May 27, 2018 Newburyport, MA

May 27, 2018

After a whole night of rain, and more rain, we woke to dark clouds and the threat of more rain. But, we decided to get out and see some sights anyway.

Not long ago, Phil had read an article somewhere about a memorial to the Coast Guard in Newburyport, MA. Our campground at Tuxbury Pond isn’t far from there, so we decided to visit.

Our Campsite at Tuxbury Pond Campground

At the last minute we decided to take our jackets as the breeze was cold.  LOL!! The breeze at the campground was nothing like the winds coming off the ocean at Newburyport!! Even Phil said he was glad he had brought his jacket!! Mark the calendar!

We found a lot to park the truck in and took off walking along the boardwalk next to the bay. Did I mention COLD wind?? Made my ears hurt!!

The town was having a food fest with food from around the world set up all over the square. So, there were people everywhere, in spite of the cold wind.

We spent some time in the big junktique store, which had some interesting stuff in it, the normal amount of junk and some real antiques.

Coast Guard Monument

Fishing Monument

Oldies Marketplace...Junktique

 MOOSE

 Inside the Oldies Marketplace

We walked most of the downtown main street and we were just amazed at the time and effort it must have taken to bring this town back from the brink of decay in the 70’s to a lovely town full of old renovated buildings that have nice shops and a variety of eateries. We spent a long time in the Old Custom House, which is now the Maritime Museum. They have done a good job renovating this building, but left the old tile floors that show where the traffic pattern was and are cracked from the heavy weights that went through the custom house. It made it more real.

The organization of the Coast Guard and how it became what it is today

Newburyport, MA

The Coast Guard Room at the Maritime Museum

USS Coast Guard Cutter "Eagle". She is a current ship in the fleet, students at the CG Academy spend part of their time learning how to sail it.

They had one room committed to the Coast Guard, it’s history and it’s current missions. It is very nicely done.

We finally started back to the truck, a couple of blocks away, and Phil found the other Coast Guard Memorial that brought us here, about 50 yards from where the truck was parked, in the opposite direction from the way we went. But, at least he found it!!

 

On the way out of town, we stopped at the old chain draw bridge, I found it amazing that it’s still there!

 

May 23rd - May 25th, 2018

May 23, 2018

We spent today in Topside, another community of Phil’s ancestor’s, the Boardman’s. Spent most of our time was spent at the library, which was much bigger than the one we were at the other day, and the lady in the research section was much more helpful!! Phil found a lot of information on the Boardman’s and I even found some information on immigration dates on some of my ancestor’s. So, it was a productive day.

After the library, we found Boardman Lane, and the big surprise of the day was that next door to the Boardman on Boardman Lane was Joseph Smith, Sr’s house. Joseph Smith, Jr is the one who married my many times great aunt, Emma Hale, and co-founded the Mormon Church. Joseph Jr was born in Topside, then shortly afterwards, the family moved to Vermont, then on to north Pennsylvania. On Boardman Lane where the Smith house used to be, there is a monument to Joseph Smith, Jr.

May 24, 2018

Today we took off to some sight-seeing that didn’t include family research. We headed for Salem, home of the famous Witch Trials. We visited the Salem Witch Museum, it was very interesting. They used mannequins to tell the story of why people we suspected of witchcraft, different tests were used on different people. One may was pressed to death under huge stones, some were hung. Most were just suspected, and lived to tell the tale of being kept in dark dungeons till they were nearly crazy. The victims of this Witch Hunt came from all over the area, not just Salem. We were both happy not to recognize any of the names of the accused. Walking through the historical district of Salem was an experience of a mixture of history and keeping up the theme of the Witch Trials. It was a fun afternoon.

There were ship's heads like this all up and down the old shopping area, they are done by local artist.

One of the older buildings, a mixture of archtitechture.

The site of the beginning of the National Guard.

One of the many fountains throughout the historic district

This is the Witch Museum. Could you get more Goth than this??

If you can make these pictures bigger, you can see the names of the accused, Hanged, pressed, etc. Will you find one of your ancestor's here??

