Sam Adams was the idea man

So we've that for the two of us to travel together well we need pre-planned stops between starting out and our destination. I'm much more of a free spirit when I travel, enjoying stopping along the way if anything intrigues; Rance on the other hand is a planner and likes to know from point A to point B what is on the schedule. So for us knowing that we had time to stop in Philadelphia and two nights in Boston was perfect. From there my little free spirit wishes could find the time to fill in the hours.

With about three hours in Philly, we took time to see the Liberty Bell, the graveyard where Ben Franklin is buried, got a detailed overview of how it's possible to pack 4,000 dead bodies into an area no larger than 1/2 a city block, breakfast and a quick drive by the Philly Art Museum where Rocky made is run up the famous steps. Of course we only got a small tasting of the city, but we did manage to get ourselves off the planned route to the part of town that isn't on any tourists map.

To cap off our tour of major historical cities we headed towards Boston. I'd never been to Boston and had heard nothing but great things about the city, and now I can see why. Our hotel was about 15 miles outside of the city, so we got in to the city about 10am, parked the car and headed out for the day. Keeping the bikes on the back of the car for this trip seemed like a no brainer. With all the small cobblestone, easy to get lost on streets by foot is the best way to see Boston. Because it was the Friday before Labor Day traffic volume was way down both by car and by foot. We walked the Freedom Trail, (thanks Erin for making sure we did this!) hopped a trolley to see more of the city came back and walked through Boston Common and the Public Garden, and then meandered our way back up to the North Side for dinner and a show at Improv Asylum. One of Rance's friends Michael is in the cast and Sarah Maher another improviser from Chicago joined the cast recently. They were great!! It was so wonderful to see how Michael has grown and with a show like that it's hard not to. They do shortform, long form, musical improv and sketch. All of it right in the heart of the Italian section of Boston.

We stopped in Salem, MA on our way up to Maine. Two things of note Salem is of course where they had the witch trials in the 1600's. It's also the home of...Get this..."Bunghole Liquors". We laughed a good long time on that one. If you got to Salem I would suggest steering clear of the Witch Dungeon, supposedly the more historically accurate representation and head right on over to the Witch Museum which is the more popular.

We're in Maine now. We arrived Saturday and watched a couple of shows that night. Yesterday Rance and I walked a little around Ellsworth and got our room all setup for the next six weeks. Last night's shows were crazy fun. ComedySportz is such an amazing training ground for being able to entertain a real audience, not just an audience of other improvisers.