Day 57 -- All day in Boston -- 100 Miles

We had high hopes for our visit to Boston today, we really did. We had selected our current camp in Littleton, Massachusetts, because they advertised that they could help us coordinate our trip to Boston. As it turned out, we probably expected too much of them. Yes, the camp did have all the requisite maps and brochures to help us find the nearest rail junction that offered RV parking, but we didn't quite realize that it would take just under an hour for us to drive to said rail center. Then it took another forty-five minutes to ride the train into the city. Some of this time the train was so packed that we had other passengers discussing intimate aspects of their lives while standing twelve inches from our unwilling ears.

By the time we finally arrived at the downtown Boston subway station, it was nearly noon and we literally hadn't gone anywhere significant nor had we seen anything. Fortunately, we knew from past experience that we needed to find the nearest "hop on, hop off" trolley stop and get aboard. After taking the tour we were pretty sure we'd be able to best decide what attractions to visit and how to spend our time.

The subway station had brought us to the Boston Commons, which seemed fairly fortuitous as it seemed most of Boston was already there and there would be plenty of residents to ask if we had questions. After scanning the streets that surrounded the commons, we immediately saw that the trolleys we sought were just a short walk uphill from where we were standing. Moments later we had arrived at the Trolley stand, and the very next trolley to arrive took us aboard with a promise that we could buy our tickets just a couple of stops away.

Our trolley had only two seats left, as it turned out, but that was enough for Concetta and I. We took our seats in the very rear, and spent the next few minutes listening to the young black man who was driving as he did a mobile stand-up comedy routine as he drove. We wish we could have stayed on his trolley, but when we reached stop number one we had to get off and buy tickets, which meant our driver had to move on without us.

No matter, we didn't stay on the next trolley long enough to get to know that driver. We had only gone a couple of stops when she pulled up to the "Old Ironsides" dry dock and museum. Well, neither Concetta nor I had seen the flagship of the U.S. Navy, the Constitution, since we were youngsters. We just had to go see it, and so jumped back off the trolley and set out on foot.

I was a little disappointed to see Old Iron Sides in her present state, as a major renovation was in progress and the boat looked just a tad "dismantled." Gone were the upper extensions on the masts, as well as almost everything on the upper deck. On the lower deck the cannons had been removed and placed on the quay. Still, it felt good to walk the decks again after so many years.

At one point I asked one of the military attendants why the ship's lines (ropes) were so poorly maintained. The young woman with three green stripes on her Navy uniform responded that the lines belonged to the construction crew, and had not been maintained by the ship's crew. We had a nice chat, she and I, since I too started my military career as a green-striper, the mark of the Naval Air Corp. I told her about my time in the airborne Navy, and then I congratulated her on her choice of careers. She was beaming when we left.

After visiting the U. S. Constitution, we went next door and visited the visitor center and museum, which really was nicely done. Our nicest chat there took place with a resident specialist in the construction of tiny ships in bottles. The guy, named Tony Colton, turned out to be extremely interested in the fact that we were from Nevada and were traveling the country. We talked to him for a good quarter hour and had just the best time.

Our next objective, after leaving the Old Ironsides Museum, was to find some lunch. We jumped back on the trolley again, then jumped back off when the tour reached the restaurant area of North Boston. The driver told us that if we just walked back to the intersection we'd just passed, we'd find lots of restaurants. That didn't exactly turn out to be true, though we hoofed it around several blocks looking. As it turned out, we made our way back to the very first place that we'd seen, but were hoping for a couple of others to compare.

It was an Italian restaurant, and when we entered there didn't seem to be anyone around, even though the posted menu said they served lunch. Then I spied a young man sitting in the gloom of the darkened bar, and went over to ask him about lunch. He looked at me blankly, fidgeted a lot, then tried to communicate with broken English and hand signals that he didn't speak anything but Spanish.

I said, "La Comida," and made hand signals of my own to indicate the act of eating. Then I said, "Aqui," for the Spanish word for "here."

He got the point then, and wandered off to the kitchen to find someone to help us. Moments later a very vivacious older Italian woman hurried out and showed us to a nice table by the front window. Apparently they weren't expecting much business, for the woman appeared to be the only wait staff in the place. Still, moments later she hustled out with fresh bread, water, and a couple of glasses of wine, and took our order. I ordered the "Melanzane Forno," and Concetta decided on the Gnocci.

When the dishes arrived we could tell that the chef really knew what he was doing. My Melanzane (eggplant) was just wonderful, sliced very, very thin, and just covered with pasta and cheese. Concetta's Gnocci was good, too, but not as yummy as the eggplant I thought. For desert we had real spumoni and espresso, which was just heavenly.

Before we left the waitress (who was probably also the owner) kissed us both, took our photo, and wished as well in our travels. You just don't get that sort of treatment many places this side of Italy.

By this point in the day we had used up all our energy, and were feeling a bit sleepy from all the good Italian food, so we grabbed the next "hop on, hop off" trolley that went by, and spent the next hour thoroughly covering the city from border to border. Personally, I don't know how anyone could do justice to Boston in a single day. It's just too big. In fact, our driver told us that the original Boston of 250 years ago was just 1.2 square miles. After the city fathers decided to fill in the swampy area known as the "Back Bay," plus subsequent land additions, the city now covers 48 square miles. No wonder mere mortals can't cover it all.

But we got a pretty good perspective from the trolley ride and the amazingly knowledgeable driver. I'll never be able to remember everything we both heard and saw, but I feel that it gave us a very good perspective were we to read anything about Boston in the future.

Once our trolley driver had delivered us back to the Boston Commons, we threw ourselves into trying to figure out just how to find our subway train so we could return to the RV before nightfall. This we did, with some difficulty and asking of questions of handy subway employees. But fortunately, we were able to get on the right train finally and by 5:00 p.m. we had reached the end of the rail line and were hoofing it to where we'd left the RV in a largely empty parking lot.

Too bad it wasn't empty when we got back to it. On the contrary, people had parked on all sides of the rig, boxing it in for the most part, and I could see immediately it might just prove impossible to extricate it without someone moving several of the vehicles. I walked all the way around, noting that maybe only 18 inches of clearance existed on all sides except the front, which faced the tiny lane between the rows of cars.

