An Unplanned Early Start and Late Finish

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We were very keen to make the most of the last day of our holiday, however a 6.30am start due to the fire alarm in the hotel going off was not really what we had in mind. As we were wandering down the corridor confused and half dressed, my son was advised by a member of staff that was a false alarm, which was apparently due to someone's shower being too hot. That must have been one hell of a hot shower!

I used the early start to have a quick look round historic Concord. The Battle of Concord took place in 1776 and effectively signalled the start of the Revolutionary War. Monument Square was not far from our hotel and is where there was most to see. There is also the Minute Man National Historical Park nearby, be we didn't have time to go there. There is where a group of colonialist farmers, known as the Minute Men, confronted some British troops and forced them to retreat back to Boston.

It proved surprisingly difficult to get some postcards of Concord.

We were then off to the shopping mall for some final shopping, to take advantage of the cheap prices. One shop that we went to mentioned the tax-free weekend that was coming-up. We assumed that it was some sort of promotion, until a number of other places mentioned it. Apparently every year or two the Massachusetts state government has a vote and agrees that tax can be omitted from the cost of all goods sold in the state for a fixed weekend. Of course such an idea would never, ever cross the minds of the UK government. Sadly we would not be around for the weekend to take advantage of it.

Getting to the airport proved to be problematic. First we hit the rush-hour traffic (which seems to start at about 4.00pm) and the roads were horrendous. Second our satnav didn't seem to know where the car rental office was and directed us to some random street in the suburbs of Boston. We had to workout our own way of getting to into the airport and then follow the signs for the car rental centre.

We needn't of worried however as the flight was delayed by two hours. Apparently there had been storms in the UK that had delayed a lot of the outbound flights from London and then there was an engineering problem with the plane. Apparently one of the exit doors would not open, which meant that a section of the plane could not take any passengers including us. Thankfully we managed to still get seats, although we were all separated and spread in single seats around the plane.

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Photos

Concord
Historic Concord around Monument Square.

Concord
Historic Concord around Monument Square.