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November 05, 2006
Quincy, Weymouth, Braintree
Another chip today into the mountain that is Project 351. Today, I went south, starting in Quincy. I'd only ever been there once; some friends and I were toying with the idea of trying to write a travel book themed on visiting the largest city in the U.S. that begins with each letter of the alphabet. We went to Quincy to write a sample chapter, but mostly we just goofed around, and the book "From Austin to Zanesville" will remain forever a concept. (Incidentally, the A-Z city thing is a great bar bet.)
But that's neither here nor there. First stop in Quincy was Marina Bay, where you get a really nice view of the Boston skyline (my picture doesn't really do it justice). Then to Quincy Center, where I went into the United First Parish Church. It's one of only three places where two former U.S. Presidents are buried (Arlington Cemetery and Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond are the other two). Usually, it's tough to get inside and actually see the graves, but my luck was in today, and there was a guide available to show me the Adams Family Crypt (I didn't try to make a Cousin It joke), and the interior of the church, whose rotunda is a replica of the one at Quincy Market.
I then headed down to the Fore River Shipyard and took a walk around the USS Salem, which patrolled the Mediterranean during the 1950s and is now a museum. On my first trip to Quincy, there was an old salt belowdecks who told us that the only true resting place for an old battleship is at the bottom of the sea. Well, our gain, I guess.
Then I crossed the impressive Fore River Bridge to Weymouth, which was frustrating. I was aiming for the Abigail Adams House, but I only saw one sign, a mile away, and had no idea if I passed it three times or not. I also drove around what appeared on my map to be a pond, but there was no inspiring view. So I decided to take a picture of Town Hall and be done with it.
Next was Braintree, which I really only knew as the place you go to get your check if you win the lottery, and the source of the ubiquitous radio ads for Dave Dinger Ford. But Braintree has a nice little common area, dominated by the compact but pretty campus of the Thayer Academy. This is not to be confused with the Thayer School in the Stephen King/Peter Straub novel The Talisman, where Jack meets his friend Richard and inadvertently plunges the entire campus into another dimension. This Thayer is a $27,000/year high school. It's free to walk around the campus, though.
27 down, 324 to go. Here's the whole set.
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Comments
Thanks for the color change. Here goes nothing.
Posted by: The Rev. | November 7, 2006 08:58 PM
