The Terrible Catsafterme

Bob and I had been on the road for two full weeks, weaving throughout the New England states and east border of New York state, but it was nearly time for the road trip portion of our journey to come to an end. We awoke in Salem, Massachusetts on the morning of Tuesday, July 17, 2012, at the Clipper Ship Inn. We weren’t in a tremendous hurry that morning, and didn’t get out of our motel until around 9:30am.

So when I mentioned Salem, Massachusetts, what came to y0ur mind? The Salem Witch Trials perhaps? Do you mean to tell me that 320 years after the fact, you haven’t forgotten that pesky little black mark in American history? Yeah, me neither. So naturally the first location of the day had to do with a witch. But like the real ‘witches’ of Salem, this one was not really a witch at all, but a work of fiction.

I found it humorous that TV Land chose to put the statue of Samantha Stephens in Salem rather than trying to decide on where the Stephens family actually lived in the Bewitched series. I’m sure the victims of the witch trial wouldn’t be so flippant, by hey, I’m not going to be a stick in the mud. This was my third of the eight TV Land statues to see.

At the Bewitched TV Land statue in Salem

Bob and I really didn’t know what to see in town that would related to the witch trials, as there were many such tours and museums, so we chose the Salem Witch Museum. It wasn’t cheap by any means and there were no photos allowed inside, but we needed to something here.

Statue of Roger Conant, first settler of Salem in 1626. Do you think they tried to make him look like a spooky warlock?

What it ended up being was a large room with seating in the round which told the story of the witch trials via voice overs with non-animatronic mannequin scenes above us and above the crowd across from us, which would light up as the story unfolded. It was about a 30-minute presentation. This was followed by a walk-thru of the witch museum that talked less about the witch trials themselves, and more about witchcraft and Wiccans through the years. It was ho-hum, but at least I can say I did a witch ‘thing’ in Salem.

Ready to check out the Salem Witch Museum

Then it was on to Rockport, a coastal town about 20 miles east of Salem. There was an interesting thing here that I had found on the Roadside America website. This one was known as the Paper House, and it was just that: a house made almost entirely of about 100,000 rolled-up and pasted newspapers. It is an amazing testament to the durability of paper, as the house has stood since the 1920’s, full of furniture that likewise has been made of newspapers over the course of the following 20 years. It was a pay-on-the-honor-system visit and I was honored to pay it. Of all of the things that we saw on our journey, this was probably the most unique.

The Paper House in Rockport

Some of the furniture in the Paper House, all made of paper as well. The bookshelf is made from foreign newspapers.

It’s only a paper moon…

This desk gives account of Charles Lindbergh’s historic flight from New York to Paris

The clock was made from newspapers from all of the United States state capital cities

Not far from Rockport was the town of Gloucester, an important center of the fishing industry. Bob had the idea to visit the Gloucester Fisherman’s Memorial here, thinking that it was used in the film Captains Courageous. He then decided that it was not the right location, but it was in fact used in the film during the final scene (as shown below).

Gloucester Harbor

Bob and the Gloucester Fisherman’s Wives Memorial

The closing scene of Captains Courageous

Me with the same statue today

From Gloucester, Bob and I took our jaunt back into Boston, where we had first started our journey two weeks earlier. Miraculously we found a parking spot right by the Samuel Adams brewery, and we caught the 2pm tour of the facility. The tour itself was basically non-existent. It was crowded, noisy, and we basically got to stand in the big room with the vats and pumps for 15 minutes before being herded into the sampling room.

Ready for our tour, Mr. Adams

Taking a rest on several (empty) cases of Samuel Adams

Uncle Sam wants me

Beer vats. The pretty much was the tour.

Mind you I’m not complaining because the tour is free, and you get a free Samuel Adams glass and three pitchers of three different kinds of beer are passed around. I got to drink mine and most of Bob’s. The free-ness of it all makes it a very popular tourist trap, but don’t expect to see or learn much about beer brewing here. I stopped by the gift shop to get a magnet and accidentally charge it to my Health Savings Account, and then we took a little after 3pm.

Cheers…to free beers

Drinking pals in Boston

With about four hours to go before baseball game that night, Bob and I considered trying to hit another restaurant from Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives – but in the end decided to just find a good parking space near Fenway, preferably one where our car wouldn’t be wedged in and inaccessible. First Bob dropped me off to try and find us tickets for the game. It appeared the ticket sales has closed and someone told me that the game was sold out, so I found a scalper, who strangely told me that there was another ticket window open, so I just got us seats at normal price. Then I Bob picked me up and  we found a decent place and parked.

We stopped in at a little eatery known as Happy’s Bar & Kitchen to kill some time and Bob treated us to some fried pickles, homemade potato chips, and deviled egg appetizers. We hung out here for about 45 minutes and then walked to an Uno’s restaurant right by Fenway for some burgers for dinner. It was one of the only chain restaurants we frequented on the trip, but it was pretty good amidst the rowdy crowd.

We walked over to Fenway around 6pm and got in and found our seats in the handicap area, which proved to be pretty good ones along the third base line not far from home plate. The game started at 7:10.

Back at Fenway Park

Our swell seats

The Boston Red Sox were taking on the Chicago White Sox, and it was a relatively enjoyable game, despite the socially challenged teenager sitting not far from us who insisted on obnoxiously yelling through the entire game. It didn’t interfere with my enjoyment of the Fenway hotdog though. Bob and I ended up leaving before the top of the 7th inning, with Boston losing 7-2. They would rally a bit with a three-run homer, but would still eventually lose 7-5.

Another stadium hot dog, yes sir

Dusk at Fenway

By the time we walked back to the parking garage and got out of there, it was nearing 10pm, and we had a 50-mile drive ahead of us. We called and booked a room in Merrimack, New Hampshire at the Comfort Inn. This would bring us just ten miles from our final destination in Manchester for the Sons of the Desert convention.

However, there was just one more brief stop before officially considered the road trip over. We got up early on Wednesday morning, had a nice bacon and egg breakfast (which was a fabulous way to start the day) and then headed over to the Thornton Graveyard just about five minutes away from our motel.

Here is buried Matthew Thornton, a signer of the Declaration of Independence as a representative of New Hampshire who lived from 1714-1803. His grave was an easy one to find, which stands to reason since the cemetery was named after him. Our quest completed quietly.

Our final stop of the road trip

Declaration of Independence signer Matthew Thornton

We then made the trek over to the Radisson in Manchester. The road trip had ended, but there was still more to the vacation: a whole different animal that would be filled with good old-fashioned fun and frolics with those Sons of the Desert.

This concludes the road trip portion of the New England trip. Return to the beginning here…

Continue on to the convention here…

Bypass the convention and continue with 2012 here…

This entry was posted on Monday, December 30th, 2013 at 6:18 am and is filed under 2010's - Early, Famous Graves, Historical Locations, Television, Vacations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.