The Real Plymouth Rock & the first Thanksgiving

good morning and welcome to Plymouth Massachusetts, that's right, Plymouth Massachusetts, the same place where religious refugee pilgrims from England and Europe crossed the ocean after 66 days on the Mayflower, explored the coast for a while and finally landed here to establish the

first

successful port. The colony in New England created complicated alliances with the local Native Americans that helped them survive their

first

years here, taught them how to grow their crops, and, according to legends, celebrated the first Thanksgiving, now obviously with any part of the history or founding myth of any country. The full truth is a little more complicated than that story, but hopefully we'll get to that a little later.

The important thing for the moment is that this is the same coast where in 1620 those pilgrims set foot on land to establish their colony of Plymouth or Plymouth. The plantation, as they would have called it then and the very place where they safely trod, according to legend, according to myth, is right here and under that stone canopy is the cornerstone of American history and the American legend Plymouth Rock, the same stone on which the pilgrims. They took a step to make their first landing in their future Colony, the actual

rock

that planted the seed for the future United States of America that they have literally taken is a big part of American history and a big part of world history, which It makes it even more incredible that The Rock is so small.

Would you look at the size of Plymouth Rock? And when you look at the size, I mean look at how tiny it looks. It looks positively tiny, like you could fit it in the back of a pickup truck to say it looks bigger. as a pet

rock

is a slight exaggeration, but only a slight one, but this is in fact the

real

Plymouth Rock. It surprises me now that most people know that the early pilgrims never mentioned Plymouth Rock, never mentioned stepping on any rock and actually walking straight. Stepping off your landing ship onto a rock seems like a pretty impractical way to get to shore.

The

real

story is that it was not until 1741, 121 years after the Pilgrims landed, that Plymouth Rock was identified by the son of one of the original Pilgrims. who actually landed here two years after the Mayflower, when he himself was over 90 years old, they were going to build dwarves here and they were actually going to destroy the rock, so he asked people to bring his fragile body here so he could say goodbye . to the original Plymouth Rock where their ancestors landed and from that point, particularly as its history had a great impact on the local inhabitants and descendants of the original Pilgrims, the legend of Plymouth Rock, the original stone upon which the Pilgrims trod earth, began to grow. and grow until every American schoolchild can tell you where the Pilgrims landed, not at Plymouth but at Plymouth Rock.

Now what we see today of Plymouth Rock is only about a third the size of the rock in 1620. There was a very large and prominent rock here and certainly, because this is the location of the original port of Plymouth, the Pilgrims certainly stepped on it. that rock, still gets a pass as an important cultural touchstone even though the pilgrims did not technically disembark. on the Rock and has an absolutely fascinating story of its own because after 94 year old Thomas Fonts identified it, instead of it being destroyed to make way for their new Waterfront, they actually tried to save Plymouth Rock by removing it from there. here in the town square, which is how a large chunk of the top third of the original twenty thousand pound rock was broken off, placed higher up in town, and vandalized by souvenir hunters until 1880, when this was created park and monument facing the water and the Rocks. they came back together now, when you look at the Rock today and you see that split in it, you think, oh, that's where the rock broke, but in fact the rock broke horizontally underneath it, you're only seeing the top third of the rock that had broken away from the The split seen today and the repair are from the 1950s, when enough fresh water entered a natural crack that it froze the Plymouth rock and it had to be repaired there so that the fresh water could not could go back inside and make it worse.

So even what you're seeing here today is only a third of what's left because two-thirds of the remaining parts of Plymouth Rock are connected to it again, but underneath the portion you see up here with 1620 stamped that's just what What remains of the piece that went up to Town Square and was moved and other pieces were removed, in fact, so many pieces that no one has an exact count, but how many pieces of Plymouth Rock are scattered around the country in various town halls. and churches, I mean, your grandmother could have a little piece of Plymouth Rock in her attic, for all we know, so if your first reaction like mine was 20 years ago, when I first saw Plymouth Rock, why is it so small?

Remember there are three. times larger than you can actually see and could have been two or three times larger when it first sat here on the then Sandy Shore, where it was the only large natural rock visible on the shoreline for a mile in any direction, so if you come here and you go, it's so small, you're right and as you just heard, there is a fascinating history, so vast that it really makes you think, oh, this is why there are so many historical sites that you don't They allow climbing all the rocks due to preservation.

