Summoned By The East - Day Five

Day five brought with it some more sight seeing. Brett was finished with work at noon, so I lounged around the hotel for a long time and then went to another museum to pass the time. This museum didn't allow pictures, but it was free to get into so I went. I saw muskets, and more muskets, and a LOT of Masonic items. There were also several items of clothing, bicycles, etc from older eras of US times.

Around 1pm we took Rich, Brett's co-worker from the UK to the airport. It didn't take long to get there and we still had several hours of daylight so we headed back to Salem to show Brett some of the sites there. He wanted to go to a store front that he had seen in some of my other pictures and take pictures with us in them. We walked the cemetery again, and went and saw Samantha, only this time I didn't take a picture of her.



When we were finished there, we traveled back to Concord, MA to see North Bridge, another point where the British army met up with the local Militia men. We were about 10 minutes late and the visitor's center was closed, but we were able to walk the grounds and imagine what it must have been like on that day.

Imagine, if you will, looking out your window and seeing soldiers march across your lawn. That is just what the owners of this house did. How terrifying.

I am truly fascinated by history and just wish I had a time machine so I could go back in time and witness some of these events. I'm sure there was a lot of fear and anxiety over all of this, just like we have fear and anxiety during war time today.

I have come home wanting to make more memories and have different parts of our days more special, especially dinner time. They didn't have the things we have today and all of their serving dishes served the one purpose. I love the thought of having serving dishes and nice dinner plates. I will phase those in over time around here and hopefully make dinner time a special event, rather than just dinner.

Summoned By The East - Day Four - Rain

Day three was full of non-stop drizzling, freezing rain. I spent most of the day in the hotel room watching the rain fall. I don't suppose I have ever experienced rain like it rained here. It was a little more than a sprinkle, but not a down pour. We tend to get either/or where we come from.

The view from my hotel room was no longer a beautiful skyline of trees. It was now a dark, cloudy, dreary day.

We were actually staying in Lexington, MA and the Minute Man National Park was only about a mile away from where our hotel was. I had decided that I would go there as they had a presentation about the Battle at Lexington and Concord.

Unfortunately for Brett, everything closed early so he missed all of the festivities.

When I arrived, there were 4 school buses. I couldn't believe there were that many actually with the weather that we were having. I didn't let that deter me though. I love kids and I didn't mind being around them. There were actually MANY, MANY 8th graders. I'm so glad I no longer have to be in that stage of my life, and for the first time on our trip, I was the minority.

The park ranger kept telling me that I could wait until the kids were gone to watch the video presentation. I think he was bothered more by the kids than I was. They were just normal teenagers, and like there are in all areas, some were smart mouths.

Here I am in front of a replica of North Church where the "One if by land, two if by sea" lanterns were. I took a picture of it and a man told me I needed to be in the picture so he had me stand there. What a nice guy...

Creativity of a 10-year old boy

I am amazed at Ryan's creativity. He was tasked with the assignment to write a story about a monster. I would like to share his monster, and story with the world. I have typed it exactly how he typed it. Hopefully he is taught proper grammar in the near future, but I still love it.

I kind of can't wait for Sydney to start writing stories as well. I say kind of because writing this stuff means that she is growing up, and quite frankly, I'm not even remotely ready for that!

Anyway, without further adieu, meet...

CLAWS



Everyone calls me Claws. I can see why because I have massive sharp claws. My real name is Gloobop, what kind of a monster name is that? So anyways, just call me Claws. I have seven fingers on each hand. Isn't it awesome! On my fingers are huge claws to protect myself. I have five eyes. (Two on my head three on my stomach.) My nose is like a nose on a big literally, I have a pig nose on my stomach; also I have very sharp teeth. I am '6ft.1' and 3 ft 1 in wide. I have different skin color when I am sad, mad, happy, or excited.

I smell like a garbage dump. I live in Tokyo, Japan and there is not a lot of garbage there. True my definition is different from yours. My definition is lollipops and posters of unicorns oh and Barbie's. My best hiding spot when people come around is a tar pit. You think it hurts? It feels like a hot tub to me. Nice and warm. I sleep and live in a abandoned restaurant. I always sleep under the bed of the people who used to live here. My house has posters everywhere and checkerboard floors. They have an old ice-cream machine yum.

The ice cream has mashed up bugs meat and soda cans mashed into a smooth paste. I always find the bugs for the paste in the corner because there are always spiders there. Every once and a while I hit the jackpot and find a Japanese beetle! I also eat my toe cheese every once in a while. But out of all of those foods my favorite is PICKLES!!!!!! I only get them any time my friend comes over. He is a shape shifter so I have him turn into a jar of mayonnaise grab the jar of pickles and run outside turn into a maverick (the fastest car in the world) and come over and turn into his regular monster state. I know it is complicated but it's worth it.

