Dighton Rock

August 27, 2016

Dighton Rock State Park This park is on the tidal portion of the Taunton River where there is a mix of fresh water and salt water.

It's other note of fame is the Dighton Rock, which has petroglyphs carved into it.

This 40 ton rock sat in the mud during low tide and in the water during high tide.  It was raised from the water/mud for preservation in 1963 and is now housed in this museum.  The theories of the inscriptions are presented here.

The entire Taunton River is designated as a National Wild and Scenic River.

We drove to Newport RI.  This is near there. We stopped at a park, but it was not suitable for having lunch, so we moved on.

We did stop at a little park that had this memorial to the 1st Rhode Island Regiment, which was comprised of free black men and slaves.  The officers were white.

A nice little park to have lunch and learn a bit more about the American Revolution.

I don't remember where this was, it seemed like a good photo op.

A NO Parking area with cars parked there.

JFK Birthplace in Brookline, MA and Borderland State Park outside of Mansfield, MA

August 28, 2016

Brookline MA  The birthplace of John F. Kennedy.  He was born in the upstairs bedroom in 1917, the family moved to a larger house in 1920.  Rose Kennedy bought back the house in 1966 as a memorial to her son.  Many of the artifacts in the house are original.

Just a bit of trivia.

Brookline, MA was voted the Third ‘Snobbiest’ Small City in America in 2014 according to the Boston Globe.

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Borderland State Park

Borderland is one of the most historically significant tracts of publicly owned land in the Commonwealth. Created in the early 1900s by artist and suffragist Blanche Ames and her botanist husband Oakes, Borderland offers many of the same pleasures that the Ames family enjoyed: walking and horseback riding on woodland trails, fishing and canoeing in the ponds, or, in winter, ice-skating and sledding.

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In 1906, Oakes Ames and his wife Blanche purchased land on the border of Sharon and Easton. The country estate they named “Borderland” remained in the family for 65 years. In 1971, two years after the death of Blanche Ames, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts acquired the estate and opened it as a state park. The family’s home, a three-storey stone mansion built in 1910, still stands. Its twenty rooms are furnished much as they were when the Ameses lived here; many of Blanche Ames’ paintings grace the walls. Their illustrious histories remain in the house which is open for scheduled tours.  (Taken from the park website)

We just missed the tour and didn't stick around for the next one, so we roamed around the grounds for awhile and took exterior photos.  It's a great place to walk or ride a bike.

The front of the mansion

The grounds

The rear view of the mansion