Turns out it's a big deal anyway when I first saw Plymouth Rock. I am not going to lie. I laughed for about five minutes because I didn't expect it to be so small. How about you? What did you think yesterday when you saw it for the first time? I set my eyes on Plymouth Rock, was it smaller than you expected? um, it was bigger than I thought bigger. I just saw a picture somewhere and it looked like it was this big, well it's definitely not the size of a shoe box, first time doing it. I've once heard someone say wow, it's bigger than I expected, but you know, when I first came here, it was before social media had Wikipedia pictures and all that kind of stuff, so I probably didn't even have idea of ​​what it looked like.

I think I had only seen the surface of it with 1620 in the crack, you know, so I thought it was a huge thing that they anchored a ship against and then I looked and I was very surprised that it was something that you see. like you could transport it in the back of a big pickup truck, well anyway folks, there you go, the foundation stone of American history, at least the version of American history that has become enshrined in our common cultural myths. Plymouth Rock, but of course Plymouth Rock it is not. Everything about Plymouth Massachusetts and the Pilgrims and the history of Thanksgiving because once they set foot on Plymouth Rock, the first Pilgrims had to build themselves a shelter, they had to look for food, and of course, they had to face that wilderness open that was already inhabited. and I made contact and alliances with those people and their leader Massasoit and the stories of that first settlement are fascinating, they are richly detailed and all the legendary stories and events of Plymouth Colony occurred within a few meters of where we are here, including that. three-day celebration with Massazoid and his men that would come to represent the first Thanksgiving but of course the Plymouth of the 2020s looks very different from the Plymouth of the 1620s. 400 years will do that in the place, I mean, look at these condos.

They weren't here when the pilgrims landed, but luckily there is a place nearby where we can see what life was like for those first pilgrims and that's where we headed next. This is Plymouth Patuxed, formerly known as Plymouth Plant Education, a 17th century recreation. century Plymouth specifically I believe this recreation is supposed to be 1627. and this is truly incredible, it gives you an idea of ​​how those first pilgrims lived here on the shores of Cape Cod within the walls of their Palisade, of course, protected by their little Ford with its cannons up there that we'll see in a minute look at this look at the wooden buildings with the roughly hewn boards the thatched roofs the little gardens I've always wanted to come here now I think in November instead of it being 1627 they celebrate the year 16 21 when that Feast took place with Massasoit, the first Thanksgiving as we think of it.

This is amazing and this little town here is full of reenactors wearing pilgrim style clothing. I can't wait to see this. Patuxit, by the way, was the native. American name for this part of the area. They're trying to be a little more inclusive in their terminology these days, which is not a bad thing and speaking of no bad thing, look at this place, look at this recreated pilgrim house. He would have had all kinds of items here, items brought from England on the Mayflower or later ships. It would have had things that were hand built by the Pilgrims in Plymouth.

This is an amazing look. Ali, look at the herbs hanging to dry over the fireplace and I love seeing the wooden shutters because of course there probably wasn't much room on the Mayflower for window glass. This is incredible. I hear a pilgrim in the house next door. Let's see it. It's so exciting I can't understand it. on the rooftops, look, you have to watch your head in these pilgrim houses, they are all the size of an alley, okay, it smells so good in here because something is cooking, yes, I think there are, but we brought all our family with us here.

There are some of us who have gotten married here and then we don't have the house ready, so it will make do, but you know you can put a napkin on a barrel and you can eat with debts if you have to, as long as you put a napkin on it, okay, this is an alumniotic curd cake that has some of that hair cheese in it, it looks unclear there, oh, it's all mixed together, um, the curd is soft cheese. I've never had curd bread before, oh yes, yes, you know how Don't make cards right, if you cook soft cheese or have soft cheese, you add flour and a couple of eggs and spices.

Ginger and nutmeg. Not the heifers, so we will have cattle, but we have very few cows. This is incredible. These are all chimneys. built with clay yeah it means it looks like a mod it's a clay mix wow so yeah we mixed it all together so the sticks are the wiggle and wiggle and they nicknamed it oh wiggle and wiggle that was awesome He said he hopes we come to live. and settle here, that would be Ali's dream, settle in New England waiting for the fall colors, it's amazing to see them prepare food like this, look at this, now talking about settlers, the first of my ancestors in America, well , the first direct ancestor from father to son. here in 1640 he landed in Massachusetts and then went to New Amsterdam, what is now New York.

