"Always read the plaque; never read the comments." - Roman Mars

The quote above is from one of my favorite podcasters, Roman Mars, he of 99% Invisible (http://99percentinvisible.org/). The quote hit home today.

Always read the plaque - basically whenever you run across something historical, especially if someone took the time to memorialize it on a plaque, you should take the time to stop and read. You'll be better off for it. We spent much of the day in the 'Read the Plaque' headquarters of the universe - Boston, and specifically on the Freedom Trail. It rained. All day. But we stuck it out and tackled a bunch of the trail - climbed the 294 steps to the top of the Bunker Hill Memorial, saw the USS Constitution, Paul Revere's house, The Old North Church, etc. We read plenty of plaques - it was a little like history class for the girls, but the 'All American' theme for the trip demanded a day like this. We also got GREAT suggestions from some friends and followers and lunched at Regina Pizzeria and had a great sweet treat at Mike's Pastries. AMAZING.

'Never Read the Comments' has to do with staying away from what folks have to say in the comment section of online news stories. And hey - WE WERE A NEWS STORY TODAY! WKOW in Madison ran a great story (Thanks one more time, Savanna.) about us and it got some attention. Mostly great and supportive feedback online, but of course some folks thought a few various things that weren't so positive about our trip. Suffice to say we thank our amazingly lucky stars on a daily basis that we have the means, good fortune and support to do this trip. And we planned and saved for 6 years. So enough on that. As a result of the news story, however, our Facebook feeds BLEW UP and we went from about 400 followers to over 1000 in one day. All aboard the Big Trip train, people! Sincerely, thank you for your interest. We are very humbled by folks being interested and will try to continue making this worth reading if you are so inclined.

After a long wet day around Boston (including a bunch of subway travel - a very big deal for MK), we checked another All American must-do off the list and hit Fenway for a Red Sox game. We admit to bolting before it was done to beat the rush but it was...raining. We were done. Made the Jumbotron, though!

We're heading down the east coast tomorrow with a big question mark on the itinerary. It depends on how early we get rolling, weather and how adventurous we feel. We'll make sure to let you know how it goes. Cheers, all.

- Jim