Salem, Massachusetts was about as close as we could stay to Boston but it turned out to be a good choice. We stayed at Winter Island Park, which was close enough to downtown Salem that we were able to ride our bicycles (this is a lot rarer than you might think. We are usually a 15-20 minute drive from the town’s we want to visit and often 30-45 min if it’s a bigger city).
In Salem, the entire month of October is dedicated to celebrating Halloween but the whole town thrives on its witch burning infamy. There had to be over a hundred tourist shops full of witchcraft and other mystical tchotchkes. We arrived in time to attend the kick off to the festivities, the Grand Parade. Grand maybe a bit of an exaggeration for this relatively small-town parade but it was a lot of fun to see a night time parade and there was actually a pretty big crowd. Saturday morning, we attended the next big event, the Zombie Walk. It was a fun collection of extreme characters in full makeup and costumes, but freaky people could be found all over the city, all the time.
Zombies
We visited the Witch House, the home of Judge Jonathon Corwin of the Salem witch trials of 1692. It is the only building still standing that has direct ties to the trials and it was in pretty bad shape. Apparently not much of the admission fees ($8/head and not worth it) are going to preservation.
There were lots of other “museums” that had pretty good ratings online, but looking at the pictures I decided they didn’t look like they would justify their entry fees either, since they were all rundown and crummy looking.
Contrary to common knowledge, the witches were not actually burned at the stake in Salem (it is also a myth that they were all women). There were more than 200 people accused of witchcraft and twenty were found guilty (5 of them men). Nineteen were executed by hanging; one man (who was 80 years old) was pressed to death as they tried to get him to enter a plea of guilty or not guilty. Giles Corey was steadfast in his refusal to cooperate with the trial and when asked on the third day of his pressing for his plea, he instead asked for more weight. It would be the last day of his life.
The trials were a result of mass Puritanical hysteria, created by the accusers, primarily teenage girls. Talk about mean girls! For two hundred years, the shame of this period was not spoken of by the people of Salem. Now this period is the foundation for a very successful tourism industry and what feels a little too much like a celebration of the disgrace. The Witch Trials Memorial to the men and women that died is found next to The Burying Ground cemetery. The victims were not buried here and it can only be described as a shamble, kind of like the whole town. Their bodies were supposed to be thrown into a pit for mass burial, but historians believe the bodies were secretly taken away by their families.
So Many Bees
Fortunately, not everything about Salem was witch related. The garden behind the Ropes Mansion was a nice departure from all the witch focused attractions, and had a nice assortment of flowers. One specific group of pink flowers were attracting so many bees, there were three and four at a time on each flower (you guessed it, this means more flower pictures with bugs on them). One section of town hosted the Punto Urban Art Museum, home to more than fifty great, colorful urban art murals (we’ve gone to areas like this in other cities but this was different because they were all in a much smaller area and it gave the neighborhood a really great vibe – a definite must do). When we went into town to the laundromat we stumbled upon a home where a junk collector lived. He had taken mostly metal pieces of junk and turned them into art, creating amazing creatures of all kinds and sizes.
Getting from place to place was very slow going in the Salem area, it often took us thirty minutes to go less than eight miles. Not at all like wide open Texas. As usual, we hunted for the best bakery, and landed on Coffee Time for lobster tails (a cone shaped pastry stuffed with sweet cream) and Boston Cream donuts, among others. We also found Goodnight Fatty, a cookie shop that started as a popup. It’s only open Friday and Saturday nights from 7pm to 1am. Naturally we had to try this for ourselves, and waited in the long line to get two of each of the three kinds they were making that day. Served hot, they were worth the wait. (I asked them why they were only opened 2 nights a week. They said they were performing a public service. They didn’t want the town to get too fat – and the cookies were that good)
Bill signed us up for the 2018 Worldwide Photowalk in Boston, an annual event where photographers join up in major cities all over the world, to walk together and share creative techniques. Our group leader failed to show up, so eight of us wandered around without clear direction. Most of the participants were from Boston, so they were able to show us some of the sights, and one guy was actually a pro, but he split off to go shoot the waterfront. They were a nice group of people, and afterwards we went to dinner with them (it was a fun afternoon that we’ll do again next year – where ever we happen to be). Each walk was allowed to send 1 picture from their group into a global photo contest (there were over 500 walks). I wasn’t going to send one because I didn’t think any of mine were contest worthy but Bill pushed me to send one anyway and guess what?? After tabbing through 49 pages of winners, I discovered I won! Not sure this really is proof that my pic was great, lots of the winning photos were not very good in our opinion. I thought the photo Bill submitted was better than mine (I don’t, I really like how Dessa captured the fall color and the sense of the park with an artsy feel). We did not get to see the others in our group, but we think a bunch of the winning walk photos might not have been taken as required “on the walk”. Some really good grand prizes will be awarded, chosen from the group winners, but I don’t expect to get that lucky (while there were lots of average walk winners, some of which we likely would have even deleted vs posting to our blog, there were some fantastic shots that you could easily find in a Magazine or Photo Book).
