It was a good choice. The sun was shining, the weather cold and brisk and the wind was blowing heavily (making it seem even colder). Our first stop was Lynn, a very nice little community with a beautiful seashore. The sand is hard packed and birds are walking around looking for food, impervious to the frigid water or blowing wind. The water was glistening, but BROWN. It was kind of like an ocean of crisp iced tea breaking in waves and flowing up onto the shore.
All along the beaches are clams. Nobody ate them and threw the shells, they’re just there! Its hard to believe that the ocean here is so abundant with shellfish, like clams and lobster, but it is. I guess those critters really like it cold.
As we continued along the coast we passed through a number of small communities that were stunningly beautiful.
Manicured tiny little doll house looking homes to giant estates. We passed one whose gate was bigger than our home. Huge, beautiful trees in fall colors and a driveway winding up to the horizon, you couldn’t even see the house it was so far away in the forest. I thought…. There are folks with money and then there is THIS kind of money. That town was Gloucester. The guidebook told us that when the railroad was built to Gloucester (pronounced Gloster) many rich industrialists built huge mansions and homes at the end of the rail line. We visited the old railroad station, which has been turned into a store. They preserved two of the benches that were in the original rail station. THEY HAD SEPARATE SEATING FOR DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICAN. Note the democratic bench is on the left!
We also drove through Salem, famous for the witch trials. There was a HUGE crowd in Salem and bumper to bumper traffic. Halloween is the biggest holiday EVER around there. There were kids sporting giant witch hats, and motorcycle clubs. Pedestrians along a mall that crossed the street we were traversing were having a jolly old get ready for spook night.
Halloween in this part of the country is HUGE. Pumpkins EVERYWHERE. They even have pumpkin flavored coffee. We came across a graveyard with the most macabre display for Halloween (truly scary to adults and children alike) decoration I’ve ever seen. I would be concerned if I was the family around which these ghosts are dancing.
Lobster was on the menu again for Dinner. Larry the lobster’s great grand lobster was consumed. For those of you not old enough to remember, the original cast of Saturday night live had a national vote to save the life of Larry the Lobster, which they presented like a telethon.
At the end of the show, citing a lack of concern for crustacean life, they boiled Larry alive on live TV.
Monday morning, when traffic was heading in the opposite direction, we went to Cape Cod. It was interesting but not as nice as the north shore on Sunday.
Two points need to be made. First… I now know why Turkey was served at the first thanksgiving. Wild Turkeys are EVERYWHERE. I was in the seven eleven and one was shopping on the next Aisle (click on the arrow below to play the movie)
Secondly, I have never seen so many donut shops in one place in my life. Some of them are right across the street from each other. We read that there are slightly more than 6,000 Dunkin Donut shops in the country. They were founded here in Boston AND over 2,000 of them are in the Boston metro area – THAT, by the way is not an exaggeration, those figures came right out of our tour book. They went out of business in San Antonio, we prefer to get our fat from Mexican food, but you should see them line up here for donuts and muffins. The lines are out the door.
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