Exploring Salem: Day Two

[Part Two of Jessica Tennant sharing her adventures in Salem, Massachusetts.]

We woke up on our second day in Salem to our Red Riding Hood basket breakfast, and wisely decided to use the free street parking on Sunday so that we didn’t have to walk through the sketchy area of Salem. We parked near a park central to the village of Salem, where we could walk around the town and the wharf area and not worry.

Salem Witch Museum

We started the day’s adventures with the Salem Witch Museum, since tickets were included in our stay at The Coach House Inn.

The experience started in a darkened hall of sorts where the story of the witch trials and the hysteria that resulted in the execution of 20 people (and more who died in prison) was told through narration and lit-up dioramas with nearly life-size models of people – and one slightly disturbing dog who looked to be taxidermied, accompanying a sculpted John Proctor. There was also a creepy, lit-up, gargoyle-like devil figure looming over us, which seemed a little over the top for a historical museum.

The presentation covered the origins of the hysteria, the trials and the craziness that was conducted in the courtroom, prison conditions, and hangings. It was a bit dramatic but interesting and informative, and seemed to catch the attention of even the youngest audience members.

This was followed by a guided tour of the rest of the museum which explored what the word “witch” means today, witches in folklore and movies, herbal remedies, a timeline of witch trials and mass hysteria, Wicca and common misconceptions surrounding it, and THE BEST TIMELINE EVER of how scapegoating has caused tragedies and marks on our history throughout the ages, including Japanese Internment and the Red Scare.

It was a comprehensive look at how mob mentality and hysteria can cause horrific events, starting with witch trials through modern day.

Count Orlok’s Nightmare Gallery

We followed up that somewhat somber historical museum with what, in my mind, is a hidden treasure of Salem…Count Orlok’s Nightmare Gallery.

I hate haunted houses (especially when things jump out at you. I ended up at one with friends years ago and just ran around every corner yelling “BOO!” so that I could, hopefully, startle the actors before they scared me.), and Count Orlock’s Nightmare Gallery is NOT like that. It’s a carefully curated collection of models and life masks from various horror movies dating back to the 1920s, including Nosferatu, The Fly, Salem’s Lot, Hellraiser, Aliens, and more.

They even had a model (somewhat) showing the makeup my own father designed from Hocus Pocus, which was neat to see (although he wasn’t credited in the display and it wasn’t quite right). What I loved (that some may not) was that you had to read the display notes to get the background behind each piece, and so you basically read and observed your way through the creepy museum. My husband is a huge fan of classic horror movies, and I am a huge fan of special effects makeup artist work. It was an off-the-beaten-path but worthwhile attraction.

Heritage Trail Houses

We walked along the red-lined Heritage Trail, and came to the Witch House, which was a house that was in Salem at the time of the trials and was a judge’s home. “Judge House” didn’t have quite the same ring to it, so they named it Witch House (makes sense). We skipped out on the house tour, though, because we were planning to go to The House of the Seven Gables, and how many house tours/museum tours can you really do in one day, especially when they look eerily similar?

The House of the Seven Gables tour was fantastic, and cheaper once I found out that they had a teacher discount. Bryce was horrified that I introduced my teacher status by asking if I had time to pee before the tour started, and when told no, I said, “That’s okay, I’m a teacher, I can hold it pretty much forever.” BUT, unadvertised teacher discount for the win!

The tour was of the house, which inspired the Nathaniel Hawthorne gothic romance The House of the Seven Gables. He didn’t live there, though…his cousin did. And, when he visited, the house didn’t actually have seven gables.

It was neat to see evolution of the house: the original structure and then the parts that were added when the first owner, Captain John Turner, became super wealthy from his textiles trades with China…but then how several gables were taken down to make it more in fashion for the times.

It was later taken over by a very wealthy woman, Caroline Emmerton, who was devoted to returning it to the seven-gabled state it was in when tales told by Nathaniel Hawthorne’s cousin Susannah inspired his novel. Mrs. Emmerton apparently took liberties with the house too, constructing a secret room above a fireplace that aligns with the novel but was never a part of the original house. Pretty cool, if you enjoy old architecture and historical homes and literary connections. The gardens were gorgeous, too.

Marblehead

After lunch at Flying Saucer Pizza (again), we left Salem and drove to nearby Marblehead, a neat historic harbor town in its own right, but a great place for an afternoon walk to admire fancypants houses along the seashore on the island connected to the mainland via sea wall causeway called The Neck.

