We had, as noted earlier, found the people and drivers of Boston not to be nearly as rude or dangerous as people had warned. While our general opinion hasn't changed, the amount of traffic we experienced trying to get to Olmsted's home caused us to change our mind about visiting the remaining places on our near Boston list. Since it was a Sunday, Olmsted's home also wasn't open so Megan was unable to get her stamp. The grounds were surprisingly small to us - having seen the grounds of the Biltmore Estate and knowing he worked on such large projects, our imaginations had set forth a sprawling set of grounds filled with interesting gardens. Instead, the home had what would be considered a large yard by today's standards, but certainly not sprawling. However, it was clear that the design sense and detail he used in designing large public spaces was also used in designing his own home yard. It was very pretty, compact, and tranquil even though large roads were just minutes away by foot.
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| From Day 5 - Boston to Bradbury Mountain State Park (Maine) |
After making our decision to skip a couple more places, we headed on to Concord and Lexington, site of the Minute Man National Historic Park, site of the opening battle of the Revolutionary War. It was quite an interesting Park, stretching between the two towns. Going to both Visitors Centers, one in each town was crucial (at least for us) to really picture the events that occurred. The other thing we noticed while driving in the area was the incredible number of bicyclists. There were so many that we were convinced that there was a large group ride or event taking place. We talked to a cyclist at the Concord Visitors Center about it and he said, "nope, not that I know of - there's just always this many bicyclists around here because the roads are so good and the riding is great." The town of Concord was filled with cyclists drinking coffee and eating pastries and lunch. We're sure that the businesses there certainly appreciate the influx of money from hungry and thirsty cyclists. It sure made us wish for our bikes and the time to ride in the area, but that will have to wait for another visit.
After we left the Lexington Visitors Center, we drove on to Salem. No, we weren't looking for witches, but we did find a nice seaside town which we didn't have nearly enough time to explore. We did take some time to explore the Salem Maritime National Historic Site. While there, we got to see a Paul Revere Bell (he was a silversmith, not just a guy riding horses around) - cast in 1801 it was used in a local church and is now on public display.
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| From Day 5 - Boston to Bradbury Mountain State Park (Maine) |
We also managed to just join a tour of the Friendship of Salem, a working recreation of a merchant vessel using Salem as its home port. This ship was one of two models used for the original ship on Old Spice products (the other was the Grand Turk).
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| From Day 5 - Boston to Bradbury Mountain State Park (Maine) |
Finally, we took a quick detour through the Custom House Public Stores to see where goods were stored (and heavily taxed) before entering the US for sale.
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| From Day 5 - Boston to Bradbury Mountain State Park (Maine) |
After we left Salem, it was finally time to drive on towards Maine. Our first stop was just south of Portland, Maine at the Len Libby Chocolatier. They have Lenny, the world's largest chocolate moose. They have also created a bear sow with two cubs, also made out of chocolate.
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| From Day 5 - Boston to Bradbury Mountain State Park (Maine) |
We bought some chocolates there, then headed on towards Portland. Maine is filled with breweries! Portland and its surrounding area have 11 breweries alone. We weren't going to have time to sample beers from all of them and it was a Sunday so most places weren't even open. Sea Dog Brewing Company's brewpub was however open so we stopped by to sample some of their beers and grab an appetizer to eat. We ordered a single flight of all their beers to share as well as an order of risotto arancini. We had seen these on menus in Boston and would continue to see them (sometimes called aracini instead) throughout the rest of our trip. All of this means new tastes, but first a quick picture of the flight.
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| From Day 5 - Boston to Bradbury Mountain State Park (Maine) |
- Risotto arancini - deep-fried risotto with nice spiced breadcrumbs, lots of umami, delicious; served with pomodoro for dipping. We could gorge ourselves on these.
- Sea Dog (Shipyard) Blue Fin Stout
- Sea Dog Sunfish Wheat
- Sea Dog Owl's Head Light
- Sea Dog Windjammer Blonde Ale
- Sea Dog Topsham Pale Ale
- Sea Dog Old East India Pale Ale
- Sea Dog Old Gollywobbler Brown Ale
- Sea Dog Toasty Nut Porter
- Sea Dog Blue Paw Wild Blueberry Ale
From there we drove on to our campsite at Bradbury Mountain State Park. The campsite was very nice, we had a walk-in. The park also had some amazing (we assume new'ish) showers. There were 4 separate showers with sinks and hand dryers. The showers were very very clean and the interior walls were cedar, so not only did you get to shower, but you did so with the odor of cedar permeating everything. It was very nice. However, they only had pit toilets, so win some, lose some. :-) The weather that night was great and as you can see in the picture, we didn't even bother with the fly. That will be patently untrue shortly, but we really enjoyed the whole day!
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| From Day 5 - Boston to Bradbury Mountain State Park (Maine) |
As usual, there's a slideshow below or you can look at the album directly here.
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