Day 19.238: Home

We have made it home safely. We stopped on the way for another dose of nature but that can wait for another day. Here are some more random photos from our trip. 

The lovely hotel we stayed in

The bar - after hours

Another angle

A shack in Rockport

A famous shack in Rockport

Day 19.237: Hammond Castle

This morning, we visited Hammond Castle Museum. The “castle” was built in the 1920’s for John Hays Hammond Jr. an eccentric inventor. The museum serves to fulfill his wish that the house become a public museum full of his collection of artifacts and reproductions from around the world and as a museum about his life and work as a prolific inventor known as “the father of remote control”. 

Here are a few pictures:

After lunch in Manchester by the Sea, we returned to spend a little more time at Halibut Point State Park in the afternoon. 

This evening we returned to Gloucester for dinner by the harbor. The town is buzzing with the annual Schooner Festival which made for a lovely evening. 

Day 19.236: Anniversary; witch?

This morning we woke (as expected) to rain. It also rained 32 years ago in Oxford on the day of our wedding. Today's rain didn't stop us having breakfast on the (covered) deck of the hotel overlooking the sea.

After that, we drove to Salem where we visited the excellent Peabody Essex Museum. The museum neither focuses on, nor avoids the issue of the witch trials that made the town (and surrounding area) famous. The specific exhibit is excellent in balancing the interest in the events with the real people who were so terribly treated.

The Salem Witch Trials: I guess if you're willing to convict people for having skin blemishes or because of someone's report of their dreams or visions, you can basically target people who are grumpy, foreign, don't attend church or whatever else you don't like. 

We were surprised to find that nearly a quarter of those accused and convicted were men

Not an exhibit as such - just a staircase.

I'll save talk of the other exhibits we visited for another day.

By the time we left there, the rain had stopped, so we explored a small preserve in Marblehead Neck (Mass. Audubon) and a nearby public park with a lighthouse and views out to sea before returning to Rockport for an anniversary dinner.

Marblehead Neck Wildlife Sanctuary - we saw a northern waterthrush here, but it evaded my camera 

Marblehead Light

Double-crested cormorant

I briefly saw an American oystercatcher on this rock along with the gulls and cormorants. Again, no photographic evidence was obtained.

Day 19.235: Cape Ann

Today took us to Halibut Point State Park where we discovered about quarrying of Cape Ann granite and discovered that “halibut” in its name is likely a corruption of “haul about” rather than a fish reference. Here are some photos from there:

The quarry where the granite came from. It was mined mostly by hand, then transported by sea

On the coast path

Granite art

More granite near where it would have been loaded onto ships

The park has some delightfully wordy signs

This military tower has been turned into a visitor center

You can climb the tower

The quarry which was abruptly closed down in 1930 and allowed to naturally fill with water

Coming back down

We then had lunch in Gloucester and then went on to hike in Ravenswood Park where there are lots of trees and glacial erratics. 

Scenic viewpoint just about allowed us to see Eastern Point Lighthouse

Woods

Boardwalk

Then we ended the day back in Rockport with a bite to eat and a drink at The Hideaway. 

We saw some interesting nature including birds but all that can wait for another day!

Day 19.234: Rockport, MA

After I got home from work, Exile #2 and I left Exile #3 home alone for a few days to explore Cape Ann about 60 miles down the coast as the crow flies (more like 100 miles by road). This evening, while waiting for a table for dinner, we walked around Rockport. This is some of what we saw:

We look forward to exploring some more tomorrow.