While we were only there for the walking, we found a steel frame lighthouse on the rocky northern tip on the Atlantic, houses with more hollyhocks than I’d ever seen in one place, grand mansions with private beaches, and a beautiful, secret-feeling public park nestled between two mansions called Castle Rock.

Castle Rock was absolutely beautiful — a giant rock formation overlooking the ocean with a rocky beach to the left where people fished, and a cobbled beach to the right that sounded like a rain stick on crack as the waves came in and out.

It was gorgeous, worth the 10 minute drive, and fun to live vicariously by walking through the neighborhoods of the fancy.

Stopping in Salem

I am so happy that we found a new (to us) New England stopping point between our home and Maine. Salem was a great combination of the historical, the spooky, the literary, and natural beauty. I would love to come back for a repeat visit…maybe if I’m brave enough in October, when Salem is at its spooky, kooky best. I have to say it was pretty amazing in July, too.

Photos –
1, 3, 5-9: Jessica Tennant.
2: Al Peabody, on Flickr, color corrected. CCL.
4: Robert Linsdell on Flickr, cropped and color corrected. CCL.

August 15, 2016August 15, 2016

July Photo: Pasadena

July was our trip to Pasadena, nicknamed “the City of Roses.” I took this photo in the inner courtyard of its iconic City Hall.

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March 17, 2016February 13, 2019

Mounds State Park

Sharing some green with you today from Indiana last summer, specifically from Mounds State Park in Anderson.

The Mounds

Mounds State Park is named for mounds of earth built around 160 BCE by a culture known as the Adena-Hopewell, famous for pottery and mad mound-building skills.

Actually, they could’ve been two separate cultures, the Adena building the Mounds and the Hopewell leaving their more advanced stuff around later. Or the Adena could’ve just gotten Hopewell-levels of advanced over time.

If there’s a new car outside your friend’s house, is someone visiting or did your friend just get a new car? Way harder to clear that up when your friend is 2000 years in the past. So I guess hyphenating the two names is a way to hedge archaeological bets.

Why were they built? Maybe the Adena built them for ceremonies and then they were used for burials by the Hopewell (who may or may not just be the Adena 200 years later). The truth is we’re not sure what all people back then were into.

What we do know is that someone (ok, a lot of someones) purposefully dug out and built up earth a couple millennia ago into mounds you can still see today.

There are 10 of these earthworks in Mounds State Park, and they tend to be crater-like, with the mounded outsides surrounding a depression with a platform in the center.

The largest one has dents in it that align with the equinox, solstices, and rising of certain stars. Known as “the Great Mound,” it is 9 feet tall and has a quarter-mile circumference. So, yeah, whatever the Adena-Hopewell were up to, they were not messing around.

The Park

The visitors’ center has displays about the park’s ecosystem and a floor map of how the Mounds align with various astronomical phenomena.

Its observation room has chairs facing oversized windows, giving you a front row view of a pond, birdhouse, and a thick stand of trees, so you can watch for birds or frogs or maybe even deer.

Outside is a cute little children’s garden.

Also at the park is the historic brick Bronnenberg House, which dates from 1840. Compared to the Mounds, though, that seems like new construction.

The White River cuts through the park, and you can fish, as well as camp, hike or picnic. There are trails of varying difficulty levels winding around the Mounds.

Our Visit

Since we were in town for a family reunion, Phillip and I got to visit the park with my uncle, who’s been going there since he was a kid, and my cousin Allison, who made sure to photobomb the butterfly video I was shooting in the pollinator garden.

A video posted by stephanieliebold (@stephanieliebold) on Jul 6, 2015 at 2:24pm PDT

We started down trail #1 towards the Great Mound and met a harrowed-looking hiker coming from that direction, who asked if we had insect repellent – not to borrow it for himself but to make sure we were protected.

As we approached the boardwalk, we found out why. The mosquitoes were out in force that day. Despite our deet, they didn’t seem to be deterred. I could barely stop long enough to snap a photo without those tiny vampires swarming towards my neck and head.

I wrapped my scarf over my head and tucked my arms inside. Allison laughed at me, but I’m pretty sure it was just that she was jealous of my scarf/mosquito net and not that I looked ridiculous.

We cut our hike short after seeing the Great Mound.

We drove to a spot near the river, where the guys wanted to explore some more. Allison and I decided to take in the scenery from the safety of the car.

I wonder how the Adena kept the mosquitoes away.

January 19, 2016May 23, 2023

Casa Grande Ruins National Monument

Yesterday was a free entrance day for US National Parks, and there are several more scheduled this year.

One of the first fee-free days we took advantage of fell on the same day as our nieces’ dance recital a few years ago. We searched “find a park” and saw that there was one – not exactly on the way – but in the right general direction.

