the Minuteman Trail.]

[Supersize it!]

[Where we were reading the two monuments above.  Just pull off on the roadside.]

[Along the Battle Road Trail between Lexington and Concord.  A rest stop for Minutemen on the move.]

[A major ambush site for the Minutemen.  Before the construction of the road from which I am taking this photo, this was apparently the easiest place for the Redcoats to cross this “raging river” – so the Minutemen just waited for them here.]

[By the ambush site on the way into Concord.]

[Some famous person’s house . . . I guess?  Kim Kardashian’s?]

[The Wayside, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s home.]

[Louisa May Alcott’s Orchard House]

[See?]

[Cemetery]

[Would have liked to eat here!  😉 ]

[“The bullet hole house.”]

[See?  Apparently this guy liked to take pot shots at the Redcoats from inside his house.  Someone finally fired back.]

[The Old Manse – will be explained soon!]

[The supervisor is walking to the North Bridge.  Uffda (the kind word for it), it was cold!  Somehow cold seems even colder in the absence of snow?]

[The Old Manse is in the background.]

[The North Bridge.]

[The supervisor on the North Bridge.  We were in danger of losing extremities to frost bite.]

[The Old Manse explained.]

[See?]

[The huddled masses returning to the warmth of the bus.]

[And with some flunky tourist.]

Thus concludes “Boston, Part I.”  We will return to Beantown and present the rest of the story in the next . . . well, story.  We apologize for the delay – and for any inconveniences this may have created for you.