Boston Trip: Monday at Lowell National Historic Park

There was no rest for the weary after our busy Sunday evening. We started Monday with a trip to Lowell National Historical Park.  We went to the visitor center and watched a short film on the history and development of Lowell during the time of the industrial revolution. There were some small exhibits upon exiting the auditorium and we paused for a group photo.

John, Sue, Frank, Margaret and Joe humoring me for a picture under the gear exhibit.
I really thought all those gears were neat. It must be the mechanical engineer in me.

The National Street Car museum was closed on the Monday we were in Lowell, but there was a full size front end of a street car in the Visitor Center.  

Frank drove flawlessly!

And just outside the National Street Car museum this impressive steam engine was displayed. 

Frank really enjoyed this engine.

We walked over to the Mill Girls and Immigrants Exhibit that was housed in a reconstructed corporation boarding house. Young girls came from farms and lived in boarding houses set up for them.  All their meals were provided but they lived in cramped quarters and worked ~14 hour days 6 days a week. There apparently was no rest for the weary Mill Girls, either. You can see a summary of it in this Mill Girls article.  Here is a picture  of where they would eat their meals. They were fed a lot of calories, but then again, they worked a lot of hours.

This room held four tables seating eight Mill Girls each.
Girls slept in small rooms, two to a bed.

We rode a real trolley car on our return trip to the visitor center and headed home late afternoon. Then it was time for our meal with a lot of calories.  John barbecued different kinds of sausages – kielbasi, italian, turkey –  and we feasted on them and corn on the cob and fresh grown string beans and tomatoes. We relaxed a bit more, chatting over a nip of wine or sip of beer before reluctantly calling it a night, retiring to our bedrooms, listening to the chirping of the frogs, awakening the next morning to the twittering of the birds.

Tuesday morning dawned. Joe and Margaret would be leaving to fly back to the Washington, D.C. area and Frank and I would be heading up to Lake Winnipesaukee, NH. It was good to have had these days with dear college friends and we all agreed to pursue a joint trip or cruise somewhere "same time, next year". John and Sue were excellent host and hostess, chauffeurs, chefs, gardeners, naturalists, tour guides, conversationalists, historians, gamers, and puzzlers. Frank and I had a great visit and look forward to getting together again soon.