Now Sit Right Back and You'll Hear a Tale...

Having been in Boston for nearly three years, we felt it was time to finally see the Harbor Islands. This is our first island trip, and hopefully not our last.

Admittedly, I was pretty resistant to going, what with all that driving through downtown and parking in the North End, and all. However, all that went away once we got on the boat.

The trip out was really fun, and Emmitt loved it. He was jumping up and down and pointing for the first ten minutes, until he bumped his chin on the rail and split his lip (not shown).

Once we got there, we got to see a giant old granite fort that was built back before the Civil War. The fort dominated most of the island, so we spent most of our two and half alloted hours tooling around in it. This was the tunnel to get to the main entrance of the fort.

The structure was beautiful, and the grounds were pretty well maintained. The bridge in the background takes you over what used to be a moat, which is what I'm standing in to take this picture.

Once you get inside the main wall, the parade ground dominates the area.

The fort is star-shaped, and each point of the star is a "bastion." One of them was completely open for folks to wander around in, so we did. It was really cool inside (literally about 10 degrees cooler that day).

Some parts were granite/stone...

Some parts were wood and brick.

Some parts were a little creepy.

Naturally, we found the bakery.

Up on top of the wall, the views of the harbor are awesome.

You can see the Boston Harbor Lighthouse too.

Back inside the fort looked cool from the top.

We found another part to wander around in, and it was really creepy. This picture doesn't give you a good idea of how tall and cavernous this part was. Really dark too.

By this point it was getting really close to the time when our boat was going to leave, so we beat feet out to the pier to catch it.

Emmitt had a great time all the way back, but he whacked his face on the rail again. Notice the massive air he's catching. When he came down, that top rail was chin-level. Ouch.

Boston looked pretty cool from the water too. Not something us landlubbers see everyday so we got all touristy with the camera. This is one of a thousand pictures we took of basically the same shot.

For anyone thinking of heading to Boston, or living there already, it's certainly worth the trip out there. It also helps if you finish the trip with a killer burger and shake from Uburger.