While we'd left the touristy spots of Salem to sleep in the Target parking lot, we were still in the city, so our first stop this morning was Proctor's Ledge Memorial, which is believed to be the site of where the accused witches were executed back in 1692. Since it's a bit out of the way, there was only one couple who were there when we pulled up to the site, which is both serene and somber. It's a simple memorial that has a ledge of rocks in a horseshoe shape, and on here are engraved the names of those who died, with their names and dates of death. Men and women died, and there was even a Reverend, George Burroughs among them. He was the only clergyman among those executed, and was accused of being the ringleader of the witches.
Another Type of Stonehenge
We've seen many takes on the famous Stonehenge landmark in England in the US--including in rural Kentucky, Nevada (RyanHenge), Kansas (Truckhenge), and others. But it wasn't until we arrived in the town of Lincoln in Massachusetts that we saw... Ponyhenge. While it probably can't tell the time and there aren't any ancient myths associated with it, Ponyhenge is simply a ring of broken-down rocking horses, plastic ponies and other horse toys that have been placed in this open pasture--and apparently the number of items just keeps on growing!
Across the road from it we saw another fascinating attraction: a herd of Ouessant, which are apparently the smallest breed of sheep in the world, ideal for those with limited space or who simply want a tiny breed of sheep! The sheep were both black and white, and were happy to walk up to the fence that separated us from each other and nibble at the blades of grass that we fed to them. They were indeed small and adorable, with bright and lively eyes. They seem like a friendly breed, easygoing and not particularly aggressive--if we had to raise a breed of sheep, we'd pick these!
We Are the World
Next we went to Babson College, a private business school (it's apparently one of the top schools for entrepreneurship, based on its banners!). But we weren't there to get tips on starting a business, but to see the Babson Globe, a huge globe that weighs 25 tons and is 28 feet and 8.5 meters (28 feet) in diameter, which was the largest of its kind when it was unveiled in 1955. It's gone through restoration since then, and we wanted to see if the globe was up-to-date with the newest countries, however because it's on a major tilt we could mostly see the ocean, and virtually none of Europe! It looks like not all the countries in the world are labelled though, so it seems to get away with not needing to be too current.
In the city of Newton just outside of Boston, we visited the City Hall to see its Battle Dioramas, which are on the first floor of the building towards the back. The 4 dioramas (models that represent scenes with 3D figures) show events from the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Civil War, and World War I, and were sculpted by a WWI veteran. While the figures are tiny, the scenes are very intricate, with exact replicas of uniforms and insignias, and serving as a snapshot of scenes that occurred.
For more history, we went to the Waterworks Museum, which shows one of the country's first metro water systems. It's free to visit, and we arrived just in time for the free guided tour, which was attended by Boston College students since it's nearby. The pièce de résistance of the museum is the high-service pumping station--these waterworks pumped as much as a hundred million gallons of water each day, and it was cool to see these 5-story mechanical devices up close! Our guide explained the history and the engineering to us in about 30 minutes, and we were then welcome to stay and read more about the exhibitions and its architecture, engineering feat, public health details and social history.
Historical Buildings Around Boston
We were already very close to downtown Boston, but before that went to Cambridge to visit Harvard University, the oldest university in the country, founded in 1636. We've mentioned this earlier, but we love checking out universities in the US--the architecture is fascinating and topnotch, and the grounds are huge and immaculate. It was a little bit difficult to drive around the campus in our RV so for the most part we simply drove around and absorbed it all, although Michael found a quick spot to park to take a quick photo of the Harvard Lampoon Building, which looks like a castle from the outside. The Harvard Lampoon was founded in 1876 as an undergraduate humor publication, and is also the world's oldest humor publication.
We love seeing quirky and artsy buildings and attractions, so next drove to the Museum of Modern Renaissance, a former Masonic Temple that's now covered in murals and artwork depicting fairytales, myths and legends from different cultures. Apparently there are also yoga classes offered at the museum, but when we went it was closed--there's some conflicting information online, but it's either no longer open to the public or the owners were simply away when we visited (we found out later on their Instagram that they were traveling in Turkey). The front of the building already looked fun and creative, so we're sure it would have been magical to check it out more inside!
In the same neighborhood as the Museum of Modern Renaissance, Somerville, is Prospect Hill Tower. Standing high up on a hill with a flight of stairs leading up to it, the Tower was built in 1903 to honor the troops who camped here during both the Revolutionary War and Civil War. The fort was built to guard against British attacks during the Siege of Boston, and it was later used as a training camp during the Civil War. Interesting fact: the flag on top has the red and white stripes that's on today's US flag, but instead of the stars in the corner, there's a British Union Jack there instead! This flag was actually used during the Revolutionary War from 1775-77 to symbolize unity among the colonies, and pre-dates today's stars-and-stripes design.
Asian Food Time!
Since we were in Boston, we knew there was more access to Asian groceries and food (yay!), so Lisette decided to stock up. We first we went to Reliable Market, a small Korean store that's been around for over 40 years, but found that there were items missing, and the store to be rather expensive overall. So we headed back to Cambridge to visit one of the many H-Mart stores in the city, where Lisette was able to quickly find and purchase everything (particularly because she knows the aisles well at H-Mart, and can efficiently grab things in the same order as her shopping list!).
For dinner, we grabbed takeout from a Thai restaurant, since we'd been craving Thai cuisine since thinking about it in Salem (we got a ginormous pizza instead). Our choice was 9Zaab Thai Street Food, a solid Thai restaurant that had the standard grub on the menu.
So while Asian food shopping and dining was straightforward, driving around Boston was not. Particularly in this area, there were narrow streets, cars parked on either side, and blind corners, that made navigating in the RV very difficult--plus the residential roads were not in good nick, making for a very bumpy and challenging ride!
While overnight parking in a major city can be hard, we were fortunate to find spots near North Point Park in East Cambridge, a rather central location where we could also leave the RV in the morning to continue exploring Boston by e-bike. Since we had the park next to us, it was a pretty quiet evening, although since we were under a canopy of trees the tradeoff was that we didn't have enough sunlight to feed our solar panels and our Starlink was also obscured, making the Internet much slower. But! Since it was Friday, we relaxed into our RV for the night, dining on Thai takeout while watching the latest episode of The Great British Bake Off. What more could we ask for?
