Day 2 Plymouth, MA June 23, 2021

    Well Tom and I continued to keep the tradition of starting our vacations off with a bang. I must admit that we have been to some of the finest restaurants in the world and last night’s dinner was right up there with the best. We ate at Bistro du Midi, French cuisine inspired by Boston seafood. We started off with the appetizer called Chief’s Inspiration. It was a sushi type plate. It had a piece of white fish, salmon and tuna with all sorts of spices. Our waiter was very friendly and I am sorry when he offered to get the cheat sheet of everything it had, I did not take him up on it. Let’s just say, I don’t know what they were but Oh, My!  was it delicious. Tom and I split that. For our main entre, we had Brandt ribeye, short rib tots, gem lettuce, apricots and sauce au poivre. Brandt beef from California claims it is he most natural beef in the world, corn and alfalfa fed. When they did not, in the luxurious setting, bring us a steak knife, I wondered. I was going to ask for one, but soon found that a regular knife worked just fine. And the sauce! The potato tots were blended with short ribs. Gem lettuce is a miniature variety of romaine lettuce but sweeter nuttier taste. Not exactly sure how they prepared it but it will be on my discovery because I could have just eaten that. It was that good, and I am not a vegetable person. For dessert we had strawberry soufflé.  Sorry I did not photograph that. I will just say, it was sinful.

   Yesterday was something that has been on my bucket list ever since I discovered that my Grandma Winship’s lineage traced back to the Mayflower. We rented a car and visited  Plimoth Patuxet Museum which I explained yesterday. I am so very glad we hired a private guide. Yes, Covid and the stimulus package had taken its toll. They had the Wampanoag village but not a Native Person to be seen. She explained their houses which they could heat to 75 degrees in the dead of winter. No wonder the Pilgrims suffered so, there was actually a mini ice age taking place that winter so the Natives had it much better than the Pilgrims.

   The Pilgrim village was lots of fun. The reenactors spoke as if they were actually living in 1627. So they could give you the history for those first seven years. John Howland has quite the legacy and was pretty much involved in everything. Glad to know my relative wasn’t a slacker. I asked the reenactor, Gov. Bradford if he didn’t think John was pretty “stupid” for falling overboard? Oh, my, “God would never approve of me calling someone, “stupid” said Bradford. Interesting.

   We also talked with a Pilgrim who was still actually an Angleton.  He and the other Angleton wanted to celebrate Christmas so Bradford said, “Yes.” until he found them playing games. “Get to work” he said, “not fair that you play while other work.” Also all had to go to church for eight hours every Sunday.  Their pastor died that first winter so they took turns singing and reading the Bible.

   It was just great fun! I will definitely be sharing more stories as the trip goes on. Next we visited the Mayflower II, visited Brewster Gardens with the statue of Elizabeth Tilley, saw the Monument to our Forefathers and also stopped at the Howland House. So definitely more stories to follow.

 More to follow,

Tom & Holly