May 25, 2018

Today we traveled to our stopover for the Memorial Day Weekend.  We are camped at Tuxbury Pond Campground, just over the border of New Hampshire. The place is packed and there are hundreds of kids running around. The season has caught up with us!! Up to this point, the campgrounds have been quiet and almost empty, but Memorial Day marks the beginning of the summer season. Suddenly spring is over, the high today was 84, and the campground is noisy.

Oh well, it had to happen sometime. Oh, and I almost forgot…it’s suppose to rain most of the weekend.

May 21, 2018 Cape Ann Island

May 21, 2018

We woke up to blue skies today, for a change! So, we decided to do a little sightseeing. The little peninsula we are on, has an island at the end of it. Looking at the map of the area, it’s difficult to see that, but that’s where we headed today.

The island, as best as we can tell, is called Cape Ann. The minute we crossed over on the bridge, the roads became extremely narrow! The telephone polls are just barely off the road, and for privacy, the home owners have planted their bushes right against the road pavement, which means that when the bushes grow, they are actually growing out into the road way. Keep in mind that our only vehicle is the very big, very wide truck that we tow the rig with. These roads would barely be wide enough for two SMART cars to pass without pulling the side mirrors in. That was a little stressful.

If you have ever been to southern California, and tried to go to the beach, you know it’s almost impossible to get to the public beaches because the extremely well-to-do have signs everywhere to lead you to believe that the property is private and you have no business being there. Well, it’s just like that here, only the houses are bigger and older and the roads are narrower.

Never let it be said that Phil is intimidated by anyone, or any sign for that matter. He takes it into his head that he wants to go somewhere, he is going.

 This is Annisquan Lighthouse, still opperated by the Coast Guard and buried in a ritzy housing development that has signs everywhere that we didn't belong there.

 This statue was a monument to the men of the island that had lost their lives in the Civil War. Behind it was a cemetery that we drove through. In some places the road was not as wide as the truck!!

We stopped for lunch at a little hole in the wall seafood place that was right on the water. Note the cute little lobsters on the roof!!

We shared our first lobster of this trip, little bit overcooked, but very good!! We got to talking to the manager, who was sitting at the table next to ours doing some paperwork. She was more than happy to put that aside and chat with us as we finished our lunch. A disposable plastic lobster bib was included in our lunch, which I was not embarrassed to use. As I was taking mine off, I ask her if she might have enough of them that I could buy 44 of them, as I wanted to add them to the tote bags we have for our members on the caravan. She went to get them and when she came back, she wouldn’t let me pay for them.  There are still nice people out there.

Check out the chimney

Landscape or no landscape? Across the street from these homes was the bay. Tough!!

This is the Eastern Point Light. Again, we had to drive through a ritzy housing area with the usual signs.

The keeper's house, a little larger than the usual keeper's house. A kid walking his dog told Phil that the house has been vacent for a couple of years. So, I told him to use his connections (??) and get it for us for one summer. 

I tried to get a picture today of the signs for what we call a traffic circle. Here they are called a ‘Rotary’. For all the narrow roads on the island, the traffic circles as you go on & off the island are big enough to drive a big rig around them without running the back wheels on the curbs. We were impressed!!

This is the ROTARY sign, I was trying to take a zoomed in picture while Phil was driving, not the best picture I have ever taken!!!

May 6th through May 19, 2018

May 6, 2018

We left Pine Crest campground today and headed to MA via Highway 2. This is called the Mohawk Trail and I think originally it was a deer trail, then maybe the Indians used it, then years later I think some genius came along and paved it…and widened it…a little. It’s called a scenic route, and it is. But, it’s not the kind of road that you want to do with a 38’ rig behind you.

Not even any 

warning from the GPS. 

It’s hard enough to pull a steep mountain road but add switch backs and you have a potential crisis! Fortunately, traffic was light, and we didn’t meet anyone coming from the opposite direction on the switch backs.

Our destination was Country Aire Campground in Shelburne Falls, MA. Once we were down off of the mountain the scenery was beautiful, trees are budding out, flowers, green grass and (for a change), blue sky’s!! The campground is very nice, large sites with full hook ups. Still early in the season, so we were not jammed in.

We are here because Phil’s Taylor ancestors lived here for awhile, in Ashville, just a little ways from where we are camped. We walked a couple of cemeteries together, then he went off and hiked through a few others on his own.

