Lexington, Concord and Framingham - Day 9, Feb 19

Today was a full day.
We started out for the Heritage Museum in Lexington to see a model train exhibit. But, when we got there, we found that it closed the previous week. But, the museum has a clock exhibit, so...we figured that 'we had the time!' Their collection is pretty amazing, but mostly behind glass, so the clocks aren't wound. The collection starts with the old grandfather clocks, for the rich. Farmers didn't need to tell time. Eventually, shelf clocks were made for the middle class. Because the museum is run by the Masons, there were Masonic symbols everywhere. One of the docents encouraged us to wait until noon when "clocks chime". So, we tried really hard to keep the boys interested for an extra 25 minutes. What an anti climax....after all that time, only FOUR clocks chimed. And, as Otis pointed out, they all had the same sound. At least they were timed to go off a bit separately. They also had a cuckoo clock exhibit, but..again, nothing was working, so...a bit dull. We also went to an exhibit on the battles of Lexington and Concord, which the kids liked. That led us to go to North Bridge in Concord. We walked over the bridge and then we went to the kids' favorite hiding spot there where they climbed into a tree.
Later, Mark and I drove to Framingham to meet up with Kathryn Kennedy and Mark Fleming. They have been renovating her grandfather's house - it was very impressive. They also took us for a tour of the posh area where they live - around a state park, by Sudbury Reservoir and by the Wayside Inn, the longest-running inn in the country. Then, we had a wonderful meal of fish, rice and a dessert of baked pears. Then, Kathryn showed me some of her wonderful photographs and she introduced me to the world of the "blog" setting me up with this blog. While we were doing that, the two Marks watched the Olympics. It was a lovely, lovely evening!