Salem, Massachusetts: October 2000

Peggy and I took Jaden and Christa to Salem, Massachusetts in October of 2000. We chose to go early in the month in order to avoid Halloween activities.

We left after the girls got out of school on Friday afternoon. We drove to Andover, Connecticut for a short stop at Megan's house. Cassandra was five or six weeks old and we wanted to see her. I think this was the second time I visited my first grandchild.

Then we headed to our lodging. I don't recall the town it was in, but it was close to Salem. I am pretty sure it was a Holiday Inn Express. We stayed two nights.

Saturday morning after an express breakfast (and we took a few items to put in our cooler for lunch) we headed into Salem. It was pretty crowded, I guess October is a popular month there.

There was a lot to choose from. I remember going to a "mock" witch trial that was pretty good, going into at least one museum, and a bus tour. Jaden misplaced her disposable camera just prior to the bus tour, and she was pretty upset, and then very happy when it was returned to her when we got off the bus. We also did a Moby Duck boat tour, which was fun. From the boat, I had noticed a nice beach area and we were able to find that. The girls had fun running around on that beach.

After that we headed back to the town our lodging was in. We thought we might be able to find a Chinese restaurant for supper, but we were unable to. I don't recall where we finally ate that night. The following morning, we had another "express" breakfast and headed back to NY.

Childhood travels: Alleghany State Park

From my childhood, what I remember the most is trips to Alleghany State Park and to the Adirondacks. When I was younger, it was always to Alleghany and I think it was all weekend or long weekend trips. It was only a couple of hours drive from our home in Lockport.
A few times another family would accompany us for a weekend at Alleghany.

I loved Alleghany. We usually stayed on Anderson Trail, which was a beautiful place. The cabins were fairly big, too. One neat thing I recall about Anderson Trail is picking wild strawberries across the road from our cabin. Once we stayed on Sugarbush Trail (which was more expensive) and the cabins were nicer, with bunk beds.

I think there are (or were) two sections to the park. The Red House Lake area and the Quaker area. Once or twice we stayed in the Quaker area and the cabins were smaller. However, Quaker had a huge swimming pool.

I think the cabins all had refrigerators, but no electricity. I have a vague memory of my parents purchasing blocks of ice to put in the refrigerators to keep food items cold.

Going to THUNDER ROCK (see picture) was always a fun thing to do, but I think watching us kids climb on the rocks made our parents nervous, so we seldom went there. I have a vague memory of climbing to the top of the STONE TOWER in the picture.

Mostly, though, my parents liked to put all of us kids in the car and drive around looking for wildlife. A favorite place to go was to "the dump" . Bears would go there to rummage through the garbage. One time there was a dead deer at the dump and a bear family was there gnawing away. What I remember most is that the smell was just terrible and after watching for a couple of minutes, I could not wait to leave. We often saw deer along the road and stopped to feed them. Around the cabins, we would see chipmunks and raccoons. One time, there was a bear near the cabins (I think maybe on the Honeybee Trail) and I remember a man being chased by a bear when he ran out of food to throw to the bear!

So, those are the good memories of Alleghany. I have a couple of not so fond memories. One is that we kids had to sleep without pillows. I hated that. But we had to take our own bedding and my mother was convinced that we did not have room to pack pillows. I offered to hold my own pillow on my lap during the ride, but was not allowed to. It was very hard to sleep without a pillow and using other items did not help much. The other is that I was often forced to share a bed with my younger sister Gail. She wet the bed and I would wake up covered in her urine in the morning. I BEGGED and BEGGED to not have to do that, but to no avail.

But, all in all.........I have a lot of wonderful memories of fun times in Alleghany State Park. Its a great place, and I will tell about my adult trips there in another entry.

Introduction to this blog

I have been having so much fun recording and posting pictures for short day trips and scenes close to where I live. However, I have a lot of great memories and pictures of places not so close to home that I have been to over the years.

This particular blog is a place for me to record some of what I remember from some of those trips.