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Published: November 24th 2006
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Ian and I had been wanting to visit Salem, MA for a couple of years now and we finally planned a date to do so. We brought Casey and Jon along with us. Salem is an interesting town because in many ways it is a typical New England town, but there is so much history here that has made it famous in history books, literature and folk-lore. It was the location of the infamous witchtrials of 1692 and this claim to fame makes the town basically turn into a Halloween spectacular for the entire month of October!
It is accessible from the T in Boston and there are frequent bus tours that go, but we decided to drive from as we wanted to be on our own time table. And the kids wanted to be back at college later that night. It was a little under three hour drive, not bad at all. We stopped along the way for snacks and drinks and the Jon and Casey were able to sleep most of the way, Ian working on his laptop until the battery died.
Downdown Salem, was only about 6 miles from the turnpike exit that we took. It
was bumper to bumper traffic the whole time, but very easy to navigate. It wasn't long before we entered a world of Halloween decorations! We had printed mapquest directions to a specific parking garage, but due to a slightly later start than we had anticipated, town was already slamming when we arrived, so we had to drive another 20 minutes to find parking. No worries.
The old buildings, churches, burial grounds were an interesting mix with the dressed up witches walking around, and disney feel that parts of the town have. Our first stop was Frankenstein's Laboratory, a haunted house in the same building as the Salem Wax Museum. It was scary as far as the fact that there were plenty of snarling people hiding just waiting to jump out at you and make you scream - and the fact that it was so intensely dark and foggy that it was impossible to see. If Ian didn't have his dark-vision animal instinct eyes, I probably would have frozen solid in my tracks because I couldn't see a thing! Casey and Jon were following close behind us. The only bad thing was that there wasn't much of a "laboratory" set
up. We were hoping for more of a themed haunted house, not just smoke and fog. Still fun, however.
We worked up an appetite and went a block over to the Salem Beer Works, a bar and grill - it was busy, but we only had to wait 10 minutes or so - on the way out, however, the line was snaking out the door. We were seated near the back - in kind of the game section with a few arcade games and pool tables. The food was great! I tried a Salem Pumpkin Ale and had a sandwich called The Dreaded Green Monster. Not sure why it was "dreaded" but it was grilled chicken with pesto in a baguette, with a red pepper sauce and fries. Awesome! Ian tried a darker beer and a burger. Casey had a veggie burger and Jon had a pizza and generously shared a chips and salsa appetizer with all of us!
We backtracked behind the Wax Musuem, taking some photos along the way and went to the Old Burial Ground - there was a map showing where some of the famous historical people had been buried. The graves were so
old - 1600's and 1700's. It was kind of touching to think about all of the history there - if you could get over the loud ghostbuster theme song playing a couple of blocks over.
We walked through the city a bit and headed to the Salem Witch Museum, which was a very cool building. We waited in line for several minutes thinking it was a regular musuem that you could wander around the exhibits, but it turned out to be a show and the next performance wasn't until 4. We had wanted to be on the road by then to get the kids time to drive back to Orono - so we didn't end up going in...disapointingly.
We wandering back through the streets, saw a very old church - the Church of Immaculate Conception, and went down to the wharf. There was an old replica boat in the harbor that was kind of creepy to think of the days of old. We went into a Witch store, thinking it was a souvenir shop, but it seemed to be more of a shop FOR witches, selling materials for potions and candles with specific purposes. Interesting and I
could have spent more time there, but it was crowded so we moved on.
I can't wait to go back next year with Ian to experience different things. I want to stay overnight at the beautiful, brick Hawthorne Hotel downtown; definitely catch the show at the Witch Museum; take one of the haunted evening walking tours; and visit the House of the Seven Gables.
All in all an excellent day trip and I can't wait to go back with a little more time!
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