Our family tries to spend time doing family history twice a month. One of the things that we discovered is that Andrew's side of the family is related to a woman that was hung in the Salem Witch Trials. Actually, we originally found that we were related to one named Alice Parker. But then sources pointed to us NOT being related to her anymore. But we really are related to another one, Susannah North Martin. We wanted to stop by Salem and see the memorials to her and the others who were killed during that hysteria.
I'm glad we went. However, I did NOT realize what a destination that place is for the whole month of October. Oops! If you're into creepy, spooky, Halloween things, this is the place for you! If you don't love crowds or scary stuff, DON'T GO THERE IN OCTOBER! Lesson learned for next time.
Andrew flew into Boston.
We picked him up and braved the crowds!
There are a couple different monuments there.
This was the smaller one,
Proctor's Ledge Memorial.
This is where they believe the hangings took place.
This is the larger, busier memorial, near downtown Salem.
Susannah's memorial with her 9th great-grandson and
10th great-granddaughter.
We left flowers for her.
Also got to see Alice Parker's memorial, who we thought
we were related to, but now aren't so sure.
Since I'm the one that does all the vacation planning,
I completely avoided all the creepy/scary spots.
Maybe Caroline and Andrew would've liked some of them?
Too bad. :)
We did have fun exploring the other parts of Salem.
They have a cute baby lighthouse.
A little glimpse of the crowds.
This sounded fun, but we didn't actually
stop there--the Ministry of Donuts.
Cool old architecture.
We had some rain showers, which was a
great excuse to go play in the arcade for a bit.
Andrew ruled the pole position leaderboard.
I spent some quality time on Tetris.
Some of the shops had interesting finds!
Loved this old-school nintendo controller sign.
Among the throngs of Halloween-tourists
It really is a cute town.
I wish I had gone at a different time of year.
The Witch Museum--
we didn't go.
More elaborate store windows
This selection of bumper magnets
was HILARIOUS. I wanted to buy several.
My favorite: Honk if you love noise pollution!
Even the fire department gets
into the Halloween spirit. Ha!
We stayed in a super cute Airbnb.
It was decorated for Halloween.
This was the front door.
Isn't it cute??
It was an old house.
I loved these floors.
Our front porch.
The outside.
Bear and I love to get this fancy bread when we're
on vacation. We got TWO loaves this time. Yum!!!
I went birding at a nearby wildlife sanctuary.
No cool birds, but some cool mushrooms.
And pretty landscaping.
If you look closely, you can see Boston across the harbor.
This is an example of the kind of decor
we would see as we drove around town.
They go all out!
On the way out of town,
we made one last stop.
Susanna didn't actually live in Salem,
she lived in a neighboring town, Amesbury.
This is a monument near where her
house would have been.
We had a good time at Salem and Caroline and I would happily go back. Grateful we could honor her memory and see where she lived and died.
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