JFK National History Site & Far Out Ice Cream

The John F. Kennedy National Historic Site is open for the season! Right on a side street in Coolidge Corner, you can see the bedroom where JFK was born, view the dining room where the family engaged in lively discussions, and listen to recordings of Rose Kennedy telling you stories about what happened in those very rooms and what's in the rooms. You really get a strong feel for what it was like growing up in that house.  

This is a free museum with interpreters throughout the house ready to answer questions. 

Afterward we walked up to Harvard Ave. to get ice cream from Far Out Ice Cream! It's New Zealand style ice cream where you pick your base of soft serve and you can pick 1 or 2 fruits to get blended in. I got chocolate with banana and strawberries, Matt got vanilla with mango and strawberries, and Isaac got vanilla with raspberries and pineapple.  Really good!  They have 4 locations in the area, so go try it out.  

Westwood Town Pound & Friendly's

Have you ever heard of a Town Pound? I hadn't, until basically just now.

In the early days of New England, most towns had "town pounds" where wayward cows and other livestock would be held if they were creating a ruckus throughout the town. At the time, grazing animals were not fenced in, so sometimes they'd wander off, necessitating the need for pounds. When the owner would come to find their furry friends, they would need to pay a fee to get it back. Towns in Massachusetts were legally obligated to have pounds.

The Westwood Town Pound was built in 1700. It's on a busy road and easy to miss. I only found it by seeing it on Google Maps.

How did we discover this? Isaac saw a post by Friendly's with a new sundae that looks like a pig and obviously wanted to have it. I'm a sucker for a Friendly's Conehead and have been since the 80s! We no longer have any Friendly's nearby and the closest is in Norwood. We were going straight from Natick where Isaac volunteers with 4H, so I decided to try to find a little historical site on the way. I saw the Westwood Town Pound on the map and read up on it. It is just the type of quirky history site I like and had to go see it.

So, I decided that the Westwood Town Pound would be our ice cream stop on the way to Friendly's! The Conehead and Puddles the Pig sundaes didn't quite look like their advertisement counterparts, but they tasted good.

Metropolitan Waterworks Museum & New City Creamery

It's incredibly dreary and chilly today. Seemed like a good day for a museum! I've passed by the Metropolitan Waterworks Museum for years and have wanted to go. Today was the day!

This free ($5 suggested donation) museum shows you how safe, clean drinking water was made available starting in the late 1880s. The equipment is massive and the technology impressive for its time. They also offer a tour for $20, which we didn't do this time, but you get to actually climb into the areas with the equipment. We will have to go back for that! It also sounds like they'll be adding more to the museum over the course of the next few months.

 


 


And, well, it wasn't great ice cream weather. But keeping in the spirit with the project, we tried out the newly opened New City Microcreamery in Chestnut Hill. They have a decent amount of indoor seating, so it worked on a rainy day. I got chocolate hazelnut, Isaac got banana fluffernutter, and Matt got vanilla bourbon.


 

A fun outing, even in the rain.