May 16

Salem

[Our last day of the trip before heading home.  And uffda, wouldn’t you know – a beautiful day on tap for the Boston area.]

[We decided to take advantage of the weather and just walk to and around Salem’s waterfront before our afternoon flights.]

[Lotsa history around here, ya know.]

[This looks like some neat stuff.]

[Is this Filene’s basement?]

[Hmmm, nothing in my size?]

[The tea looks dated.]

[I don’t know how they could have missed beautiful Lake Darling?]

[Rose saw “Scale House” and thought it was just for Dick and me?]

[Pretty clever, those colonials.]

[This is obviously where one goes to learn about the local “customs.”]

[Two from the Super – that lucky guy is once again surrounded by women of grace, elegance, and beauty . . . ]

[And a sign of beauty, if not grace or elegance.]

[Just to show the sign was designed to stand all by itself, absent human support.]

[From the Super, the large white building is where hundreds of NSA bureaucrats continually monitor what I publish in the blog.]

[The Amazon of their day.]

[Where we are (or were).]

[I don’t now if the corner had issues, but they saw fit to erect a “No Kissing” sign?]

[From the Super, Reetz just diggin’ the scene.]

[Back to me, I don’t think it was open?]

[The Super just loves animals . . . ]

[So she took this shot of her new friend.]

[I’m always charmed by anything that’s “Ye Olde.”]

[Did you notice it’s America’s oldest candy company?  No stopping here either because we were in hot pursuit of . . . ]

[Yup, after Anne of Green Gables, we should have called this the Gables Trip.]

[The Super shot this  . . . The House of the Seven Gables (also known as the Turner House or Turner-Ingersoll Mansion), made famous by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel “The House of Seven Gables” (1851), is a 1668 colonial mansion in Salem, named for its gables. The house is now a non-profit museum, with an admission fee charged for tours, as well as an active settlement house with programs for children. It was built for Captain John Turner and stayed with the family for three generations. (Wikipedia)]

[The house and duck sculpture overlook Salem Harbor.]

[Rosie and Reetz overlook me.]

[This is a tree.  I love big ole trees.  Yes, you could call me a tree hugger.  Especially such as this classic American elm.]

[Rosie’s looking for . . . anybody?]

[Of course, we always have to take this shot when here!]

[Two from the Super.  I mutinied and overthrew Captain Reetz.]

[And then flew solo.]

[Cleopatra’s Barge, as noted on the signage.]

[Looks like what we’d like to downsize to.]

[Avast, mateys!]

[Hmmm, no gables here?]

[There’s some, as Rosie looks for her flock again.]

[Three from the Super – all’s well!]

[Hats off to gables!]

[And good-bye to the ducks.  Duck conversation, “Dear, why did you park here?”]

[Yes, that’s what it says . . . ]

[Two from the Super, a modest proposal . . . ]

[The Super wanted her photo with Nathaniel . . . ]

[Me too!]

[“Stickwork,” the first major outdoor sculptural commission by the Peabody Essex Museum.  At the corner of Hawthorne Boulevard and Essex Street in downtown Salem, artist Patrick Dougherty and a handful of others are weaving bundles of branches into a small village of fanciful two-story structures, clustered around a large locust tree.  (bostonglobe,com)]

[Now we’re heading back across the square to the McMullen’s, avoiding school kids on a field trip.]

[Dick and Reetz take 5 before we head to the airport.]

[It was a Tuesday, nice weather, and before rush hour – Dick said we made it to Logan in an all-time record time from Salem!]

[Passing downtown Boston along the way . . . ]

[This is all we saw of the city on this trip.]

[Despite the good weather, we were delayed almost 2 hours leaving Boston.  Apparently bad weather elsewhere caused the delay.  The pilot said we would make up most of the lost time, but about an hour from the Cities he said we would have to circle over Duluth because of bad storm in Minneapolis.  That slowed us just enough that the Super and I missed our scheduled shuttle to Alex.  The shuttle people would have waited, they said, but the flight board showed our plane had landed at its scheduled time. The arrival time had never been changed from that posted before we left Boston. Needless to say, the Super let the airline know about it.  They later apologized and said they would make the necessary corrections . . . and promised us two free Nut Goodies on our next flight!]

[We caught the next shuttle an hour later.  The Super’s first stop on the way home was Culver’s.  Thus endth this trip.]

Life’s short. Eat dessert first, work less and vacation MORE!!  ~  Lea Mishell

Up Next:  We’re moving on . . .