Some of my favorite things to do are to eat sleep and rave races with my friends. The shape shifter always turns in to me but I still always win. Every once and a while my friend steals a game station to play with us on. So that's my life.

Summoned By The East - Day Three - Plymouth, MA

Did you ever want to be at Plymouth Rock for Thanksgiving? I know as a kid, I did -- dressing up all pilgrim like, and eating good food. I'm pretty sure the best spot in the world to do that would be in Plymouth, MA, but I won't be there at Thanksgiving, so I'll have to settle for the mountains.

We were only an hour away from Plymouth. Again, I was able to get there without incident. One of the best parts of the day was when Sydney called me because she missed me. I loved that part.

I wanted to see Plymouth Rock. I pictured this amazing rock - big and anchor-like. As you can see, my imagination was FAR off on this one. Much of the rock is now underground, but it still isn't as big as I had once pictured it.



I got to see a replica of the Mayflower. I didn't spend the money to actually go inside it, but I took pictures, which were enough for me.


Here is one of the original homes built in the 1620's. I was fascinated by the S's on the sides of these buildings. I thought that maybe they meant South, however if that is what they meant, they accidentally put them on the North sides of some buildings. So, I'm not really sure what the 'S' stands for.



Check out the trunk of this tree. I couldn't stand back far enough to get a picture of the top of it, so the trunk will have to do. It just reminds me of something that has truly weathered the storms of life. I love it!



Oh, and there it is again...the H-ah-bor. Only this is Plymouth Harbor, in case you didn't know. Too bad you can't just pack this thing up and bring it back on the plane.



The cemetery here was wonderful. Very peaceful, and very sacred. There are many prominent people buried here. Prominent for the day anyway. I know I will never have a plaque such as these that mark my grave, but I realized again while standing on this hallowed ground, a lesson which has come to me before. Nothing material in this life goes with you. It just doesn't.





This view of the harbor is from Burial Hill.

Breathtaking.


Here is the first church that was built. What a magnificent building. I was constantly amazed a the enormity and craftsmanship of these buildings. These people were seeking religious freedom. How wonderful.



I loved the glass in this window. This home is a home belonged to someone who actually came over on the Mayflower. I was unable to view it because I missed the season that it is open. The home is 'leaning', and amazing that it is even still standing. It was built in the 1620's I think.


This statue is of a man by the name of Massasoit. He was a friend to the settlers

Summoned By The East - Day Two, Salem

I remember being fascinated by the story of the Salem Witch Trials when I was a kid. Never in a million years did I ever think that I might possibly be able to walk the grounds of this very interesting town.

But, as luck would have it, we were only 30 minutes away so on day two of our trip, I ventured out alone to Salem, MA.

I made it there without incident. I went straight to the Salem Witch Museum, and lucky me, I arrived two days after the main season ended for many attractions, but just in time to have a personal tour of the museum. I watched a 20-30 minute presentation of the hysteria of the days back in 1692. What a heartbreaking story. -- Girls being accused of possessing others through the devil and being hanged for it. --Men also being tried and convicted and either hanged, or pressed to death with heavy boulders.





It was said that if you could recite the Lord's prayer without mistake that you were free. A man with a noose around his neck did just that and he was accused of having Satan help him. He died anyway.

Many were put in jail for many years for the accusations. They even incarcerated a 4-year old little girl and chained her to a wall.

I loved my day in Salem. I visited the memorial created for these victims. It is a solemn reminder of what so wrongly happened to them.

I took pictures of the cemetery,


and of Samantha from Bewitched.


And then...

I took a small street and there I was...at the Salem harbor, or as they say in Salem - H-ah-bor. Seriously, I think I need to live on a boat in the harbor.

Summoned By The East

I'm going to go out on a limb here and betray the mountains that surround me, and just say that the East Coast summons my name. Really.

I had the amazing opportunity to accompany Brett on a trip to the beautiful state of Massachusetts.

He was on business.

I was on vacation.

...a much needed vacation.

We arrived on Sunday October 31st late in the evening. By the time we made it to our hotel it was after midnight, and we were both exhausted. So much so that neither of us could relax and go to sleep. We watched TV, and learned at 6am that morning that we must have been too loud for our neighbor because he started banging his dishes in his room, a sound that we wouldn't hear that early for the rest of the week. Sorry neighbor - and oh yea, just so you know, cooking bacon in your hotel room microwave is a HORRIBLE thing to do to your neighbors. I didn't think we were that bad of neighbors. We were gone all day every day, and even most of the evenings every evening.

Curse you hotel neighbor.

There. I said it.

On Monday, Brett went in to the office and I spent the day in the hotel room reading about all of the American history that I had forgotten from 5th grade. We were in the heart of the Revolutionary war country. I needed to know where I should spend my time vacationing while Brett slaved away at work :).

After work, we went to the Boston temple to take pictures. We would have gone in, but it's closed on Monday.

We had the grounds to ourselves.