The crazy thing is that he didn't live much different when he set up his first farm on Long Island, then the Pilgrims would have lived here, so this is crazy and there too. They were Pilgrims named Warren and your name is Warren ah, you could be a descendant of Pilgrims. Ali loves it, they hang the chairs from it. I'm just tripping over the dirt floors, of course, if you lived in a house like this the dirt would clump together. down, I mean, really hard to the point that you could sweep a dirt floor if you lived in a house like this.

Some of them, like the first house we went to, had like a wooden floor, a punch in the floor like split logs, this really makes you trip. Get out the stick and the clay or wiggle and rub Chimneys here and you've got all your sparks and everything flying imagine through your thatched roof, your wooden house there, uh, very easily could have been accidents if you weren't careful with the fire , oh look at this look at some of the documents here are very old printed material some of the pilgrims or those reformed Puritans there are printed documents here actually ancient printed documents printed by some kind of religious rebels who made up a part of the pilgrims part of what was getting them into trouble in Holland, see the pilgrims, the real religious pilgrims, they didn't want to be part of the Church of England, well, they wanted to reform the Church of England from within and when they couldn't do that, they settled in Holland. for a while they printed material and sent it to England, which got them into all kinds of trouble and finally they made the deal that would get them out of the king's mess and into the new world here in Plymouth, where they were free from the king's reign, They were free from the Church of England, but they were also here with settlers who believed in different forms of the Christian religion and, of course, maybe no religion at all, and that led the Pilgrims to draft the Mayflower Compact as an early written document. where they had to live by written laws and pre-established rules and were influenced by those religious reformers who believed that you would vote and that most agreeing to something together was God's will.

In a way, you had the oldest form of democracy here in the newworld where people could live with different religious faiths under a somewhat secular and global type of government based on democratic themes and that is why, as Americans, we chose Plymouth as our kind of founding myth instead of Jamestown, Virginia, which was very much under the control of the king of England and of course after the Civil War, the Victorious North wasn't exactly going to pay homage to the previous settlement of Jamestown, which was in the south one and two, the colony of Jamestown was abandoned for a time, making Plymouth the oldest continuously inhabited.

English settlement in what would become the United States of America, let's take a look at some more buildings. Look at this place. It is absolutely beautiful today. I understand there are more pilgrims here on the weekends, but this is still cool, especially since I'm kind of a self-guided guy, you know what I mean, I like guided tours okay, but I also like exploring and checking things out. for myself look at this, here's one of those wooden floors I was talking about and look at that covered bed that would be very useful in the winter here, you know it would be cold with that ocean breeze blowing Look at the pilgrim shoe that looks like would look good on you, it definitely wouldn't have looked good on me.

You can barely fit in most of these houses, they have very low ceilings. I'm too old to be a pilgrim, although you're not, Ally roo, you're a pilgrim. size oh look at those cauldrons over there maybe some of these pilgrims were witches that's not fair every house had a cauldron back then they had to boil water and make soup somehow I love this little three legged stool now one of these reenactors was telling tell us how they had to bring their whole family from England, just think about that, think about all the luggage you would have to bring, particularly in 1620, having no idea what kind of environment you were going to be in and what you really would be. you need and of course you can only bring the essentials.

I'm not kidding about how beautiful this place is. However, it looks so beautiful and scary when you get here and realize that all your English crops are not going to grow in Massachusetts, famous for Of course, the Pilgrims had to borrow some corn stored in a place where the natives They had hidden it over the winter to survive here and later when some of their new neighbors realized they had to return it to avoid trouble, but it was a massacre. and the Wampanoag people around here who really helped the Pilgrims survive by showing them how to plant the native crops and how to harvest them and obviously the famous Owat masses used The Interpreter to squantum or Squanto as they nicknamed him to help interpret among the indigenous people Americans and new settlers to protect them and warn them if there were other hostile natives around and, of course, teach them how to sew and harvest those indigenous crops. uh-oh.

The village won't be peaceful for long. It seems like some new settlers must have needed a couple boatloads to bring them all over. Wow, we better hurry up and get into more of these houses before they fill up with new settlers. In fact, that's something that happened after the first round of people arrived. The Mayflower, the sponsors of the Venture in England, continued to send more and more colonists here, but without sending more supplies, so of course the limited amount of food these colonists had continued to become more and more limited, in fact, arrived a point at which they even had to ask Pastor Zoet very delicately.