Photowalk Contest – Bill
Photowalk Contest – Dessa
Boston Common was a lovely big park, with very friendly squirrels, one actually climbed up Bill’s pant leg. Because it was Columbus Day weekend, there was a large group dressed in British attire, complete with the firing of long guns. We stopped in Cheer’s, and walked down Marlborough Street looking at the brownstones, then saw the Old South Church and Trinity Church, both fantastic. One big event for the weekend was (supposed to be) the parade so we drove in early to get a good spot to watch. It really wasn’t great in our opinion, not even as good as the Haunted parade in Salem. They had the typical marching bands, no floats, and it was about fifty percent Aleppo Shriners in various transportation oddities. We had several gray, rainy days, so we didn’t get the best pictures, but we enjoyed our time in the city.
Bill’s view of Christina was much better than mine
We had tickets to see Christina Aguilera’s first tour in ten years, at the beautiful Wang Theater, that seats only 3500. We were excited to see Christina in this small venue but hadn’t really considered the slope of the seating in a 1920’s theater. I could barely see around the giants (in reality they were only about 6’ tall) in front of me. Bill nick named it “Christina’s it SUCKS to be short tour”. The show was opened by Big Boi, and they were a good warm up covering lots of songs in their genre. Christina’s voice was great as expected, but the production itself was not very polished.
Cape Cod was halfway to our next destination, so with more rain in the Boston forecast, we decided to leave a few days early and move the trailer to go to Martha’s Vineyard for a day. After taking the ferry across, and renting a car (although I booked a Ford Focus we got upgraded to a Mercedes GLE SUV which made us feel more like we belonged on the Vineyard), we headed for the Oak Bluffs Campgrounds to see the gingerbread cottages. There we found a collection of homes that look like fancy dollhouses, edged with elaborate scrolled trim in many designs, each one is painted in more than one bright color (and some were obnoxiously bright – check out the picture of the pink house). The porches are staged with matching Adirondack or rocking chairs and pots of flowers. The community got its odd name because it was the first summer religious camp established in the United States, originally tents, the Victorian style cottages were built in 1860-1870. “Campmeetings”, open air Christian revivals, became popular and a central tabernacle was built in 1879, where church services and concerts are still held in summer.
Martha’s Vineyard Gingerbread Cottage
Driving to the far end of the island, we stopped at the red brick Gay Head Light on the Aquinnah Cliffs, and the Edgartown Lighthouse. We have yet to find one that allows us to go inside, but they had very different settings, so it was fun taking photos (and flying the drone of course). After a late lunch of some pretty good fried shrimp we were ready to head to the ferry but Bill noticed a toy store next door and just had to go in. Turns out that was a good idea. The store was under new ownership and in turning over stock they were actually giving away some toys so we scored a few things for the grand kids. That put us a little behind schedule so it was a bit of a rush to catch the ferry. Just as we got back into the truck, the predicted downpour began.
That’s a wrap for Massachusetts. Next up New York City!
“Heaven have mercy on us all – Presbyterians and Pagans alike –
for we are all somehow dreadfully cracked about the head, and sadly need mending.” –Herman Melville (Moby Dick)
Our photos can be found here.
Our videos can be found at the end of the photos: Massachusetts here and Christina Aguilera here.