In order to leave the parking lot I had to turn sharply to the left or right to clear the cars in the next row, but when you do that the tail end of the rig makes a huge, wide sweep since it's at least ten feet between the rear wheels and the rear bumper. There was just no way that we could allow that sweep to take place as it would immediately contact the car on that side.

But Concetta observed that there was one car missing in the row across the lane from us. If we could nose the rig partially into that open space, maybe we could aid the turn in some way. I was skeptical that it would work, but in the end it actually did. Yet again we had to do our famous technique of making a dozen tiny movements backward and forward, turning the wheel a fraction each time, and gradually turning the rig in an arc.

At times we were so close to the cars on both sides that I couldn't see any air between us when I looked in the mirror. I had to get out and look at the process in person. I really don't know even now how we cleared that parking space. It should not have been possible, but somehow we did it.

Once back on Interstate 95 North, we watched for Route 2, then headed back toward our camp in Littleton. Along the way we were able to gas up the rig, buy some groceries, and then get back into camp in enough time to set up while it was still light. Though we only got around 8500 steps today, we arrived in camp completely worn out. But tomorrow we'll be ready to go again. This time we're headed west, as much as possible, as we make our way toward Ohio and a visit with relatives. So stay tuned, we'll try and come up with more adventures along the way. Until then, we wish you Happy Travels!

Day 56 -- Salem to Quincy to Milford to Littleton, Mass. -- 100 Miles

Today I was not looking forward to braving the downtown traffic in that craziest of all places to drive, Boston, Massachusetts (we were going to Quincy in south Boston). In addition, I figured that finding a place to park for our "3-parking-places" rig would be like finding an unused ticket for the Super Bowl lying around in plain sight. I just didn't expect it to happen.

This being a weekday, the rush-hour traffic we encountered driving south from Salem fully lived up to our expectations. Later, when we had exited the freeway and plunged onto city streets in Quincy, we almost immediately encountered road construction, which kept us company all the way to our destination, the President John Adams Visitor and Tour Center.

But then something magical happened. As we rolled past the Center's adjacent parking garage where normal people were invited to leave their vehicles, we turned west onto a tiny lane filled with parked cars. Soon we saw a large parking lot that warned anyone against actually parking there. Finally, we entered an extra-wide, S-curved residential lane that seemed to be just right for parking something that took up three spaces. We looked at the posted parking signs, and they promised that you could hang around for a full THREE hours before the guy in the police department golf cart would be around to give you a ticket. Wow! We looked at each other in disbelief. Could this be real?

Well, just to test fate, we made a U-turn opposite a "T" intersection and parked in front of a large Victorian house with an older gentleman sitting on the front porch. I looked over to see if he intended to jump up and charge down the front walk to holler at us, but he didn't seem to be showing any interest in us at all. Okay, so far so good. Just to be sure that the rig didn't extend too far into the street, and cause a passing motorist difficulties, I edged over a bit onto the parking strip with the inboard tires. I looked again at the man, but he still continued to ignore us. I turned off the key and announced that we had arrived at the perfect spot. Time to walk the three blocks to the Visitor Center.

We're always glad when we can get in our 10,000 steps for the day, so parking a few blocks away never bothers us at all. Plus, I knew when we got back to our parking location, we would find it a dandy place to sit and have lunch. The street was only lightly traveled, as far as we'd seen, so traffic noise would be minimum.

Our walk turned out to be a piece of cake, and within a few minutes we had reached our destination Unfortunately, we had only just missed the tour departure to the various Adams family residences that lay nearby. Well, that left us plenty of time to watch the half-hour movie and prowl the gift shop for irresistible bargains. Then, almost before we knew it, we'd been called to load the trolley and off we went. This time it was the trolley driver who had to fight the construction-zone problems.

By the end of our tour we had visited all three of John and Abigail Adams family houses, from their very first crude 4-room house (two up, two down) with the low ceilings and sagging doors, to their post Presidential, multi-room mansion. We found each house just totally fascinating, though once again we were forbidden to take any interior photos.

The following material is from the John Adams Historical Society: "John Adams birthplace home is located in the Adams National Historical Park on Franklin Street. It was built in 1681 and purchased by Deacon John Adams, John Adams’ father, in 1720. Standing in its original location, the house is a saltbox American colonial style home (photo left) and was originally surrounded by six acres of land. In this house was where the second president was born on October 30, 1735 and where he and his family lived until he married Abigail Smith."

"In 1744 Deacon Adams purchased a second saltbox style house (photo below) located 75 feet away with a large amount of land. His two properties, including the houses, would amount to 188 acres. During the summer Deacon Adams worked as a farmer in his land with the help of his sons and in the winter as a shoemaker. Both houses were small and humble, but kept in tidy condition. Furniture was scarce and plain.

"In 1788, as John and Abigail Adams became more affluent, they moved to a larger house known as "Peacefield." Built in 1731 by Leonard Vassall, it originally had seven rooms, as well as rooms for servants. Furniture was more elaborate and in display are objects collected from his trips in Europe as a diplomat."

"Peacefield was John Adam’s home during his presidency, and where he lived during retirement. He purchased it "sight unseen" while he was serving as ambassador to England. He and Abigail and the children lived at Peacefield both before and after his Presidency. In fact, the house would be the residence of the Adams family for four generations from 1788 to 1927. President John Adams, President John Quincy Adams, Minister to Great Britain Charles Francis Adams, and historians Henry and Brooks Adams called Peacefield home."

"Next to the Old House is the Stone Library. John Quincy requested in his will that his books and papers be placed in a separated fire proof building which was built in 1870."

It was the library that left me completely mesmerized. It contains around 12,000 volumes, most put together by John Adams' son, John Quincy Adams. J. Q. Adams was a voracious reader, and not just of books in English. J. Q. could speak TWELVE languages fluently by the time he became our sixth President. But it was John Adams' grandson, Charles Francis Adams who built the lovely stone library on the Peacefield property to ensure the longevity of his father's and grandfather's book collections (photo below right).