Can they keep even their people away? You guys keep coming to town and we want to treat you really well and share all our food, but we don't have enough to go around, so things were really good. Really tight in the early years and I can't emphasize enough how true the pilgrims would never have survived without the grace, mercy and patronage of the Masozoians. I didn't have much food here and there were all kinds of different and different tribes. groups in the area who did not want the settlers to stay here could have actually been massacred many times and of course if the natives had known that this small group of settlers would lead to thousands and thousands and eventually millions and millions of immigrants.

Europeans and other immigrants from around the world took over this land. They probably wouldn't have been as welcoming, let's put it that way. It wouldn't have been anyway, apparently there are a lot of tour groups here learning from the reenactors. I would show them what they are saying, but they mostly do things like ask for her number and make jokes. There are too many teenagers and not enough chaperones today. I'm known for my mites and my main guy went burning wood to keep warm. It took a lot of sawing, cutting, breaking, splitting and manual labor just to stay alive look at this guy, what are the breeches, well, what's your name, boy, Charles Charles, ah, like our King Charles, mate, these guys are great, are you working hard with them?

He talks to these children about oranges and that there is something only for the very rich and it is rare that they talk about Robin Hood. They think quickly, they stand up. I won't let these kids play with saws, which is awesome in the meantime. over here Ali has found a couple of friends look at this goat and look at that different type of child right there oh look look at this oh he's like a real life Disney princess all the animals come out for her and do the laundry hello. Have you seen witches here no, not witches, they burn them, yes, look, when you get to the center of Plymouth you say, oh, this is not really what I was imagining here in Plymouth Patuxent, this is what you imagine when you think of the first Thanksgiving and the pilgrims, although I must be honest with you, I expected more shoe buckles and less goats, I mean, maybe some goats, but less, now talking about the first Thanksgiving in the During the time of the English settlers, they had many Thanksgiving feasts for births, baptisms, baptisms, founding a new church building, perhaps to celebrate anything they saw as a great act of Providence, but especially, of course , at harvest time, where they had much to be thankful for for food number one, number two, that the good Lord had blessed them with. with a good harvest and number three who got along well with the neighbors here in 1621 when they had their first harvest when Massasoit, who was basically the big leader of the area and about 90 of his followers, showed up with some venison and together With the fruits of the English settlers' first harvest and possibly some local native wild turkey, they basically had a three-day celebration of their good fortune.

Now let's go back inside and see Ali's new friend, Stephen Hopkins, the host of hey, I help the good boy Hopkins. Many times I am at his house. Is it a long time to build a building? This particular house thinks it was a minute or two. I said the Hopkins family sold here on the ship called the Mayflower. uh, so they were among the first to come to this place where the rest of my family is and when our host was built, he took three or four money each couple. My father didn't have a house built when we arrived. on 16, 3 and 20, so we lived outside of Palisade and it took longer since it wasn't as terrible.

I guess building a horse is a lot like your horse, no, not even close, no, really, which makes it different. with different walls, different windows, yes, I did well in England. I miss having glass in the windows, this way bugs can get in though, keep it sexy. Are you coming in? I catch them and put them on my sister's pillow. It's funny, she's not like usual. I think it's pretty good. Oh Ali, you made a new friend. Yes, she was very kind. She gave me this stone. What did she say? She said she was beautiful and that it suits me.

