We didn’t have to travel far for the fourth stamp of the day.  Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site is less than ten minutes from the JFK House.  Tom and I thought the name, Frederick Law Olmsted, sounded familiar, but we couldn’t figure out why.  By visiting his house, Fairsted, we soon learned. Frederick Law …

Read more

After getting the first two fast stamps in Boston, Tom and I headed for the John Fitzgerald Kennedy National Historic Site in Brookline, Massachusetts.  The house is the birthplace of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, our 35th President.  Brookline’s refusal to be annexed by Boston means that it is an exclave of Norfolk County.  It is a …

Read more

We came to the last day of our cruise and disembarked in Boston.  Tom and I were in Boston in 2015 with our friends Sandy and Eric Shaw.  We camped at Salisbury State Beach Reservation and took the train in to Boston to walk the Freedom Trail.  We did every stop along the trail and …

Read more

Lots of people love Acadia National Park.  Until the day we visited on our cruise, Tom and I were not among them.  We had been to Acadia in 1994  and it was wall-to-wall people.  The roads were jammed with cars.  We weren’t able to find parking anywhere close to where we wanted to go.  The …

Read more

When Tom and I started this trip, our goal was to see or do one awesome thing a day.  The Fortress of Louisbourg was our awesome thing on our first day in Nova Scotia. Our ship docked in Sydney, the largest town on the island of Cape Breton.  Sydney is a good-sized city, with 31,000 …

Read more

Our second day in Newfoundland and Labrador, Tom and I hiked to Signal Hill in St. John’s.  Signal Hill is a Canadian National Historic Site with lots of park land and hiking trails.  Our ship docked in the center of town, which meant that the walk to Signal Hill was just 1.5 miles.  Of course, …

Read more

After two days of exploring cities on our own, Tom and I were ready for a different adventure.  We booked a shore excursion that took us up to Caldera de Bandama for a hike.  Caldera de Bandama is part of the Bandama Natural Monument.  It took us about an hour to ride our bus up …

Read more

To fill out our week of visiting National Park sites, Tom and I stopped at Biscayne National Park just south of Miami.  Biscayne National Park is 95% water, which means that the number of things you can do without a boat are limited. Biscayne National Park preserves Biscayne Bay and its offshore barrier reefs.  The shore of …

Read more

Tom and I made a quick trip to Everglades National Park in Florida in between Big Cypress and Biscayne.  We had been to Everglades several times and weren’t really interested in seeing it again.  But, in our previous visits, I had neglected to get a stamp.  So we took advantage of our proximity for me …

Read more

The day after visiting De Soto National Memorial, Tom and I visited Big Cypress National Preserve.  Big Cypress is administered by the National Park Service, so I needed the stamp.  In addition, Tom and I had never been there, despite previously visiting Everglades National Park. Big Cypress National Preserve is a diverse landscape of cypress …

Read more