After our two-hour tour of the Adams houses, we picked up our gift-shop purchases and dashed for the rig. Even though we were not going to miss our three-hour deadline by much, we WERE going to miss it. But when we had reached our little home on wheels we found no parking ticket, nor any sign anyone was upset with its sitting there most of the morning. We proceeded to have our lunch, drink our coffee, and watch the world go by well into the afternoon.

Of course we couldn't sit there relaxing forever. Our goal for the afternoon was to drive twenty-five miles to the south and try to locate the house where Concetta was born in the tiny town of Milford, Massachusetts. Hoping that the GPS would try and keep us out of the construction zones in central Quincy, we set out about 2:00 p.m., muddled through the construction zones anyway, and were then soon gliding south on Interstate 95. Before long we had changed over to Interstate 495, then a couple of city streets in Milford, before the GPS announced, with plenty of authority in her voice, "turn right and arrive at #66 Fruit Street."

This we did, and proceeded to enter that part of Fruit Street that started with house number 40 and declined to house number 12 or so. The GPS had "done" us again.

At this point, not sure whether the street had recently been renumbered, or if the GPS was just having more fun with us, we parked and started walking in the direction that number 66 should be located. Along the way we encountered various neighbors, all of whom we asked about the changed number idea, and all of whom responded that they didn't think so.

After walking several minutes, we came upon an Italian gentleman working in his front yard who, for some reason, immediately jumped into a discussion of economics after we'd asked him about the house number mystery. "What do you do when you're retired and have a mortgage to pay and the government takes all your money?" he wanted to know.

I responded that you should try and pay off your mortgage BEFORE you retire, but that answer didn't seem to be what he wanted to hear.

"What do you think about reverse mortgage?" he asked

We shook our heads "Wouldn't recommend it," we said in unison.

"Well, I live here alone," he continued, inferring, I suppose, that he had no one to whom he wished to leave his estate.

"Well," I told him. "If you decide to do it, be sure you get some sound financial advice first."

"Listen," he said, when you find your house down the street there, come back and talk some more with me, will ya? We'll have a soda."

We told him we'd try, but it was getting very late in the day and we still had to find Concetta's house and then find our camp. We promised to see him later, and I feel bad that we didn't knock on his door on our way back, but we just had to keep moving.

The next person we encountered was the lady delivering mail on Fruit Street. She told us that, yes indeed, there was a number 66 on Fruit Street. We just needed to walk a few more houses to the north.

Turned out the mail delivery lady was smarter than our GPS. Her directions pointed us right to the house. As we walked up, Concetta affirmed that it sure looked like the house in which she was born, though her recollections go back seven decades and had been formed before her 4th birthday.

We proceeded to take photos of the house from every angle -- left, right, and center. Moments later we got to talk to the mail person for the second time, and learned that the present owner is in a rest home and wouldn't be scolding us for being in her yard. After that, Concetta got brave and had me take her photo on the porch.

Back in the mid 1940s when Concetta lived on Fruit Street, her grandmother also lived on that street. So off we went to find that house as well. Soon we arrived at what just had to be the house, and we got a few more photos. Then it was the long walk back to the rig, followed by a mad dash north on Interstate 495 to find our camp in Littleton.

We finally found the "Minute Man" RV camp just after 5:00 p.m., and the owner personally took us to our spot. Then we launched into a flurry of activity with me setting up the rig, and Concetta getting started on some laundry and then preparing for dinner. Now, night has fallen outside and we're just enjoying the peaceful night air and all seems right with the world. Tomorrow our game plan is to do a "park and ride" from a nearby subway station where they have provided spaces for RVs and long-term parking. Then we hope to catch the "Green Line" into Boston to absorb as much of the 18th century as we can.

So, until we meet again, we wish you Happy Travels!

Day 55 -- All day in Salem, Massachusetts -- 0 Miles

Today we did something I've always been shy about doing, we visited the town of Salem, Massachusetts. As we were told by our guides on the "hop on, hop off" trolley this morning, living in Salem around the year 1692 turned out to be a very bad choice for a couple of hundred folks. You probably have learned parts of the story over the years, so had we. In a frenzy of lethal religious nonsense, around two hundred innocent people were accused of being "witches" and nineteen were executed for supposed heinous crimes. Many, many of the remaining 180 souls were stripped of their money and property and imprisoned. Though they were not convicted of anything, if they weren't able to buy their way out of jail, they simply languished there until they died. It's ugly. It's gruesome. And I always turn the channel when the story comes on TV.

But we couldn't exactly drive right by the place, could we? I mean, we were in Maine just north of Salem, and tomorrow we'll be going to Boston just south of Salem. Academically speaking, it would have been less than intelligent to ignore the place. And so, this morning we caught the trolley that came right here to our camp, and spent the next forty minutes or so learning the story of Salem, both its dark past, and its more "civilized" accomplishments.

Oddly enough, as one of our trolley drivers put it, any mention of the witch trials was forbidden for at least one hundred and fifty years after the original 9-month-long event. Who wanted to be known as being from the town that murdered dozens of innocent citizens? Then, around the 1950s, the townspeople suddenly realized that lots and lots of money could be had by playing willing hosts to the hoards of tourists who seemed to be fascinated by the gruesome story. Today, the town's economy, at least the historic old part of the town, is largely built around those long-ago events. Now, everything from the Visitors Center gift shop, to dozens of restaurants and gift shops stock an ample supple of witch-related geegaws and tchotchkes.

Okay, so witch-related sensationalism is not my cup of tea. But I have to admit that touring the town, including the waterfront, a certain witch trial judge's home, and the famous House of Seven Gables, from the Hawthorne novel of the same name, was pretty interesting (photo below). And walking the narrow streets of ANY town built in the 1600s can't help but be fascinating, especially since Salem has managed to retain an unbelievable number of their oldest buildings. I'm not used to historic preservation at that level since in Nevada we tend to knock down anything that's in the way of development, no matter how historically significant. We even got to see the self-proclaimed "oldest ice cream store in America," which we passed on our way to the Seven Gables house.

At this point I'm going to reveal to you how close I am to this subject of witches. In my family tree, my 12th great Grandfather was a chap named "William Noyes." He lived from 1568 to 1622 in Wiltshire, England. William begat a son whose name was Nicholas. He also begat a daughter, my 11th great grandmother, Mowit. There were lots of other children, too. But son Nicholas also had a son who was called Nicholas, and it was this particular Noyes who figured prominently in the deaths of at least some of the witch trail's innocent victims.