Oh, now you have a new best friend too. The bad thing is that she doesn't have a cell phone, so she won't be able to keep in touch easily. Also, I don't think the postal service exists yet, so I don't even know how long it takes to receive a letter here. I mentioned the masses I would do several times and the Wampanoag people here and it should be said that as much as we appreciate Thanksgiving and the food, there is a lot to celebrate on Thanksgiving, including the fact that you know Abraham Lincoln organized that. as a way for Americans to come together and give thanks for their many blessings at the end of the Civil War and there is much to celebrate with the Pilgrims because, after all, many people can trace their ancestry back to the Mayflower and some of these early colonies and we can appreciate how hard they worked to survive, we can appreciate the Mayflower Compact and the way they voted together and lived in harmony with each other even though they had different religious beliefs in the first settlement of Plymouth and even the way they They made treaties with their neighbors and got along with the nearby Native Americans at first, but it has to be said that not everyone remembers the first Thanksgiving or the landing of the Pilgrims as something particularly good and I would be talking about the native point of Actually, the only reason the Pilgrims were able to settle in Patuxa is that there was something of a hole in the native population where European diseases caused by the fishing boats and traders who had visited this area of ​​Massachusetts virtually decimated and they wiped out whole groups of people, remember Squanto, who we were talking about, his entire town was wiped out, he himself had been kidnapped by Europeans and taken to Spain as a slave and then we don't know exactly how, but he finally got to England and came back to the new world. and that's how he knew English and was able to interpret for all the pilgrims and part of the reason he settled here with them and stayed with them for so long is because all his people in the area were wiped out and disappeared and the masses complained Whose was it? of the great Sachem or chief or leader in the area who wanted the pilgrims here based in part on the fact that Squanto had told him about their Superior Armament, the technological advantages that would come with it, you know, metal tools and things like that, but also because they had rival groups in the area and having a hole in your land where there were no people who had been wiped out by a disease, as I already said, was a huge strategic disadvantage, so you can have blank land and not have a barrier with your enemies. in the area or you could have English settlers come here to fill the Gap, sign a treaty with you, and help you protect your land against other groups, which is exactly what they were doing here, in fact, between Massazoid and William Bradford and the For other pilgrims there was peace for about 50 years or so before the arrival of more and more settlers, plus the death of Massachusetts and the subsequent leadership of his heirs and new misunderstandings that led to the outbreak of war and conflict and changed everything. the story of the interaction between the English settlers or the European settlers and the natives much more complicated and horrifying, but those early years really were a story of completely different cultures coming together for mutual protection and, of course, without the natives, the Pilgrims would never have survived so many The humanity on display there, the story we heard as children is that the Pilgrims came to Plymouth Rock, the natives greeted them with joy, they became best friends and celebrated Thanksgiving and They got along forever and then, of course, you have the very justifiable answer to that of no, no.

No, no, these settlers came from a strange land, they came here and took land from the natives, they brought disease, pestilence, they broke their treaties, they ruined the perfect peaceful life of the natives, but eventually, when you dig deep enough, you come to a point more. nuanced understanding and realizing that it's complicated, there's a lot to admire and appreciate about that time period and a lot to be sad about and really a lot to learn. When I was younger, I often wondered what the natives would gain when the Pilgrims arrived, it wasn't just that question of deep population, but also the question of technology, I mean, let's say during the pandemic a large part of the California's population had been wiped out and then an outer space ship containing aliens with very different technology and a different nature.

Language, you know, they look and sound like us, but this group of aliens from outer space land and they want to settle there. We'd say, well, you know, no one lives there now. It could be advantageous if they can live there. fill the gap and not only that, we can take advantage of their advanced technology, ah, advanced weapons, advanced agricultural tools, I mean, a metal ax in the 1620s in America was nothing to write home about, that's what there was for Massachusetts, that's exactly how he would have seen it. They like these aliens, we're pretty sure they're humans, but they're from somewhere else.

They bring this technology. They have all these different things. We could take advantage of this. NoI had a way of knowing. More and more. More ships would arrive with more and more people, as I said before. I could only imagine that it would have changed mathematics significantly. Look at this. Looks like they have a cornfield down here. They would have called it Indian corn or we would have called it. We'll probably call it corn, it's one of the key ingredients for the pilgrims' survival here. It was dried corn on Cape Cod, where they first landed, that they took from Indian storage areas and that helped them survive that first winter and be able to plant crops the following spring and they were lucky they didn't end up landing in one direction. even further north because this is quite far north even for corn and further north at that time the natives would have had no agriculture at all. just, you know, a kind of subsistence life, living off the land, kind of like something that was very fortunate for the pilgrims or providential, as they would have said that they came to an area where there was agriculture and the natives had been growing surplus crops. for their crops. not only to trade with each other but also with the Europeans who came up and down the coast, as I said, there are many nuances, many little pieces that came together to ensure their survival here, as opposed to Jamestown, and if you have time for this In the fall or this winter, I highly recommend reading a book about those early years.

