'Cause it's Witchcraft...

Salem, MA was the agenda today. And it was awesome. The area has such a rich (if ignominious) history.  We really enjoyed hearing and learning about the witchcraft trials of 1692. I remember reading The Crucible by Arthur Miller in high school and liked it a lot so it was fun to see where it all took place. We spent some time at two different museums: The Salem Witch Museum and the Witch History Museum.  Both were super interesting and informative.  The area itself is absolutely gorgeous.  It's the perfect clash of urban and rural, fast-paced and chill, culture and tourist-trap.  There's something like 137 restaurants in the district.  It's not a huge town so that's quite something!  We ate lunch at Gulu Gulu Cafe which turned out to be a Czech-inspired local haunt (forgive the pun).  The food was superb.  I had a sandwich with honest-to-goodness-chock-full-of-gluten ciabatta bread and it was AMAZING. How did I survive with out real bread for so long?! The cafe also had some very cool art done by a local.

The name is pretty self-explanatory....

Josh reads about some of the history while  we wait for our turn to go in.

The town square of Salem---They still had some pretty leaves!

This is a statue of Roger Conant, the first settler  of Salem

Your ticket into the museum was a sticker (like the ones seen here).  As you come out of the museum, they ask you to  leave your sticker to minimize your impact on the environment.  As we were walking down the street, we discovered just why they asked you to do that.  Apparently this is where everyone else put their stickers....

Undesirable No. 1 in Salem.  Super.

Seriously, how pretty is this place??

Solar compactors!!! Yeah, we were excited too.

There was a sculpture on pretty much every block.

Another fun sculpture.

Even their outdoor water fountains are cool.  Actually it was extra cool because the fountain is located where the  fresh water spring used to be in early Salem.  Later it was the site of their first well. Pretty awesome how true the area stayed to its history.

This is a box full of i don't know what but it has fun art. We think it was probably done by the same guy who did the stuff at Gulu Gulu Cafe. Whoever did it certainly made us smile!

Gulu Gulu Cafe. Culinary awesomeness.

This was the sweetest little shop full of soaps, creams, candles and fun bath accessories.  We spent a little time talking with and getting to know the woman who ran the shop, Gillian.  She was really fun and gave us some suggestions as we continue on our trip.  She even gave us a little wedding present after she found out it was our honeymoon.  How sweet is that?

Our actor and tour guide through the Witch History Museum.

The loot: The bar of soap in the left hand corner is our wedding present from Gillian.  It's goat's milk soap called  "Swashbuckler".  So fun!  And hopefully you can read the words on the piece of art.  It felt like a really poignant reminder, especially to those of us without a whole lot of direction in life...And of course we had to get some local wine :)

Josh's mad photography skillz

Seriously, how cute is my husband!

We had a great time.  It's a great area and we'll most definitely be checking it out again sometime! And you know what? They even drive well. And that goes a long way in our book.

 We're heading even farther north and venturing into Maine to revisit the area where we got engaged last  year.  We will be incommunicado for a few days as we finally get to camp!  All the campgrounds have been closed for the season but you can trust the Maine campgrounds to be made of sterner stuff.  We're excited to be able to finally get out and enjoy some time in creation and cooking on the camp stove again.  

A bientot!