As Wikipedia puts it, "Rev. Nicholas Noyes II was son of Rev. Nicholas Noyes and Mary Cutting Noyes, grandson of the Rev. William Noyes, and nephew of Rev. James Noyes. He graduated at Harvard in 1667, and, after preaching thirteen years in Haddam, Connecticut, he moved in 1683 to Salem, where he was minister until his death in Salem."

"Before the execution of one Sarah Good on July 19, 1692, Noyes asked her to confess. Her famous last words were, “You are a liar! I am no more a witch than you are a wizard, and if you take away my life God will give you blood to drink.” Twenty-five years later, Noyes died of a hemorrhage and literally did choke on his own blood. He was 9 days shy of his 70th birthday."

"On September 22, 1692, Noyes had officiated as clergyman at the final hangings of those accused of witchcraft. It is reported that he turned toward the suspended bodies of the victims and said, “What a sad thing it is to see eight firebrands of hell hanging there.”

So there you have it. Not a nice guy. Fortunately, since I am a descendant of Mowit Noyes, and not her younger brother Nicholas, I'm hoping that there was no member of my family tree who was directly involved with these murders most foul. But who knows? Most family trees will not stand up to much close scrutiny, and now we have the Internet to make it easy.

Since we had these events on our mind today, I guess it was fitting that it was cold, overcast, and gray for much of the day. Photography was dismal, but the light did make for great shooting when it came to tombstones, of which they have a rather prodigious supply right in the middle of town. I photographed the markers for the nineteen convicted and slain witches, and I walked through the cemetery just casually looking for anyone whose name might ring a bell as coming from my tree. But I didn't find anyone. The only name I remember is the surname, Bowditch. For some reason there were quite a few of those.

But you can tell that I was less than thrilled with the whole witches "visit," as I bought neither my usual "been there, done that" t-shirt, nor did I come away with any research material on the subject. I decided that I'd just let it suffice that my 12th great grandfather had a grandson who, along with eight or nine other misguided idiots, probably screwed up a lot of other family trees way back in 1692.

The thing I liked best today was lunch. Though we didn't have any initial luck in finding the two or three restaurants recommended by the trolley lady (the trolley had an attractions narrator as well as a driver), we did stumble over a small "hole-in-the-wall" bistro that was advertising "three shrimp tacos" on their outside menu board. I thought that sounded good, though I flirted with the possibility of clam chowder or the special burger as well.

In the end, Concetta and I both had the shrimp tacos. They used an awful lot of hot sauce, which Concetta did not like and I wasn't thrilled with, but I thought the tacos tasted pretty good and had lots of fresh ingredients. We had a couple of Coronas to drink, which served to cool off the hot sauce a bit. For desert our charming waitress talked me into the key lime pie, which I augmented with black coffee. Concetta shared my pie, and also had the coffee, which turned out to be her favorite part of the lunch. It was darn good and came in a cup large enough to use as a soup bowl.

There was one other high point of the day, at least for me. While we were still at camp this morning, we chanced to see a wooden sailing vessel (photo right), about forty feet long, beating its way up the channel towards us. Since it was sporting the old style "gaff" rigging so common in centuries gone by, I dashed over to the rocky shore and shot a number of photos of her. Today, when we got to the historic waterfront area of Salem, we spotted the same boat tied up at the quay. I decided to go talk to the captain and relive a bit of my childhood.

When I got to the boat's mooring, I soon discovered that you could not approach the boat because the entry was roped off. Being one of those people who lives by the mantra, "you don't ask, you don't get," I called over to the guys on the boat and asked if I could trespass and come photograph their craft. This they allowed me to do, and I proceeded to spend the next twenty minutes chatting with the captain and his two mates about the world of sailing (photo below).

Most of the time I don't miss living on the sea, but sometimes when I stand on the undulating deck of some tour boat, or if I see an old wooden boat with it's billowed sails hoisted, I do feel a certain longing for shipboard life.

Naturally, I told them that I had lived on just such a wooden boat when I was a lad. And then in the midst of a general discussion of wooden boats and their upkeep, I told them my tale of nearly sinking with the yacht Mar in the midnight waters of the Mediterranean back in the winter of 1973.

We were a hundred miles from the nearest land, and somehow our Danforth anchor got loose during some extremely heavy seas, and the next thing we knew we had water flooding our compartments. Long hours of working on the bilge pump in a flooded engine room, as well as some difficult temporary patching of the largest hole in the hull, did much to save us. But it's probably the closest I have come in this life to not reaching my next birthday.

If you want to read about it go to: http://www.tomdavis.me/memoirs.html#sinking

Tomorrow, we have a number of things on our agenda. First, we're planning on visiting the suburb of Boston known as Quincy, the home of President John Adams. There we hope to visit the Adams home as well as farm. Later we intend to try and track down Concetta's home when she was born, in a community known as Milford. Lastly, we've reserved a space in the Minuteman RV park near Boston, and we hope we'll be able to score a train ride into the city, because no one in their right mind tries to drive there.

So, until we meet again, we wish you the very best of Happy Traveling!

Day 54 -- Boothbay, Maine to Salem, Massachusetts -- 158 Miles

Today we headed south toward the Boston area, potentially our last east-coast stopover before turning our Jamboree's nose westward and beginning the long trek back to Nevada. Once again the good weather seemed to be holding, though there seemed to be plenty of dark clouds waiting in the wings.

We actually hated to leave our camp at Boothbay, as we'd already grown quite attached to the camp's personnel, as well as to folks we'd met in town. Along that line, when I checked with Concetta this morning after getting all my various chores done, she told me she wanted to do an extra good cleaning of the bathroom before we pulled out. That was fine with me, I had an "errand" I wanted to run if I could steal at least twenty minutes from the morning's routine. As we had traveled back and forth to Boothbay by shuttle the last two days, I had caught sight of a small rail yard just a couple of doors down from the camp. Since Concetta wouldn't miss me for at least twenty minutes, I made a dash for the street, walked the 100 yards down to the rail facility, and slipped onto the property, evidently unnoticed.

