Mister and I are facing the fact that we are getting old so we are heading to New England to become "leaf peepers". Our plan is to spend our anniversary amid the glorious beauty that nature provides during the Fall in the Northeast. I honestly don't think I have been more excited for a trip in a very long time. It is all I talked about for the past month. This is our first flight on jetBlue. We arrive at DFW for the early flight only to miss it by one seat. Drat. We have seats on the next flight so we get to hang around the airport for several hours. I take advantage and finish our itinerary while Mister settles into one of the comfy chairs and sleeps for awhile. Soon we are on our way to Boston, Sooooo excited. We arrive at Logan and walk outside the terminal to grab the bus headed towards Salem.
The trip does not take very long and there is a bus stop right next to the Salem Waterfront Hotel. We walk past band members dressed in Halloween costumes and enter the warm and cozy lobby with it's fireplace and hot apple cider. Yay! What a great start. The front desk clerk tells us the Grand Parade starting the Halloween season in Salem is tonight. With their history of witches and all, this city plays up Halloween big time. She also tells us that there is a Farmers Market going on down at Derby Square so we drop our bags in the room and hurry off in that direction, hoping to catch a bit of the market before it closes. It is late and people are rushing about preparing for the parade so many of the stalls have already been taken down. We do spot a few and I am able to buy a couple of hard rolls to snack on while we are walking around. 
As we walk back towards the parade route, we pass many shops, all catering to the "witch" business here - very touristy. I peek into the doorway of a bookstore and am absolutely flabbergasted. The store is stacked to the ceiling with books. I go in and giggle when I see that even the clerk at the counter has to reach through a small space between stacks of books to take your money.
We continue on our way and find a spot on a street corner behind a barricade. We pass the time visiting with other people and laughing at children all decked out in their costumes and bursting with excitement. It is a very community-oriented parade and it seems that everyone is taking part in the parade. Waves and shouts of hellos are all around and the atmosphere is very festive indeed.
As the parade winds down, we walk back to the town square looking for a cafe that I had read about prior to the trip. Ah, there it is, just past the Bewitched statue - Samantha Stevens in all her glory sitting on a broom in the center of a quarter moon. I love it. Into the Gulu-Gulu Cafe we go, grab a couple of spots at the bar and order a pumpkin ale that is being served from a real hollowed out pumpkin, fun. For dinner, I get out of my comfort zone a little and order JackMax n' Cheese, made with goat cheese, cheddar, and roasted red peppers. It is yummy. Mister has a Savory Crepe and is equally happy with his dinner.We have been up for quite awhile and want to explore Salem tomorrow morning bright and early so we walk back to the hotel and settle in for the night. Great first day.
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It is a beautiful morning so let's go. How can we treat our eyes and taste buds today? I wonder if that isn't a question we should ask ourselves each day. Leaving our bags at the desk, we are off on foot for today's adventure. We start out just down the street seeing the sailing ship "Friendship" in the harbor.
I wander into a little cul-de-sac filled with cute little stores and find a wand store that just cracks me up. I almost want one.
Okay, time for a small breakfast -- around the corner is Jaho Coffee Shop. A couple of drinks and a sweet treat later, we are back on the street heading along the harbor.
The Halloween decorations are evident everywhere and many people go all out.
At the end of the street, we come to the House of Seven Gables with it's interesting architecture and history. I have to admit that I have never read the book by Nathaniel Hawthorne and will be ordering it for my Kindle when I return home.
I wander down an alley near the house and spot a nice view of the Derby Wharf Lighthouse -- woohoo. Lighthouses and covered bridges are high on my list of things to see while on this trip. This one is from 1871, 25 feet high and made of brick.
We head back into town and locate the Witch Trials Memorial and the Charter Street Cemetery. I love old cemeteries and always try to stop when I spot them on trips. The Memorial touched my heart in its simplicity and profound statement. Each "witch" has her own stone ledge, where people leave flowers and other offerings.
We walked through the cemetery for awhile and are always fascinated by the names we spot and dates that people were born and died. Mister and I were always under the impression that lives were short in the previous centuries, but the tombstones tell a different story up in New England. During the 1800's, lifespans were actually quite long and that is most interesting to us. This tombstone, though, is contrary to that.
As we continue up and down the streets, we pass the Nathaniel Hawthorne statue and are both stopped in our tracks by the beauty of the tree behind it and the light upon it. This is why we are taking this trip. The color! So beautiful.
Just up the road is the Salem Witch Museum, our next stop. The story of the Salem Witch Trials is presented accurately and in such a way as to let us know how easily people are manipulated. It didn't take much to create the witch panic and the ensuing mess. I enjoyed the presentation and came away with a better understanding of human nature and our ability to understand those different from ourselves.
Our tummy's are getting rumbly and so we are off in search of food. We stop at Cafe Polonia - a little Polish shop in Lappin Park (on the same square as Gulu-Gulu). I order the Kielbasa sandwich and ask the waitress to hold the potato salad since I wasn't that hungry. Mister orders the stuffed cabbage rolls. We sit and visit and soon are presented with our lunch. OMG! Seriously? The waitress has brought not only what we ordered, but additional coleslaw AND a large amount of the potato salad AND the biggest kielbasa sandwich I have ever seen. She says the owner doesn't want anyone to go away hungry. At this point I am so shocked that I don't even say anything and I know she thinks I am rude. I eat 1/3 of the sandwich (Mister eats another 1/3) and some of my fries. When she returns I try and explain to her that we hate to waste food and she agrees the servings are too big. The whole thing was delicious, but insane.
Now to walk off all those calories, oh my. Next stop is the First Church of Salem and its beautiful gardens. There are butterflies in abundance here and I am in wonder of it all. The colorful flowers are brilliant in the sunlight and I spend quite a bit of time trying to get an awesome picture or two. I am not as experienced with my camera and so this can be frustrating to me but I think a few of them came out nicely.
We follow an architectural walking map that we got at the Visitors' Center and wander through the old neighborhoods and houses as we make a large circle back to the hotel. We collect our bags and walk to the pier where we will take the ferry back into Boston. It is a short walk and our bags hop and skip over the cobblestone sidewalks causing me to walk in the road with mine. Once the tickets are purchased, we board the ferry and settle in for the 45 minute voyage. Mister wanders around the boat taking pictures of the harbor and the skyline of Boston and then returns to share a soda with me.
When we reach the landing, we walk to the subway and zoom to our stop, the Boston Common Hotel. Checking in - we drop our bags off and admire the view from our window. I do so love Boston. As we are getting ready to leave the room, we hear a key and the door opens with someone else trying to check into our room. Nice. We all laugh and they head back down to the desk.
We head for Newberry Street and do some window shopping along the way. We spot a window full of Singer sewing machines -- oh my -- I would love one of these.
This area of town is one of my favorites and we walk up and down the streets until we find The Cafeteria, a nice little dinner spot where we sit outside on the street patio. A nice steak for me, fish dinner for Mister, and a jar of sangria later we walk back to the hotel only to discover that the keys don't work. I slink to the floor outside the hotel room and wait for Mister to go get them fixed. Once we are in the room, another sure sign of age -- we fall in a heap and crash.
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