Vacation Part 5!

Well, before I wrap up the trip, I had to include more of Salem since in my previous post I only talked about the House of Seven Gables. Salem is such an amazing place. Everywhere you walk there are homes that are so unique and they have a plaque on each of them that tells you the year it was built. Some of the plaques will even name the person who built it. It's common to see homes as early as 1750! I photographed so many (as I always do), and I can't help but love them! Our first stop on Saturday when we entered Salem was to go to the Salem Witch Museum. Now this is not a worshipping of witches type of place (before I lose a few followers, I want to make that clear!). It tells of Salem's historical witch hysteria and trials of 1692. It tells of how innocent people were accused of being witches by young girls who were stifled and bored. It never ceases to amaze me what actually happened. The world was so scary then. The people feared everything from losing their farms, to the epidemic of small pox which took so many of their children, the long, cold winters, the amount of parasites invading their food and water and mostly, as Puritans, they believed the devil walked among them. So of course this is a recipe for disaster.

We all love the movie Hocus Pocus in our house. In fact, next to Holiday Inn, it is my favorite movie. The kids and I love to quote lines from it and since it was filmed in Salem, I located the sites, and we had to take pictures of them. We found the Dennison's (Max & his sister Dani's )house, Allison's house (which is really the Ropes Mansion) and of course, Salem Common.

We had lunch at the Witch's Brew Cafe and I loved the graphic on their door. I took some good pictures of it and couldn't help but think that Gina of Cat Nap Inn Primitives would be so good at taking that image and cutting it out and making a pillow or runner to sell for her great Etsy shop. I actually have another good image from Salem that I am cutting out of black felt for such a project to save for Halloween.

Salem is on the water, and we walked the Derby warf and shopped on Derby Street. The sidewalks are all brick and cobblestone. When you visit Salem, you really get a Halloween feeling. The houses are built close to the street and close together. I think that would have been because of the bad winter weather. The streets are very narrow. Sometimes I didn't think our mini van would fit down the blocks!

I hope you like the photos!