I knew I didn't have enough time to cover everything on the property, so I concentrated on whatever was being illuminated by the morning sunlight. There was a wonderful old station house with a diesel-like locomotive and a string of cars sitting outside, There was a few static displays of old rail cars on the far side of the station, and there was a train shed that I knew I shouldn't venture near, let alone go inside. But what the heck, I did both.

Since the facility didn't appear to be open, I kept looking around to catch sight of whomever was going to emerge from one of the nearby buildings and demand that I get lost -- immediately. But no one appeared, so I just went about my photographic business unhampered by the need to either buy a ticket, or ask permission.

This evening, when I had time to look up the rail line, I found that that it was called the Boothbay Railway Village. I didn't find a Wiki article on the place, but maybe the line's PR department blurb might help:

"Nowhere else in New England can you ride the rails behind an authentic steam locomotive surrounded by historic Maine buildings preserved in a recreated village, and view a collection of 60 antique autos."

"All guests experience a coal-fired, narrow gauge steam train ride and an exceptional antique automobile exhibit of over sixty vehicles, including Model T Fords, Stanley Steamers and a Roll Royce."

"The Boothbay Railway Village loves GROUPS! Our Executive Director was the group tour sales person for the Maine Office of Tourism before joining our team, and she understands what tour operators and representatives need to be successful. Our well-priced basic group visit (just $8 per adult in 2016) includes a step-on welcome, a ride on our narrow gauge steam train, a self-guided tour of our historic buildings and exhibits, along with the 60+ antique cars in our auto museum."

"Reservations are not required for the basic visit, however calling ahead allows us to be sure the train cars are configured to accommodate a full motor coach, and that we have a senior staff member on site to step-on. We are happy to accommodate you on rainy and foggy days when your boat tours might be cancelled. A menu of experiential programming specifically designed for groups is available for an additional fee."

"The Boothbay Railway Village is located a little more than one hour north of Portland, and just minutes from Boothbay Harbor and coastal attractions. We have plenty of restrooms and a parking lot perfectly proportioned for coaches. We offer complimentary admission for your driver and your escort. We appreciate prepayment for basic group visits and require 14 days prepayment for specialty programs."

"For more information or to book your group, call or email Margaret Hoffman at 207-633-4727 or margaret@railwayvillage.org."

The place looked absolutely charming, and I'm just sorry that it wasn't convenient for us to get back to our camp early enough in the day to ride, well, if they were planning to be open. As we passed by in the shuttle the last couple of days, I must admit that I never once saw anyone moving around on the property, though there were plenty of vehicles present.

Our main goal for the morning was the Marine Museum in Bath, a town just to the south of our camp in Boothbay. One of the major reasons I had been excited about coming to Maine was the potential to see boat-building in action. From the time that I spent over a year of my life aboard a wooden sailing vessel, I have been just obsessed with learning more about boat building. I hoped that the Marine Museum might afford me the opportunity to see a team of people actually building a boat. Unfortunately, a demonstration of boat building didn't turn out to be possible

But let me just say that we found the Bath Marine Museum to be an incredible gem among gems. Their nautical history displays are exceptional and superbly displayed. And their tour of the one-time Percy and Small shipyard was so darn interesting that I just hung on our guide's every word as he led us around the property. For more information I found the following:

"The Maine Maritime Museum, formerly the Bath Marine Museum, offers exhibits about Maine's maritime heritage, culture and the role Maine has played in regional and global maritime activities. The Maine Maritime Museum has a large and quirky collection, made up of more than 20,000 documents, artifacts and pieces of artwork and includes an extensive research library."

"The museum is set on a scenic active waterfront on the banks of the Kennebec River and includes the historic Percy and Small Shipyard with five original 19th-century buildings, a Victorian-era shipyard owner's home, and New England's largest sculpture – a full size representation of the largest wooden sailing vessel ever built, the six-masted schooner Wyoming (photo lower right)."

"The museum's location includes the Percy & Small Shipyard, preserving the nation's only surviving wooden shipbuilding site. Winton Scott Architects designed the current Maine Maritime Museum gallery building. In 1987, Elizabeth B. Noyce donated $3.5 million towards the construction of the museum's building. The building was completed in 1989 to a size of 30,000 square feet."

"The museum’s campus is dominated by a sculpture, designed to reflect the Wyoming (photo below right), which was the largest wooden vessel ever built in the United States. The Wyoming sank in 1924, but in an effort to connect Maine visitors with the seafaring past and raise the profile of the museum, a full-scale sculptural installation was erected in 2001 (photo left) to celebrate the ship. The sculpture is almost 600 feet of empty space -- which encourages viewer’s imagination to fill in the rest -- and is made of white steel replicas of the Wyoming’s bow and stern. The sculpture resides upon the area where the Wyoming was built, and amounts to one of the largest pieces of New England public art. In 2001 the museum raised $4 million through donations from the public and spent $300,000 from those funds on the sculpture."

Because nearly all of the Percy & Small shipyard buildings survived into this century, docents offer tours throughout the grounds. Most of the boat-building equipment is still in place, almost as if the workers only left for the weekend and would be back in a day or two to pick up their tools. Everything from the saw mill that could handle whole trees, to the tiniest drafting equipment was there to be enjoyed. I was just awestruck by the magnitude of different types of equipment that was needed to build wooden boats.

Unfortunately, we were not able to remain at the Maritime Museum as long as we would have liked. This wonderful museum would really require an entire day to do it justice. Many of the workshops have two and three stories of exhibits, where everything from sail making and carpentry, to blacksmithing and painting are artfully displayed. It was just awesome. But all too soon we just had to get on the road if we wanted to get a few miles before we slept.

Tonight we're camped on the edge of the bay in Salem Massachusetts. We're so close that the Class A coaches on both sides of us elected to park front-on to the bay so they could sit in their captains chairs and watch the boats go by. The park that Concetta found is called Winter Island, and she picked it because it has a trolley shuttle that can take us into Salem tomorrow so we can leave the rig sit right here. We rented the space for two nights, which means we won't have to come rushing back at noon, but will be able to spend the entire day seeing the sights.

