Day 6 - Mayflower, Plymouth and Lobster Bisque

The Mayflower replica looked pretty small sitting in the harbor but once on the ship it didn't feel nearly as small as it had looked.

Not a great picture since the actor is behind the mast there. But we talked to John Howland for a bit and he explained that he was a manservant for John Carver who is the first Governer of Plymouth and most likely the one who wrote the Mayflower Compact.  It was interesting to talk to this actor because when we were at the Joseph Smith Memorial the day before he was the Ancestor that Joseph Smith was listed as decended from. They had a family tree there at the memorial that also showed that William Churchhill, George Bush,  and a few other presidents were all descended from this John Howland. He was a young man when he came on the Mayflower but he has many very important descendents.

 After talking with John for a short while we started to explore the ship. Here are the Captains quarters.

Looks like quite a big room for just one man but what do I know about what goes on in a ship.

 Here are the quarters for the rest of the mates. Not the crew but his first mates and such. It mostly looked like a pass through room to the Captains quarters. Certainly not a place to go to be alone.

 This looked like the Galley where the cook would have to do the cooking.

 Down one level is where the 102 passengers all stayed. They didn't go up on deck much because they didn't want to get in the way of the crew so they just sat down here in the lower deck.

 Here is the hold where all the furniture and other supplies were kept that they were bringing with them to settle in the New World.

This lady came on the boat and sat down waiting for someone to talk to her. We knew the drill so we asked her about herself.

 She said her name is Desire Minter. She came alone. Her family sent her to the New World under the care of John Carver because her recently widowed mother had remarried and felt like Desire would have a better chance in the New World. They had been living in Holland and it wasn't a good place for young ladies to make their way in the world.

Our girls talked to her for quite awhile. Desire was suppose to be about 15 years old so maybe they could relate to one another. Desire didn't talk about it but we knew her history from other things we had read already. She doesn't stay in Plymouth. She returns to England after that first hard winter.

 This man was one of the crew. He was a gunner. He told us about life for the crew and when asked if he was going to stay in America he said NO. There was nothing here for him. He had family back at home waiting for him to return to England.

This was certainly another interesting stop on our trip.

 Just a short walk down the harbor we found Plymouth Rock.

 I don't know if this is exactly where they landed but we were told this is where they would tie up the ship.

 After visiting all the places in Plymouth we wanted to see we took a drive down into Rhode Island.  Being this close to yet another state we decided we just had to go take a look. We drove down to Newport RI. We drove down Bellevue Ave which is where the Gilded age super wealthy were building the cottages. They certainly looked like Mansions to us. We drove around gawking at all the big beautiful places but never stopped to get out and I didn't even think to take any pictures.

 While in Rhode Island we figured it was time to try some local food. None of us are really excited about sea food but felt like we should have clam chowder or something. We decided Lobster Bisque would do. We googled places in Newport that served Lobster Bisque and found a pub that got rave reviews for their bisque.

We ordered some of the soup "to go" because the wait for a table was very long.

 The girls thought it was really funny that they were standing in a bar waiting for fish soup.

 But we got some Bisque and sat on a bench and gave it a try. My niece took a bite and decided it was great. Took a few more and then decided it was gross. She said it was just fishy butter.

 Sophie was on again off again sick on this trip and was really not feeling great at that moment so she decided not to have the soup. But at least she posed with it and took one small spoonful, just to claim she tried it.

There did seem to be a lot of oil but I enjoyed my cup of Lobster Bisque but can't say it was my favorite. It might have been better in a bread bowl. I think it is great in small amounts. It is pretty greasy! I don't know if I would ever order it again.