We took a day to walk through one of the little towns close to the campground, Shelburne Falls. This is an old town, very well kept up. It’s like an artist colony, little shops everywhere with handmade items. Unfortunately, it was a week end and most of them were closed.

The town has tuned the old trolley bridge into a bridge of flowers, and it was beautiful!! It was the obvious that it was the work of many, to plant and keep up with. Some were still waiting to see if spring was serious about sticking around, the wisteria for one. Or three or four, they were wrapped around anything they could find, and had been provided with additional things to crawl on, so that they made arches all along the bridge. I bet they were lovely when they bloomed, arched across the bridge the way they were.

From there we walked down the hill to the Glacier Pot Holes. This caught our interest. Multicolored rock at the base of the falls, which is actually caused as the water from the river comes out of the power plant. The rock surface has been smoothed as if a glacier has receded over it, but the pot holes don’t look to me to be a result of the water from the falls.

The pictures of the rocks really don't do them justice. They are an orange-tan color, swirled with grey and white, even dry. When the water touches them, the color really comes out

Just up from the falls is a small sandwich shop and bakery where we had a bite to eat. Humm, Humm good!!

We went to the little store up the block to pick up a few items we needed. Remember the grocery stores from when we were kids, they weren’t huge buildings, but on the bottom floor of an old 2 or 3 story building. This was the store in Shelburne Falls, little nicks and cranny’s where it might have been added on to at one time or another. Like a blast from the past.

May 7-8, 2018

Phil has spent the week meeting with a lady from the Ashfield Historical Society about the Taylor’s that settled here, mucking through sopping wet cemeteries and taking hundreds of pictures. He has been having a blast!!

The weather has been cool and the rain seems to be following us around.

I have stayed busy tying up loose ends for the Maritime Caravan and trying to get points settled for the Alaska Caravan. Keeping them straight presents a bit of a challenge.

May 13, 2018

Turns out we had a little glitch in our reservations for the next campground out on Cape Cod. We were supposed to go out there today, but the reservations got made to go in tomorrow. It worked out well though because Phil has a cousin he met through DNA that lives near New Bedford, MA. So, we found a campground near there and arranged to meet up with him and his girlfriend, and his daughter and her boyfriend. They had tickets for us to go through the Whale Museum, which was very interesting. Then we walked down the street to a brewery for dinner.

Phil took one of the extra DNA kits we had for his cousin, Geoffrey. Phil had his computer with him, so he dug right in and started  to build Geoff’s tree.

Our campground is Gateway to Cape Cod, in Rochester, MA

May 14, 2018

We were only about an hour from our campground, so it was a very short drive for us today. We are in the Old Chathan Road RV Park. We picked this park because of it’s location in relation to the Taylor/Bray Farm, the reason we are here. Of course, there are more wet, squishy cemeteries to walk through. And hundreds of more pictures to take.

We have been to the Cape before and so have done most of the touristy things, so while Phil was off exploring, I stayed home, washed, and of course, worked on the caravans. Might have taken a nap or two as well.

May 18, 2018

Yesterday we moved up the coast, north of Boston and out on the little peninsula east of Boston, our campground is Cape Ann Camp sites. The mailing address is Gloucester, MA.

Having grown up on the west coast, California in particular, you have to drive forever to get anywhere. Here, in these small states like MA and CT, it takes no time at all to get from one point of the state to another. It’s really amazing!!

Today we drove over to Ipswich where our history abounds!!! This is the area where it all started, Boston and it’s surrounds. Ipswich claims to have the most surviving homes from the early 1700’s, and they are all in excellent condition, and being lived in!

We wanted to go to the Museum today, but in spite of being advertised as open, they weren’t. So we went to the visitor’s center and the lady there told us that we were a little early, things wouldn’t really be open until Memorial Day Weekend.

So, we went to the library to see what they had in the way of a Genealogy section. What a disappointment!!  They had a few books on Ipswich early history and vital records from the early years, but not as much as we thought they would have. But we did spend a few hours going through the few books they had. Phil found lots of Boardman’s and a few Taylor’s. I found lots of Baker’s, but they are all prior to what I have on my tree, so I’m going to have to research backwards to see if any of those Baker’s are connected to my line.

When we came out of the library it was raining…again…surprise!!! It has rained most of the afternoon and into the evening. Temps today topped out at about 57.