We were pretty lucky we got here when we did. There were almost no sites left when we arrived, and only two that would allow us to stay two days. Actually, we almost gave up trying to find the place thanks to our crafty GPS, Miss Jezebel. Once again she performed perfectly all the way from Boothbay, but when the chips were down, she led us down the garden path -- almost literally. We had only one more turn to make as we approached Winter Island when she demanded that we turn left and proceed down this tiny lane just big enough for a fully-loaded Mini Cooper.

When we got to the end of the lane, and found that there was a house to the left of us, one to the right of us, and another right in front of us, we realized we'd been had yet again. Carefully I had to back the rig into a tiny side street, after first moving a unfortunately-located trash can, and avoiding everyone's landscaping on all sides. This I succeeded in doing -- almost. Just before I stopped, I knocked over yet another, heretofore unseen can full of pine needles and other garden refuse. Thank goodness the can was made out of rubber. I just got out and stood the can upright, scooped most of the refuse back inside, and had to unfortunately leave some on the ground.

Once we got turned around, we were able to retreat to the main road, hang a left, and within a minute or two we had arrived at the proper destination. Thankfully there was still a couple of spaces left so we didn't have to start over. The temperature here by the ocean is quite cool, but the views are to die for. We took a hike up on the bluffs where historic Fort Pickering once stood, and enjoyed a view of the bay that came complete with a small lighthouse.

So, that's about all for tonight. We're not at all sure what we'll end up doing tomorrow, though we plan to buy tickets for the trolley that allows you to hop on and hop off at your leisure. So until tomorrow, we wish you Happy Travels!

Day 53 -- All day in Boothbay, Maine -- 0 Miles

Concetta and I spent the entire day getting acquainted with people we may never see again. But for some reason, it just seemed like fate insisted. This morning at 9:00 a.m. we caught the park shuttle to Boothbay, about four miles down the road from our camp, and the driver dropped us right in the middle of town. He promised to pick us up ten hours later, hopefully after we'd had our dinner and were ready to come "home."

Once we were afoot, our challenge was to find something to do for the next two and a half hours until our scheduled harbor cruise was to take place. The day had dawned bright and warm, something new for the northeast we had heard from the locals, and we were well equipment with sunscreen and floppy hats. Concetta chose the direction, and we set off to accumulate our 10,000 steps for the day, and to enjoy the fabulous views of the bay, as well as all the wonderful architecture in and around the town.

Boothbay is really a photographers paradise for all its vibrant, often funky colors. I couldn't help myself, and just fired away at houses, plants, and people at every other step. At one point we came upon a tiny, dead-end lane that seemed to demand our attention. We thought perhaps it might be a private road, but not seeing anyone around, we went ahead and strolled clear to the end of the shady street in hopes of finding a good film location or two. We were involved in shooting between the houses and toward the bay, when a car rolled in and parked about half way to where we were standing. A tall, lanky young man got out and peered over the top of his car at us. He didn't look unfriendly, but I figured he soon be asking us to leave.

But the first words out of the young man's mouth were, "Good morning," which he said with gusto. He then followed up with asking how we were doing, as if we had just exited one of the houses and were going for a stroll. He seemed to have no idea we didn't actually belong there.

Returning his greeting with equal gusto, we walked over to where he was standing. Then, in no more than five minutes, the three of us had launched into a conversation that included where we all lived (he lived in Golden, Colorado), why we all were in Boothbay (he was visiting his girlfriend), what his girlfriend was doing in Boothbay (she was doing a two-year fellowship in health sciences), and where one went for the best food in town (he was happy to tell us his girlfriend's favorite). Before long it was as if we three had known each other for years and had just accidentally run into each other far from home. I don't think we actually got his name, but we shook hands, wished each other safe travels, and then parted as friends. It was wonderfully uncanny, but it was only the start of our very uncanny day.

Leaving the Coloradoan and his picturesque lane, we walked further south along the shore road until we encountered a county electrical crew installing a new power pole in place of an old, weathered one. We only exchanged a few words with one of the young crew members, but the chap was more than happy to tell us "about 1949" when I asked him just how old the older telephone pole was (I had guessed 70 years, which would have been 1946. At this point we thanked him for his information and then let him get back to work watching over the guy up on the lift boom who was actually moving the wires.

But since we would shortly encounter these guys again, I'll continue the story about them now. As we walked back north on the shore road about thirty minutes later we fell into conversation with two other electrical workers who were handling the caution flag work for their big company truck that was partially blocking the street. The scene was so cool, with the big orange and white truck in the background and the flagmen in orange helmets and yellow safety vests, that I asked if I could take their photo.

Once I had done that, we immediately fell into an approximation of the same conversation we had had with the Coloradoan. Where we were from. How come we were in Boothbay. That kind of thing. Then, and I don't remember how exactly, the older of the two men and I started talking about boats. I told him about how I had lived on a a wooden boat for a year, and where that had been. And he told me he liked boats. And I told him about how Ernie Gann had been the noted writer who had owned the boat on which I had lived. He perked up when I told him that Gann had written lots of books, some of which had been made into movies. And then I told him that my favorite book of Gann's was "Song of the Sirens." And he got more excited about potentially reading the book. And naturally I told him that I would just send him a copy if he'd email me his address, and I handed him one of our calling cards.

Well the four of us shook hands, and took more photos, and just had the best time. We really didn't introduce ourselves, but it didn't seem to matter. We had crossed a threshold of human interaction and it felt good and it felt important, and the four of us went away happier for having the shared experience. I hope the guy contacts me for the book as I'd just love to send him one.

But this event really came AFTER our meeting the little old lady with the ruined grass. Earlier, when we had met the first electrical worker who knew the age of the weathered telephone pole, we walked on south until the road ended. As I stood at the edge of the asphalt, I could see that if I could just walk across the property that lay between us and the bay, I could get some nice shots of the boats bobbing next to their buoys. These thoughts had no more than run through my brain when the door to the nearest house was thrown open, and an obviously ancient lady came out on the porch, shaded her eyes with a wrinkled hand, and asked if we'd like to come over and take our photo.

"Yes, of course," we said, and immediately walked down the path toward the house. When we approached, we were warmly greeted by the lady, and wished a good morning, exactly as everyone else had done that we'd met that morning. "Do you mind if I walk over to the breakwater?" I asked her.