Even though it’s just an hour south of Phoenix, I had never been to Casa Grande Ruins National Monument in Coolidge (not, incidentally, in the town of Casa Grande). Phillip hadn’t been since he was a kid, so we planned a pre-recital detour.

The “big house” it’s named for is a centuries-old adobe structure that’s still standing, now covered by a large metal roof constructed in 1932 to help protect it. Parts of walls from the surrounding complex remain, as well as an oval ball court.

It’s always fascinating to confront history like that and think about people living their lives within those same walls 600 years ago.

And then we went to watch our nieces dance their hearts out.

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October 8, 2015May 23, 2023

The (Fountain) Hills

The Fountain Hillstory

Fountain Hills is a planned community northeast of Phoenix that was created in the late 1960s by the guy who designed Disneyland and the guy who developed the city of Lake Havasu.

When you decide to plop a town into the middle of the desert, what do you make its centerpiece? The World’s Tallest Fountain! Of course.

Although, if you think that’s absurd, remember that the developer’s other project at the time was a much more remote planned Arizona community with the actual historic London Bridge – transported across the Atlantic by boat and reassembled brick by brick – as its centerpiece. After that, a desert fountain kinda seems like child’s play.

The Modern Landscape

The Fountain Hills fountain is no longer the world’s tallest, but it still shoots a stream of water into the air hourly that can go from 300 to 560 feet high, which is actually slightly taller than the Washington Monument. At its base is a concrete expressionist water lily sculpture.

The whole thing is situated in the middle of an artificial lake (called, unsurprisingly, Fountain Lake) with a sprawling park wrapping around it. (Guess what the park is called. Yep, Fountain Park. You win.) There are shaded picnic tables, public art, and a playground. Even though there always seem to be people around during the day, it’s big enough to feel a bit empty most of the time.

Saguaro Lake on a Saturday Is No Picnic

The last time we were in Fountain Hills, we hadn’t planned on going there.

It was the weekend before Phillip started back to school. We decided it was a good day to throw a picnic lunch together and head east to Saguaro Lake. However, we didn’t make it past the ranger checking for passes at the entrance.

Not sure how both Phillip and I missed the memo that you need a Tonto Pass even if you’re not going boating or camping (details below, so you can be more prepared than we were). Since you can’t buy the pass on site, we started thinking about other options.

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Fountain Park-ing

Fountain Hills was only about 20 minutes away, and I knew that, unlike at the super crowded Saguaro Lake, there would be plenty of space and plenty of free parking. So instead of turning back the way we came, we took a right and rolled into Fountain Hills just before 2pm.

We made a quick stop at a coffee shop overlooking Fountain Park. (Guess what the coffee shop was called. Fountain View? Nope. Mountain View.)

From the back patio of Mountain View Coffee Co., we could see the fountain start up. There was a path directly into the park and an open picnic table near the colorful mural wall. We started in on our lunch and watched a stream of water surge towards the sky then collapse down into the lake with just a hint of a rainbow forming in its mist.

– More info –

Tonto Pass

You need a permit to park in high-use recreation sites in the Tonto National Forest, such as Saguaro Lake.
For daily use, you can get a $6 Tonto Pass online or in certain stores outside the National Forest. (Full list PDF.) Watch for stores with the “Tonto Pass Sold Here” signs, while you’re on the way.
It’s not available at the actual recreation sites. You have to buy it ahead of time.
Even if there’s not a ranger at the entrance, you can still be fined for not having a Tonto Pass hanging from your rearview mirror.

Fountain Hills

The fountain is on for the first 10-15 minutes of every hour 9am-10pm, unless there’s too much wind.
Docents lead free walking tours of area public art October through April. (Donations accepted.)
Follow the Fountain Hills Art Walk Map (PDF) to take a self-guided tour.

In the Area

Saguaro Lake Guest Ranch horseback riding
McDowell Mountain Regional Park hiking
Taliesin West, former home of Frank Lloyd Wright, is on the way if you’re coming from the Phoenix area via Shea Blvd. It would be a great place to spend the morning before lunch in Fountain Hills.
It just occurred to me that the Macayo’s with the fancy new menu I wrote about recently (with the jicama tacos and crazy good churros) is also on Shea. So, alternate itinerary: 1. Fountain Hills 2. Taliesin West tour 3. happy hour at Macayo’s Scottsdale. That sounds like a good day to me.

Thank you to Alison King, who schooled me on Midcentury Modernism in Phoenix and Concrete Expressionism. Her site is Modern Phoenix, and you should totally check it out.