Day 5 - A Dash of Medford, With a Side of Salem

We loaded up the rental car, said our good-byes and left pretty early this overcast Sunday morning to head back to Massachusetts. On the way out of town, we stopped to take a picture of this church. If memory serves, this is the church where my grandparents were married. I'm pretty sure it was the one in which they renewed their vows on their 50th wedding anniversary. I think it's the one anyway, I'll have to check those facts with Gram.

We drove back down Highway 2 and got to see the scenery we missed when we drove it in the dark a few days prior.
There was a lot of this with an occasional and some of this
(Actually, there was only one Miller's River, but there were several bits of water along the way.)

We made it into Medford without incident and checked into our hotel. Pretty nice for the rate I got, considering all the other hotel rates were about quadruple what I was willing to pay.



Since it was only around lunchtime, we decided to make the short drive over to Salem and see if we could find any pirates or witches. Apparently, there are a few in the area.

We had lunch in a little deli near the waterfront and afterward came across these guys at the Pirate Museum

and I couldn't resist being a witch while we walked down a side alley. According to the interwebs, "The Witch Hysteria not only enveloped Salem, but all 34 towns and villages of Essex County."

Since it was a little rainy, we decided to grab the trolley tour and get an overview of Salem.
Salem, loves their history...
even if it includes . Interesting and sad at the same time.
Here's Roger Conant, Founder of Salem sporting that pilgrim's hat that I thought was just a figment of the fashion imagination. People really wore those?
Yeah, that says Waikiki Beach. I think someone took a wrong turn in Albuquerque again.
Did you know that New England has a lot of lighthouses? Fact.

When we were done with that, we headed into the Peabody Essex Museum to see what we could see. Again, I won't bore you with all those photos, but this model of the Taj Mahal was really exquisite. Look at that detail!

Apparently on August 20th, they're doing Dutch Beer Tasting there. What? They couldn't do a beer tasting while I was in town? Sheesh.

Once the museum closed for the day, we hopped back in the car to find some of the things that our tour guide pointed out over on Chestnut Street, to have a closer look at some of the neat details (architectural and otherwise) that we just don't see back home. I'll try to be brief, I'm sure you're getting bored...thanks for humoring me though! ;o)
Ivy, a league of it's own.


















Fire Alarms should be so stylish.

I love this, a gossip door between front porches.

Deacon + Distiller = Ironic, huh?

"A widow's walk"

A Coffin Door - large enough to get the coffin out of the parlor after the funeral. They should call those funeral parlors.

Back to the hotel, dinner and bed...tomorrow's another day full of fun and sun, er, rain.