There has been much more research in the modern era, not only on the Pilgrims, but also on the Native Americans of that era. We simply know much more. about both groups of peoples now that for all those decades when we knew the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock and met Squanto and then immediately brought out the cranberry sauce, you know what I mean, we know a lot more today and it's fascinating how many more years will I be here, we have a contract, well, even when the contract is up, this is being renegotiated by our agents Master Allerton uh I'm going to stay quite close to this place.

I'm just going to build a much nicer house on the land I've been promising just a few miles away. You have a wife. Any perspective? Are you married? I'm divorced, so you're looking for a husband. I don't know if these rooms you would know fit my style, okay, these conditions are raw and Bobbers in this place, man, I could stay here and listen to these re-enactors all day. They are fantastic, but the day lengthens or the Shadows lengthen, Gentlemen and Ladies, and we set off on an airship where tomorrow's points come from. As much as I genuinely love this place, I mean, I waited to come here for 20 years.

Since my first visit to Plymouth, since we flew home to California in the morning and the day is getting long, we'd probably better leave the 17th century English Village and get back to the car because there are other things to see. Plymouth and more particularly that replica of the Mayflower that you may have noticed at the beginning of our adventure, we don't have much time left, but I have to get on board before it closes. Looks like Hallie belongs here, cute little Pilgrim. Of course, the early settlers had to build Palisades and buffer zones. Whenever there were threats from enemy ships or hostile neighbors that were not part of their treaty with Masozoic, they had the fort here at Plymouth Patuxet and several old ones. -school cannons, but the real main attraction of the fort is the money shot that you get from here on the second floor, look at that beautiful, but anyway we have been referencing the indigenous inhabitants of the neighborhood and they are not forgotten here in the museums.

This is a replica of a winter house and there are several types of native structures here. This one is under a bit of a renovation. I don't think they had an aluminum staircase in 1627, but that's okay because there are more in historic Patuxent. starting site which is in this beautiful forest here, all of this represents the summer home sites of a single Wampanoag family, so you have your cooking gazebo a little bit away from where they would sleep, of course, because of the fire, you have your small fields where they grew corn and pumpkin. you could see all the different types of food they ate.

Unfortunately, they were just explaining to us that their summer house, which would normally be covered in cattails, well, it requires a lot of reading and they only last one season and are endangered. Massachusetts now apparently so they show you the basic internal construction we have to settle for a photograph of what it would look like if those Reeds were everywhere all right and then of course here is the winter house they have located more inland and the trees are away from the ocean breezes and freezing temperatures. This looks beautiful here and is fully furnished. It's actually a small-scale version because back then there would be 40 to 60 people living in one. of these during the winter I really wish we had more time to see all of this, but unfortunately we have to leave now or we'll lose our boat, which would be fine except we already paid for it.

I love that package and The meter zone is 16 20 for Plymouth Rock, how sick is it that now each of these places we go to could obviously have their own very long episode. There are so many other sites here such as the old churchyard and some of the oldest houses in the country are here in Plymouth, including one of the original pilgrim houses. There are, as you can imagine, ghost tours in this city. One thing that is no longer here is the wax museum that used to be at the top of the hill next to Plymouth Rock.

I always wanted to. Sadly, now I will never get the chance. Hey, I finally laced up my shoes, but one thing I'll finally get to do is get on the Mayflower or should I say Mayflower two. This is a large scale reproduction of the original Mayflower. Built in the 1950s, you can climb aboard and explore with a ticket, of course, and that's our last destination of the day. There's a lot of historical information and some activities here that you can do before boarding the ship, but come on, no one wants to. To do that we want to get on board, mate, today we pilgrimage in reverse, down from Plymouth Rock and up to the Mayflower.

I hope they don't take us all the way to England right now to start below deck, oh my God, look at this one hundred and fifty. Two of us are on board the Mayflower 102 people had to sleep on this deck in hammocks. I hope they weren't tall people because this is a low ceiling, especially how many people hit their heads here while this boat was rocking on the waves. They famously had terrible weather at the crossing, which I believe took 66 days. It was rocking and swaying, bumping into your neighbor while you're traveling in your hammock and all your worldly possessions are stored below deck, at the bottom of the boat, and there's nothing else.

Woods, a little conversation and pilgrim prayers between you and the ocean and you would have had a very sore back or a very strong back after 66 days of stooping here and the main thing is when the weather was bad. or it was cold and you wanted to stay below, it would have been very dark down here, there were no electric lights in the passenger rooms and I can't imagine there would have been too many flashlights burning down here for people to hold. This is crazy. I wish I knew more about sailboats, even sailboats. I don't know much about how little I learned on the Columbia Disneyland sailboat, but I do know that it must have been a very uncomfortable long and stressful trip.

