Witch History

We were both up before the alarm after having tossed and turned throughout the night. Not sure why neither one of us slept the greatest, but we both woke up feeling tired. I think it’s because I was on the opposite side of the bed that I normally sleep on so Tom could have access to the nightstand for his CPAP. In the morning, we only saw one other person. I don’t think it was the owner, but perhaps it was someone that lived upstairs, or maybe it was the owner and we’ll never know. We got on the road around 8:30 and headed to Salem.

Other than making loose plans on where to stop I didn’t really plan out our days or what to do once we got to the cities I planned on stopping in, so Tom Googled what to do in Salem on our way there. He found that most things didn’t open until 10:00 and we were scheduled to get there about 9:20. We headed for the Salem Witch Trials Memorial since that said it opened at 9:00. After turning down a road that I really shouldn’t have, I made a very tight Y turn in a parking lot and got myself out of there and found some metered street parking (needed to install an app and paid $6 for four hours).

We made our way to the memorial and found it to be quite unimpressive. The one thing that did stand out to us was the one of the people was killed by being pressed to death. We learned later that he was over 80 years old and he was put in a shallow grave with a board put over him and then they slowly added boulders on top. It took 2 days before he passed. Sounds like a terrible way to go but he wouldn’t admit any guilt to avoid them taking his considerable amount of land. After he died they found he had given the land to his two son-in-laws.

It was 9:50 so we wondered over to the New England Pirate Museum that opened at 10:00. They were open for us to buy our ticket and we were told that we could save some money if we were also going to go to the Witch History Museum and Witch Dungeon Museum. Tom had saved all of these as points of interest when he did his Google search so we bought the combo ticket. A guided tour at each of the museums took 30 minutes and started on the half hour. All three museums were interesting but it really was the tour guides giving the stories and facts that made it so. I didn’t really know much about the Salem Witch trials before today, but now I have a much better understanding. The quirkiest thing about all three museums were the terrible wax figures that were used. They were so bad it made it almost funny.

We got done with the last museum at 12:30 and walked to the Lobster Shanty. I had read about this restaurant in a blog post while planning our trip and thought it sounded good. It had also been featured on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. Tom and I shared a Lobster Roll with a side of brussel sprouts. For the price of the sandwich it was not as big as I would have expected. We walked out feeling it was more of a snack then a meal, and were unimpressed. It wasn’t terrible by any means, but it was also not amazing. The brussels sprouts were good, but burping them later in the day after drinking a soda was not so enjoyable. They might join the ranks of lobster bisque for me even though I really like them.

We got back to our car with a minute to spare on the meter and plugged the address to our next Bed and Breakfast in Portland, ME into the GPS, making sure to hit the avoid tolls option. I had wanted to take US Route 1 anyway. The route did take us on the freeway for a short way which I didn’t mind because we then were able to get off at the New Hampshire Welcome rest stop where I was able to score 2 quick geocaches and a nice fall picture. If it’s past peak colors, it’s hard to tell. So far I have been impressed with all the color we are seeing. The leaves seem brighter and more colorful then at home.

Driving Route 1 didn’t lend to anything spectacular and after awhile I was ready to get back on the freeway so we could just get to our destination faster. As soon as I rounded the corner to get on the freeway I saw the toll booth. Crap! Well lucky for me there was a pay by cash lane so we paid our $1.50 and made our way until we got off and had another cash lane to pay another $1. We found the Bed and Breakfast with no issues and lugged our stuff up the skinny spiral stairs to the third floor (www.percyinn.com). We took a break from the day and I started writing the blog and Tom napped before we headed back out.

One of the reasons I picked the Bed and Breakfast was so we could walk all over downtown. We opened the front door to start walking to discover it was raining. What a bummer! So I ran back upstairs to grab our car key to get our rain coats out of the car. We headed down the street walking by many restaurants. We were originally planning on walking all the way to the end, but since it was raining we decided to stop at a restaurant called Nosh (https://www.noshkitchenbar.com/). Here we had a really good burger and fries. I was quite satisfied with the meal. We walked back to the B&B in the rain and settled back in. It was only 8:00, but that gave me plenty of time to finish the blog and get to bed. I’m really hoping to get a better nights sleep tonight, and I think I will since I will be on the correct side of the bed.

Stats of the Day

Geocaches Found: 2
Tolls Paid By Cash: 2
Tolls Needing IPass: 0
Steps Walked: 8,402 (how did we not even get to 10,000?!)