"No, no, go right ahead," she said, and waved a hand in that direction. Not one to pass up such a glorious opportunity, I immediately strolled over to the breakwater and started shooting. I could tell as I walked that considerable water had lately been in the lady's yard. At one time the southern part of the yard next to the bay had been lush grass, but now it was mostly mud. Taking note of a small, square deck nearby, I moved in that direction to get some height for my shots.

Meanwhile Concetta and been talking with the lady on her front steps, and now they both came toward where I was shooting. Then we all got into a conversation about the terrible storm that had pounded the bay not long ago, and how her yard had received more flood water when the tide came in, and how it was more water than she had seen in the ten years she had lived there. She told us that a landscaper had promised to come fix the lawn, but there were so many people demanding the same attention that she expected she'd just have to wait her turn.

After that, while the girls talked, I roamed further afield looking for shots, even to the point of trespassing into the neighbor's yard. The lady had just a wonderful home on the bay with views to die for, beautiful mature landscaping, and some of the most incredible granite rock formations at the foot of her yard I've seen on this trip.

About that time the elderly lady's son-in-law came out to see how she was doing, but he looked just as friendly as his mother-in-law. I thought he might be unhappy with us for taking up her time, but he showed no such inclination. Still I thought we better move on, so we all said our goodbyes, waved, and wished each other a great day. I thanked them for allowing me to do photography, and then Concetta and I walked back toward town.

At this point it was time to start thinking about an early lunch. Our boat tour was scheduled for noon, and we had been requested to show up at 11:40 a.m. So we figured that we need to eat at 11:00 in order to make it work. Our goal was to eat somewhere that listed "lobster rolls" on the menu. We had already picked out a very nice prospect, but it turned out that when we got back there a chap with a jackhammer was tearing up the parking lot of the house next door, producing a racket that didn't seem conducive to good digestion.

So we walked until we couldn't hear the jackhammer, then selected a different restaurant. It turned out that our second choice was closed. So, we ended up picking a place at random, which turned out to be the smartest thing we did all day.

First of all, we were the only customers in the place with a staff of at least four to take care of us. Yes, they had lobster rolls, they told as when we asked. And yes, they'd get right on them so we could make our noon cruise. But is was our waiter, young master Steward, who won our hearts. Master Steward had flaming red hair, so of course we immediately launched into a discussion of his lineage. It was Irish, he thought. And so we naturally brought up the topic of genetics, Ancestry.com's test that one could take cheaply, and how at one time MY hair had looked exactly like his.

Now comes the part that you won't believe. Young Master Steward was born in Reno, had lived in Battle Mountain and Winnemucca, all towns in Nevada, and had only come east because his mother came to live with her sister. Naturally we had a bond that was solid from the start. At that point the waitress who had been training Steward (it was his first day as a restaurant employee) came over and jumped into the conversation, saying how she was born in Massachusetts, then moved to Texas, and how she's been living in Maine for the last six years. Before long we were like one big happy, and very chatty family.

But that's not the incredible part. Just about the time we were digging into our lobster roll sandwiches, a couple came in and sat at the counter. They were looking for something to drink. Since we were keeping the wait staff pretty busy taking about everything under the sun, the owner came out to take the English couple's order. I knew immediately that they were Brits when I heard them speak. The owner said, "That's a funny kind of accent. Where are you from?"

The male half of the couple said, "We're from south of London."

And then the Englishman spied the red-haired Master Steward and asked him if he was Irish. The entertainment was about to go into overdrive. Of course Master Steward told them he was, and before we all knew what had happened, we found ourselves in yet another lively conversation about genetics. The Englishman said, "You know that red hair comes from the Vikings."

I piped up and said that I was 38% Irish, according to the Ancestry.com genetics test, and that I had 3% Scandinavian, most likely compliments of the Vikings.

Before long we all were the best of friends. After a short time, the English couple, who had only come in for a glass of ice tea, got up and left. We all said goodbye, we paid our bill shortly thereafter, and then set off for our boat ride. We had just about ten minutes to get there.

The boat was just a tad late boarding and getting started, but before long we were backing out of the slip and getting under way. And then whom should we encounter, but the English Couple sitting in the bright blue and white deck chairs on the fantail. Naturally, we fell right in together and continued our previous conversation from the restaurant.

During the course of the next ninety minutes we four had a truly fabulous and relaxing cruise around the bay, enjoyed each others company immensely, and then ended up taking photos for each other and handing out calling cards so we could stay in touch. The very last thing that Mark and Donna said to us as we finished our cruise, was that we just had to come to Kent (near London) and visit them in the future. As fate would have it, we'd be seeing them much sooner than that.

Our next goal for the day was to visit one of the local t-shirt purveyors and score one or two for my "been there, done that" collection. So we bid Mark and Donna adieu on the quay, and off we went in our separate directions. It took some doing, but we finally came up with a couple of t-shirts I found acceptable, plunked down the cash, and went in search of our next adventure.

This turned out to be ice cream, or so suggested Concetta. Of course, I didn't just want ice cream, I wanted a nice cup of coffee to go with it. This meant that most of the ice cream shops we had seen just wouldn't do. "Well," I suggested, "maybe they've stopped jackhammering at our first-choice lunch restaurant. Let's go see if they have ice cream."

But try as we might, once we got there and read the menu, we could not see where they served both ice cream AND coffee. Just about that time a young woman who had been tending to the restaurant's garden looked up and asked if she could answer our question. We told her of what we were seeking. "We don't have much in the way of ice cream," she said, "but we have wonderful blueberry pie and we can put a dollop of vanilla ice cream on it if you like."

Coffee good?" I asked.

"Best in town," she said.

"That settles it," I said to Concetta. "I'm going for the blueberry pie."

"Better hurry," the gardener said. "There's only two pieces left."

Taking that advice as gospel, we struck out for the front door and were soon ordering our pie and coffee. The manager who sold us the pie told us to grab our own coffee from the urn nearby, then go take a seat on the deck overlooking the bay and he'd bring the pie after he heated it and applied the ice cream to the top.

