{"id":134,"date":"2013-07-19T09:00:07","date_gmt":"2013-07-19T13:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/evanmckinney.com\/blog\/?p=134"},"modified":"2013-07-19T09:00:07","modified_gmt":"2013-07-19T13:00:07","slug":"friday-fun-how-to-avoid-melting-without-melting-your-wallet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/evanmckinney.com\/blog\/friday-fun\/friday-fun-how-to-avoid-melting-without-melting-your-wallet\/","title":{"rendered":"Friday Fun:  How To Avoid Melting"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Has your thermometer given up even trying to show a real temperature and is just reading &#8220;Hot, Hot, Hot? Has your air conditioner, realizing that there is no hope of cooling down your house, gone on strike? Are you afraid that if you don&#8217;t find something cool to do this weekend, you&#8217;re going to end up melting like the Wicked Witch of the West from <em>The Wizard of Oz<\/em>? Well, if you answered &#8220;yes&#8221; to any of these questions, there&#8217;s a pretty good chance that you&#8217;re in the U.S. right now. With temperatures approaching 100 degrees in many areas throughout the country, finding a way to stay cool is definitely at the top of most people&#8217;s to-do lists. Fortunately, if you&#8217;re in the Boston area this weekend, there are a number of events that are not only taking place at cooler places or cooler times of the day, but a number of events that are also absolutely free.<\/p>\n<p>First, if you and\/or kids are looking for a cool and refreshing treat, you may want to head over to Taza Chocolate in Somerville, MA tomorrow (Saturday, July 20, 2013.) Taza Chocolate is offering free Mexican-style popsicles, which are also known as Paletas, from 12 to 3 p.m. as part of their Chill Out Saturdays. These treats are made by a local vendor based in Cambridge, MA, known as Real Pops, and they come in a variety of flavors. For more information about Taza Chocolate&#8217;s Chill Out Saturdays, please visit the <a title=\"Taza Chocolate - Chill Out Saturdays\" href=\"http:\/\/www.tazachocolate.com\/Social\/Chill_Out_Saturdays\">Taza Chocolate website<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>If you are looking for a way for your kids to have some fun in the water, you may want to check out the Frog Pond Spray Pool &amp; Fountain, the Rings Fountain on the Greenway, or the Veterans Memorial Swimming and Wading Pool. The Frog Pond Spray Pool &amp; Fountain, which is located on Boston Common, features a free wading pool for young children and a 70-foot spray plume for children and their parents. The Rings Fountain on the Greenway, which is located in the Wharf District Parks in Boston, features a giant circular spray fountain that uses 64 nozzles to spray water in a series of circles around the people in its center. The Veterans Memorial Swimming and Wading Pool, which is located on Memorial Drive in Cambridge, features a full-sized swimming pool that adults and kids can use for free and a free wading pool for younger children.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, if you and your kids are looking for something that is a little dryer but still pretty cool, you can always head on over to the Faneuil Hall Marketplace. The Faneuil Hall Marketplace not only has a number of shops, restaurants, monuments, and museums that everyone can enjoy, but also has a free light show called Summer Blink every night from 8:00 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. until September 6th. This special show features over 350,000 LED lights that will allow you see the entire Marketplace and the entire Boston skyline light up as the Standell&#8217;s famous song about Boston, <em>Dirty Water<\/em>, plays in the background. For more information, please visit the <a title=\"Boston Blinks - Fanueil Hall Summer Blinks\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bostonblinks.com\/\">Boston Blinks website<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Has your thermometer given up even trying to show a real temperature and is just reading &#8220;Hot, Hot, Hot? Has your air conditioner, realizing that there is no hope of cooling down your house, gone on strike? Are you afraid that if you don&#8217;t find something cool to do this weekend, you&#8217;re going to end &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/evanmckinney.com\/blog\/friday-fun\/friday-fun-how-to-avoid-melting-without-melting-your-wallet\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Friday Fun:  How To Avoid Melting&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,6],"tags":[138,185,308,485,541,551,552,971,1078,1102,1221,1244,1246,1267,1384,1413],"class_list":["post-134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-boston-area","category-friday-fun","tag-beating-the-heat","tag-boston-common","tag-chill-out-saturdays","tag-faneuil-hall-marketplace","tag-free-events","tag-frog-pond","tag-frog-pond-spray-pool-fountain","tag-paletas","tag-real-pops","tag-rings-fountain-on-the-greenway","tag-staying-cool","tag-summer","tag-summer-blinks","tag-taza-chocolate","tag-veterans-memorial-swimming-and-wading-pool","tag-water-fun"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/evanmckinney.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/evanmckinney.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/evanmckinney.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/evanmckinney.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/evanmckinney.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/evanmckinney.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/evanmckinney.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/evanmckinney.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/evanmckinney.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}