In this family vlog, the hosts set out for a "urban hike" along Boston's historic Freedom Trail, treating the 2.5‑mile walk as a fitness challenge while exploring key colonial sites. They meet a costumed guide, Captain Daniel Malcolm, who shares quirky facts about Boston Common—its past as a grazing field, the burial of notable patriots like John Hancock, Samuel Adams, and Paul Revere, and the first Anglican (later Unitarian) church. The parents and children exchange playful banter, with the kids answering on‑the‑spot questions about cows, tea‑party protests, and Paul Revere’s horse. The segment transitions to planning the next travel day: a trip to Maine, including a visit to Acadia National Park and a blueberry farm known for its tea. The vlog closes with a brief word of encouragement sourced from a Facebook friend, reinforcing the upbeat, family‑oriented tone of the series.
Chapters
Well, we're gonna hike the urban jungle, folks. I guess it is. Good morning, Boston! Hope this rain holds off so we can do a—
what are we gonna do?
We're gonna do like a 2.5-mile historic walk. Is that right? Is that still the plan?
Yes.
Rain or shine, folks.
It's called the Freedom Trail. Yeah, and it's It's supposed to take us through some historic sites, and I believe we have a tour guide. We're gonna find out once we get to the Boston Commons Visitor Center, and they are going to tell us where to sign up for all of that stuff.
I like the walking tours. You got your Fitbit on? I do. We're gonna get our 10,000 steps in, that's for sure. 10.5 miles.
Mm-hmm.
Mr. Brown's getting some rest.
Which is always good.
Which is always good, especially before a 2.5-mile hike. Does everybody else feel good? Everybody else ready to hike this city?
Yeah.
Yes.
It's funny you say hike because I think of a hike in the woods.
We have arrived at the Freedom Trail. Beauty's inside getting tickets. Looks like that's our guide right over there. Nice, he's in character. Freedom Trail, the next guided tour at 3 o'clock. Next Freedom Trail guided tour at 3 o'clock. North Carolina. They're from North Carolina, right? So we know everybody's from— nobody's here from England. Good. Welcome to Boston. My name is Captain Daniel Malcolm, not Mr. Daniel Malcolm, Captain Daniel Malcolm. I'm not allowed to film him, so let me sum up what he just said here that's of interest. This park here, they used to graze cattle, sheep, animals here. It's actually still legal to this day. As long as you're a resident of Boston. I'd love to see that. Somebody raise a livestock on this field. That was the Boston Commons. What'd you learn about the Boston Commons?
Um, that John Hancock was a party animal.
He would party till 3 o'clock in the morning.
Apparently he liked to really party and the cows grazing and like it was like a lot smaller, like Boston was a lot smaller than it is now. This has been filled in. It was like 1 square mile, which is kind of crazy. It's real small.
Interesting. They would hang pirates and other criminals there. The parents were encouraged and brought their children so that the children could see and it was supposed to be an example. Like this is what's gonna happen if you misbehave. 15,000 people buried here, estimated, including Paul Revere. Wait a minute, John Hancock, Samuel Adams, and other famous people. Sam Adams' grave. Interesting fun fact. There's a bar over there. You could get a cold Sam Adams. Only place in the world to drink a cold Sam Adams and see the grave. Fun fact: Sam Adams had nothing to do with the beer company. John Hancock's grave. Revere, famous for alerting the colonists that the British were coming.
And he didn't say the Redcoats are coming or the British are coming, he said the regulars are coming.
Because everyone considered themselves British.
Yeah, we're all coming, we're all British. So I thought that was a fun fact.
That was the first Anglican church in Boston, which is ironic because that's what the Puritans were running from in the first place.
Kind of mean of the king to do that, but I guess he had to show who was boss.
The Because the king couldn't buy the land or lease the land, of course no Puritan's going to do that, he confiscated it and planted that church there, which incidentally went on to be the first Unitarian church, the first church to have an organ. You remember any of the other firsts? Cradle of Freedom right there. You want to speak to the— you want to speak about the Cradle of Freedom?
So basically a lot of stuff happened there. Well, one thing that's interesting is that like ships could sail right up to it, so there's like a bunch of buildings that way. And funerals were held there. And Thomas Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson when politics was talked about in the upper room. They did— they had shops in the bottom, and it was just basically like a very important place for freedom. Abolitionists came there, women's suffrage, the whole nine yards. So this is— it's an important part of our history.
Time to go back to Maple.
Did anybody learn anything?
Yeah!
Yeah!
Back in the car into the 5 o'clock rush hour traffic. We picked a heck of a time to leave, Beauty.
Wow, it's not our fault, it's the rain.
So hey, what, what time— what did you learn? Did you learn anything, Lily? Josiah, what'd you learn on that tour?
Um, that the cow lived on pasture.
Yeah, they could graze the pasture right in the middle of the city. What'd you learn, buddy?
They threw all the tea off the boat in protest.
Yeah. Gideon, what'd you learn?
Um, horsey. Horsey. Oh, we learned about the horsies. And we talked about Paul Revere's horse.
Oh, that's right. Paul Revere rode the horse. We're heading back to Maple now. We leave the town tomorrow. Where are we going, beauty?
We are headed to near Acadia.
Acadia National Park. We are going this way.
Well, not going all the way there, but yes.
Where are we going tomorrow?
We're going to our campground.
So, okay, travel day tomorrow. We're going into Maine. 3 cool places. In Maine. Acadia National Park. Jim, you guys remember him? Farm down in South Florida. He's now up in Maine getting started. And we're going to your childhood lifelong— and then we're going to your— she's looking at me crazy because that's not right, so I won't say that. We're going to a blueberry farm that you've been in love with for a long time. We co-called them They opened up their arms to us, which is not always the case with a cold call. We about give up on cold calls, but that one has redeemed it. Are these blueberries you've bought?
No, I haven't bought them yet. I'm going to when we go there.
Okay, so how do you know about this farm?
I got into blueberry tea and I wanted to find— I just started researching blueberry farms that made blueberry tea. Like, I just wanted to get a better blueberry tea than I was buying. At my local store. Because I didn't think it was, I think it wasn't real blueberries, and so then I was like, well, why am I drinking this?
Is this real blueberry tea where we're going? Okay.
Yeah, they sell in Maine and they sell online and everything, so you guys can—
Maine, here we come! Jim, Acadia, and the epic blueberry farm. Before we close out this vlog, the beautiful one has a word of encouragement she got from one of her Facebook friends' posts.
This girl was in our, in a youth group group that we worked in. She's now like 30 and she is just a really great encouragement. Her name is Whitney and we love her to death and we may see her on the vlog when we hit her city. Anyways, she was posting about that basically we are holding a bunch of balls in our arms and we're walking through life and the balls represent peace and some people are coming along trying to take the balls out of our arms and then there's people that we meet in our lives that are trying trying to help us pick up the balls that have been taken out of our arms and put them back in so that we can live a whole and peaceful life. And it just really spoke to me today that I want to be the latter. I want to be someone who's encouraging. I want to be someone who's loving. I want to be someone who's restoring people to their whole peaceful self. It was a really great post. I really was encouraged by her and what she was having to say, and I have no idea where I'm going. Okay. That was another thing that she said is that we need We need to not allow people so much power to get the balls out of our arms. And so I take that as an encouragement.