This we did, and immediately saw Mark and Donna at a far table. Not wanting to seem like we were stalking them, we chose our own table and made to sit down. But the Brits wouldn't hear of it and motioned us over. Then, while they had lunch and we had our mid-afternoon snack, we had just the best time talking about our respective families, our work history, and a hundred other topics. Turns out Mark is a retired "Bobby" and so we sort of had that in common since I had also worked for public safety most of my career.

When we all had finished our food, and got up to leave, Mark and Donna reaffirmed that we should come to southern England some day soon. Mark said he'd show us the London that most folks don't get to see. Coming from a policeman, I suspect that could be downright "blog-worthy." This time the four of us definitely did go our separate ways and we saw no more of this wondrously affable and genial couple, though we're certainly going to miss them.

Okay, at this point it was two hours before we had any designs on drinks and dinner, so we did the only sensible thing we could do -- we went back to the bookstore that we discovered yesterday. It was Concetta who suggested that we find something to read and then go sit on one of the harbor benches for a couple of hours and just enjoy the sun and quiet.

This we more or less did. Of course telling me to pick out A book is like telling someone to eat just one Lays potato chip. For awhile I had three in my hand, but I finally settled on one good-sized history paperback, and one tiny little advice book on the art of memoirs. Concetta never got around to buying a reading book, but did find some gifts in the shop downstairs from the bookshop.

So we read the rest of the afternoon away, I with my memoirs book and Concetta on her IPhone. At a quarter after five we started moving towards our choice of dinner establishments for the evening where we had a nice whiskey sour apiece, a very nice seafood dinner, and quite a stimulating conversation with the young woman who was our server. By the time we left the restaurant we had only scant minutes before the shuttle was due to arrive from the camp, so we sat on a nearby bench and watched the (young) world go by. Concetta remarked that she couldn't understand how the teenage girls could wear so little and still keep warm. I wondered, too, since I definitely was not overly warm in my jeans and long-sleeved shirt. But girls will be girls, I guess.

Now we're back in the RV, baths taken, and things gotten shipshape for tomorrow's adventures, whatever they may turn out to be. I'd like to visit the maritime museum in Bath if we can find it. Other than that, we have no idea where we're going or what camp we may find tomorrow night. But as you can see from today's adventures, our love affair with serendipity has a long time to run. So until next time, we wish you Happy Travels!

Day 52 -- Bridgewater, New Hampshire to Boothbay, Maine -- 160 Miles

Today we reached the symbolic end of our eastward trek from Nevada. Our journey this morning from a rain-soaked camp in Bridgewater, New Hampshire to the sunny blue skies of Boothbay, Maine this afternoon marks the last few miles we will travel away from home this summer. Any further miles we travel will be toward home. At least that's what it says in the fine print. Still to come tomorrow noon is a two-hour harbor cruise to see the area from a nautical perspective, followed by another seafood dinner somewhere in the charming village of Boothbay, a tiny berg of impossibly narrow streets that lies just up the coast from Portland, Maine.

We didn't do much photography this morning, as once again the elements were against us. But by noon, as we approached the village of Lebanon, Maine, the sun began to make a small appearance so I shot the truck next to the church where we had lunch.

After lunch, driving was mostly dedicated to thrumming north on first the Maine Turnpike 95, and then Interstate 295, as we watched for our opportunity to get off the heavily-traveled superhighways, and onto Route 1 that promised more scenic vistas and a slower pace to be able to enjoy them.

We arrived in camp just after 3:00 p.m. and immediately inquired about the shuttle that the Good Sam camp book had described. "Leaves at four," the elderly lady running the office said.

I asked the lady if I could get our propane tank filled before we drove to our camp spot. She told me no problem. Then I asked if we could pay for two nights, the propane fill, and the shuttle ride in one transaction. She told me no problem.

"Just one thing," she said.

"What's that," I asked.

"We don't take credit cards. Cash or checks only."

"Well," I said, "I have to park the rig and extend the slides before I get to the check book. Mind if I come pay when I get on the shuttle?"

"No problem," she said, "I'll open the gate so you can drive around back to the propane tank."

And that's all the harder it turned out to be. In less than 45 minutes we filled the propane tank, set up the rig with all the cords and hoses, walked back to the office to pay for everything, and got right on the shuttle into town. There was not one minute left over.

When we were dropped in Boothbay, we asked the driver where to find a good lobster dinner, and he told us where to go. Then we walked over to a booth on the waterfront and bought our tickets

for the harbor cruise tomorrow mid day. After that we checked in with the restaurant to see if they required reservations. They didn't. Then we spent the next hour walking the town and looking at all the shops. We finished up with trying to locate a parking lot the cruise ticket guy had told us about that would accommodate our RV, just in case the shuttle wouldn't be able to deliver us for our cruise tomorrow at the proper hour.

All these things went as smooth as silk. We found a shop for tomorrow's t-shirt purchase. We found the parking lot for the RV. And we reappeared at the restaurant at dinnertime for our much anticipated lobster dinner.

What we didn't count on was the prompt closing down of all the shops at 5:00 p.m. So, when we had finished dinner and reappeared on the street, almost nothing was still open. To add an extra layer of complexity, the fog had started to roll into the harbor making the whole town look a tad dreary and cold.

"Okay," I told Concetta, "we needed to walk off our dinner, AND we needed to keep warm in the process." She agreed, and that's just what we did, at least for the next thirty minutes. By that time we had accidentally stumbled onto a store that wasn't closed, and it just happened to be a combination notions and bookstore. Well, I didn't have any particular need for any notions, so I headed right for the second floor and the books.

So it was that the stipulated seven o'clock hour for our shuttle ride came all too quickly and I had to give up my perusal of the rows and rows of cool books long before I was ready. Concetta was glad, since she says I already have acquired twenty books on this trip. I dispute twenty. I think it's more like ten.

Anyway, we talked to the shuttle driver about the morning run and he told us it leaves at 9:00 a.m. That's perfect for us since we have to be at our harbor cruise about 11:40 a.m., which gives us

plenty of time to window shop and still make our boat ride. After the cruise we'll hang around town some more, have another nice dinner, and then catch the shuttle back at 7:00 p.m. Sounds just perfect.

Sorry for the cursory account this evening, but I started much later than usual and it's already getting close to bedtime. So, until we meet again, I wish you Happy Travels!