There must be a lot of anxiety, eh, Ali, when you think about whether we are going to drown today, right, only one person died on the way from England, I think it was considered a miracle at the time, but you have to remember back then, in the 17th century . people had scurvy left and right on these types of voyages pestilence plagues being thrown overboard drowning there could have been mutinies there could have been all kinds of trouble they are lucky they only had a bit of bad weather at a late start in the new world because being on one of these ships and feeling claustrophobic like I do just being down here for 15 minutes, you're like, man, 66 days.

I have to reluctantly admit that it's worse than the flight I took to get here. Oh, I always thought I'd like it. on a ship like this, but it's claustrophobic down there, I'd probably like to be up here getting in the way of the sailor and getting yelled at, at least up here you can stretch, God, it would have been a hell of a lot of work working on one of these ships to be crew member, backbreaking work, changing decks, firing these little deck guns, what are these Harpoon guns? As I said, I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to sailing ships, epic ones, much more impressive than the Columbia type. how high that mast is and in the movies it always seems like so much fun when I was a kid to climb the Crow's Nest.

I'll tell you what in real life, looking up along those ropes, is a lot higher than I thought. it was off deck kind of heartbreaking look at this we have any more cabins or interior spaces on the ship to check oh my god this is how they steered the ship and they couldn't see from here so they are just doing it with a compass and fragments Flying Blind it's amazing some crew accommodation up there but look back here in the back cabin look at the space back here this must be the captain's table or the ship's captains table look at these little Cubbies, man.

It would be quite cramped if you tried to sleep there and would probably be much more comfortable than Las Hamacas below for pilgrims. Yes, where is Captain Jack Sparrow? That's all I can think of, although Captain Jack's spare wasn't even a sparkle. his father's eye when the pilgrims crossed on the Mayflower I love how everything has storage this high bench in the back there are all these trunks look at the view from this window at the back of the ship that's amazing there really isn't much He noticed many windows on the Mayflower. On the one hand, I suppose you wouldn't want many places where waves could break the glass and water could enter your boat.

Do you think they would want light, but maybe when you? Being in the middle of the ocean looking out the window is depressing because you're going to see the same thing every day over and over again for 66 days. That's nothing compared to Captain Cook's and his man's voyages around the world. and I spent years on Sea Wild, this is incredible, you guys look at mom, look, I'm on the Mayflower. I'm heading to America so I can believe in whatever religion I want and settle in new lands and make new friends, potentially accidentally. moving a lot of people is very interesting because I get very excited about the pilgrims and then, you know, the more modern interpretations of those old historical situations come to mind and I guess we are living in an interesting time in history to look at History changes all the time.

You know it hasn't changed. There were children on this boat and you can tell because they have wooden spoons to take care of them. Know? Do you know about The Wooden Spoon? I know all about the Wooden spoons and the measuring stick my grandmother used a measuring stick suddenly my butt itches, okay this is amazing. I didn't expect a letter like that. I thought I was going to see a big old pirate style wheel, but I guess pilgrims like to keep them. simple wow this is amazing we have one more deck to visit upstairs I'm not very familiar with all the nautical terminology is this the aft deck I don't feel anything in my stomach I just found out that that rudder is called a personal whip, that's pretty interesting, look at this, this is incredible, it doesn't have that big wheel as I expected, but this is incredible, so much rope, so many ropes, so many rigging, so many knots and cleats to tie things together, it seems quite complicated. sailing, although I would love to ride a sailboat and see other people do it.

I've never had any desire to learn because it seems like a lot of work. Well there's one last little cabin up here at the back of the Mayflower two there seems to be a lot in it except for this little bed here so I guess it must be the captain's quarters and look at this look at all the modern gadgets here for modern boating. That's right, the Mayflower 2 is seaworthy, which means that in theory, I suppose you could actually reverse Pilgrim and take this bad boy back to England, hopefully it would take less time than in the past and hopefully They would give you better food because hard pasta and salt pork don't sound very good. appetizing, particularly when your ship is rocking, all I can think of is my song I made for that Disneyland video, yeah, that would be me, that chicken of the sea talking about rocking, it's time for us to rock and get out of the Mayflower.

