Salem Bound Day 3: Life in the slow lane, surely make you keep your mind, Salem, MA
Thank you rain. We had it pretty heavy last night. Slept well though. There were flood warnings in the area we were. Fortunately, there was not sufficient rain to wipe out the ridge we were on and plummet us into the scenic waterfront pond down below.
Morning walk was a bit bit boring. I had scoped a trail on AllTrails that was only about a kilometre away. The missing detail was that the terminus was at the end of a private drive. There were plenty of signs indicating that the drive was primitive. Given we are in the US of A where many people are protected by their firearms, I chose to double back and just explore the public roadways near the campground. No useful pictures were taken.
We cleaned up from the rain and then I was off for a shower. The shower facilities at Pinederosa will get two scores. One for eye level and below and the other for if you make the bad choice of looking up. Eye level and below, this coin operated ($0.25 for 4 minutes) earns a solid 7 out of 10 for its acceptable cleanliness and warm water. Now, pity the fool that looks up to see the cobweb laced open rafters. That score is 2 out of 10. Perhaps they should earn extra points for having garage doors in the washroom.
We departed at 1015 and had an uneventful time at the dump station. Mrs Milddogs took the garbage over to the dumpster while I did the fun job. I was a bit worried as last time she did that she came back with two toboggans for us to use at White Sands. This time, no finds at the dumpster!
Our first stop was Nubble Lighthouse in York, ME. It was a pretty spot. We climbed around the rocks for a bit and took a bunch of pictures. Mrs Milddogs exited through the gift shop. We had planned to eat at Fox’s Lobster but felt it was a tad early and the prices were indicative of summer time gouging. Off we went.
We chose to stick to Route 1 and Route 1A and avoid the main highway. This allowed us to sample the area a little closer. We stopped at the New England Fishmonger for lunch where Mrs Milddogs got a lobster roll and I had some fish and chips. Mrs Milddogs did the ordering while I ran something out to the van. Fortunately she noticed that you can get Fish and Chips or Fish and Fries. Fries for the win! Both foods were good. We also picked up some scallops (raw) for Mrs Milddogs supper.
Our next destination was Parker River National Wildlife Reserve. It was fairly nice. We walked the boardwalks at parking lot 4 and saw birds. Some were big and some were small. We were the youngest people there. The nice guy with the really good spotting scope told us what some of the little birds were. We used my Amazon cheap spotting scope to find the baby swans that were about 100 meters away. OK, the swans are the size of turkeys and really stand out, even as immatures. We didn’t need the scope at all. The nice baby swan swam over so we could get some better shots. Perhaps he noticed our low quality scope and took pity. We often see swans up at the cottage, but don’t often see the immatures.
The nature reserve allows hunting so hopefully the swans won’t get all shot up before they head south. Goodbye baby swans, have a safe flight south! This seems like a really nice place, in retrospect we should have planned to spend some more time there. It was getting later in the afternoon and we still had an hour or so of driving to get to Salem, so we hopped in the van and drove off.
To get to the campground in Salem you drive through all 2318 Massachusetts towns that were incorporated before 1691. Some had lovely old buildings. Wonder if my fine quality G&M home would make it that long?? No pictures as I was driving.
We are camped at Winter Island Park in Salem, MA. It’s a series of fields and a parking lot. Neighbours are right there next to you. I think we could hold hands if we both put our arms out the windows. Mrs Milddogs had the foresight to book us at the end of the row. That was a good call! We met our neighbours, they are full time RV people. Mrs Neighbour enjoys singing to the music they play outside.
For dinner we cooked some veg, then pork tenderloin for yours truly and then the scallops for Mrs Milddogs. All cooked using our portable inductions single burner stove top. We have power at this site. No water. We thought we would have water too. We shall fill the tank tomorrow.
Only a few drops of rain today and almost none in the forecast for tomorrow. We shall tour Salem and get our witch on! Hoping the parking lots fit our van or maybe we walk the 3.3 km into town. Heck, we found places to park in Sedona, AZ how hard can Salem be? We need the strength we got from those vortices in Sedona or perhaps from Mrs Milddogs ancestors that were on the losing side of witch trials.
Mrs Milddogs is scoping out the bakeries for me to walk to in the morning. Mmmm.
Hocus Pocus!