This has been a cool experience, although just getting on board and seeing it again, each of these locations could have been their own full episode. There is so much to learn, know and discover here in Plymouth and coming to places like this is great. because it inspires you, or at least me, to go home to learn more and that, in turn, always makes me want to come back and visit placesover and over again, finding more stories, discovering more history and you know, Mayflower 2 in particular. I just really don't want to leave why because of the story no, the story is great the reason I don't want to leave is the exit from that drop which is much further down and there are a lot of records here so it seems like yeah it's oh in I'm actually really scared and really really nervous right now, when I came here, no one warned me that I was going to have to walk the plank, okay, okay, oh, what are you laughing at?

It's not funny, no, don't leave me. I'm going I'm going. I hate that this is a big step. Okay, I'm a little more sure. Thank goodness for handrails. Say hello. Now I know that I walk on the board with such a big punishment if I have to be punished on board. boat, I'd rather have the boo box, the Boombox, okay, there's a lot more to do, a lot more to see in Plymouth, but that's all we have time for today. We went out to the east coast, visited Salem, Massachusetts, so also. To this rich history, we got a little witch history earlier this week we went to Leaf to spy in New Hampshire and Vermont, visited Haunted Overload, perhaps the best Halloween haunted house attraction in the United States and then we came here to Plymouth, we saw Plymouth Rock Plymouth.

Plantation and Mayflower two where it all started, but that's all we have time for because this is a very short, very low budget trip just to bring you to New England Ally, did you like it? You had fun? Yes I loved it. It backfired on me. because now you really wish you lived here, uh, yeah, especially with the fall colors. I'm sure you wouldn't like winter, but fall is what I have to do. I grant you that you are very beautiful here now, my friends, we are going to go have a bit of a tea party because we are heading to Boston in the morning to fly home, but you can help ensure our future return and support future adventures by signing up to our patreon or visiting our online store at the links below and now that we have seen and done everything we could in New England in one week.

We have done our duty. Time to return home and sleep well abroad. I've been sailing for 66 days and I've been searching for Plymouth Rock here it is this hit isn't it this one no finally after all this time I found it Plymouth Rock Plymouth Rock I found Plymouth Rock everyone Plymouth Rock the real Rock oh it was worth the whole trip I tell them we're going to have a banquet, invite everyone, it's time for a minute of Thanksgiving, finally, my girlfriend and I can win because I bought you a wedding gift, honey, look at the Rock, I'm giving you the finger, it's Plymouth Rock, we have a whole continent to explore first, I have to build a house but it won't have a floor, it will be dirt and there will be mice just don't get into any witchcraft, they wouldn't light that in the city of Salem.

There is an area, Great Scott, I should have been talking about. so, oh Plymouth man, what a city man, lots of fun, mischief and zany things to do, well I must admit it's pretty dead around here, oh my goodness, that's one of the original Pilgrim helicopters, well , this place is horrible, don't do it. do you agree, yes you want this in these words, what bears, wolves, lions, Africans are, that's scary and there are fairies too, be very careful, oh no, they are nosy, they will steal your breath and pinch you to your black and blue. how does it come out like that oh yeah that's okay and what you want to do is take the two pieces back like this and tighten them up nice and mine is a little bit different it's okay if you can't do it that way and then what? what you want to do is just do it properly, you would try to tie it in a bun and then pick up all the excess, oh okay, and you wouldn't mind anyone seeing it, it makes you look slow, it runs a little spiky. okay this goes on the back like this and then around the back and we use them to cover our hair and would she mind having your hair covered before God.

The only time you wouldn't wear a hairstyle is if you're in your own home and you're a lady in the house and my happiest hair would still be up in a bun and there are so many different ways you can put your hair up in a bun and also this This is the time when you might not use it. It's here uh, you're a queen, you know what that's like when you get married, oh oh, then you could do your hair like you do, but it would be adorned with flowers, ah, well, hip-hop relatives, yeah, but can I just pick them up? where do I want yours?

Tell me for my part what it is I don't know take a look it's the Moonflower look at my infractions Pick me pretty original with rock Mouse it would be Plymouth original Plymouth pilgrim original she's running around in the original house it's the pilgrim original most of the house the house rock mouse pilgrim is the original pilgrim rare oh