Discovering the weird and whimsical sites of New England
Author: Theophanes Avery
Theophanes Avery is a whimsical travel blogger that is hopelessly in love with New England and all it's weird places, people, and things. Besides running way too many blogs they are the author of three books, at least one of them good, and they also enjoy raising aquarium fish in Walsted tanks, sculpting, Sharpie doodling, knitting, tattooing leather, homesteading, and whatever other hobby tickles their raging ADD. Less fortunately they are a hopelessly impoverished spoonie yelling to the world, "WE NEED MORE COMMUNITY!" but alas no one's listening. Make sure to find them on the FaceBook. They love new oddball friends. Fly the freak flag high my darlings!
After poking around Under the Bed Antiques we continued onward to another antique store which we found out we’d already been to before. Not really wanting to go home with just one measly blog entry my navigator chose a third and final location – a country store.
Keep in mind I am used to the country stores in Vermont and Upstate NY which are… hard to beat. I was dubious about a country store being in such a populous location in Massachusetts and was delighted to see the store itself seemed to also have this attitude. Although it seemed to be made from an old barn and farmhouse there was a sign out front basically stating in a tongue-in-cheek way this place had all the charm of the country and none of the mess. No barn, no animals, just chic. Country chic. And indeed if you live in the area and that is your vibe you absolutely have to check this place out.
Sadly, I don’t have a home to decorate all nice and pretty so this was mostly a bust for me, until that is I found a very decently priced jar of marbles for $28. I can’t believe how the price of marbles just skyrocketed the second I decided I needed to use them for this blog but you know – it is what it is. Anywhere else would be charging $50 for a mason jar of marbles. Or $80 if we’re somewhere swank.
As I was checking out the two women at the counter sure had a ball selling them to me.
“Oh great, you’re buying her marbles. Now she’s lost them!” An apt pun for this blog. REALLY APT.
They continued to burble and talk about how every jar of marbles is counted. No reason. Just a compulsion. They then asked if I collected marbles. I didn’t know what to say because yes and no..? Seemed odd to say yes, I occasionally buy marbles so I can spread them around like glitter to make my blog more gimmicky. Instead, I said it was for my photography. I was wandering around with a camera after all…
“Ah! Like staging and stuff!”
Sure, why not.
It was a cute encounter. The people at this place definitely added to the experience.
Under the Bed Antiques was a fun little adventure. Admittedly I had a hard time finding it. It was much easier to find the mattress store which is above it – which I guess explains the adorable store name! But anyway, it was around the corner and in the basement where there was a few parking spaces and a modest sign.
I have been to so many antique stores by now that I am sort of running out of descriptive words but this place? It had its own feel, and that feel was punk! Punk to the max with a mixing of Kitch and nostalgia. The first thing that greeted us was a Home Alone doll that I am sure was up to something. I mean look at the expression on that face!
Beyond that was a fairly decently sized antique mall with all sorts of delightfully quirky vendors. I was just having so much fun here. Of course there was the usual fare of potentially possessed dolls and creepy clowns but it was absolutely lacking in racist bullshit! And in its place it had some fucking weird music related antiques. Truely bizarre records (which I didn’t look through because I know I’d want them all!) As well as retro clothes ranging from Grateful Dead Bear swimming trunks to punky drainpipes. And then we found the prettiest damn accordion I have ever seen nestled in a corner with a two-foot-tall Joe Camel plushie. Just mental. My companion also noted that every booth was playing different contradictory music which really soothes the chaos demons.
What this place lacked in size it made up in character and I LOVED it. Well worth a visit!
Another antique mall in a mill! And it’s in the same town as our last pick Bernat Antiques.
This place at first seemed very desolate. It has a huge parking lot which was so empty we weren’t even sure if the place was open. But it was… and it was sufficiently large and weird enough for a very satisfying poke.
I always love the places that have surprise extra floors or a basement full of cheaper oddities. This place didn’t disappoint in that department! Mixed in with the usual assortment of cute little glass bottles there was a joyous mixture of ill-titled books, locally created art, some bizarre cast iron banks, tiny pans, and even a dish that looked like an ammonite.
The Wizard of Oz collectable Jack in the boxes were absolute nightmare fuel and I’m all for that. As well as the child sized pantaloons because well, where else are you going to find that?? This place had a real nice mix of things and price ranges depending on the booth that caught your eye. And interestingly enough it also was lacking in racist bullshit. I mean there was some but not nearly as much as I’d expected…
What do I love more than an antique store? An antique store in an old mill! And this one was super close to where I used to live a few years ago. And I had no idea! Why? Because it’s not in the center of town, it’s kind of off in a residential area which honestly makes it more lovable.
I was also happy this place was big with a bunch of different vendors, none of which seemed be shying on the cursed doll scale. Obviously loved that. Still hope someday I’ll live somewhere where I can have my own terrifying doll display. I’m not going to guarantee it won’t just be a tree in the front yard with old naked dolls just hanging from it to distress passers by and let it be known I’d never live within an HOA.
In addition to whole dolls they also had baskets of random parts as well as witchy booth with all sorts of weird potions like Bat Drool. I don’t know what Bat Drool is but I am intrigued. There was also a great deal of things you could buy to put in a nursery and scar your children for life mostly of the clown variety but here too I use the term clown with great lenience. Oh, and a lot of dubious wall art that gave off a bit of that uncomfortable ick feeling including two toddlers engaged in what appears to be a nonconsensual kiss! Is it cute, awkward, or just ewe? You decide.
It was another humid day that felt like we were vacationing on a swamp on the sun. Just thick dank air. Still, it was cloudy so maaaaybe we could get away with being outside. MAYBE.
We decided not to go too far and found Fort Barton and the Fort Barton Woods only a few minutes away. It was apparently the spot of the Battle of Rhode Island. Never heard of it? Don’t worry, this was news to me too, maybe because it was ultimately a battle we lost… to the British. I guess we were trying to protect Newport and the whole island from this strategic point but when that didn’t work the British came in and occupied the city instead.
There aren’t really any remnants of the fort left, at least not that I could see, but there was a nice observation tower you could climb and gain a really nice view of the bay and the island beyond and there was ample parking for such a little-known gem.
There were several trails here and maps to help guide the way. We chose the shortest loop path because after getting out of the car we were starting to realize how oppressive and sticky it was out there. We basically raced at a very brisk walk, up and down craggy little hills. It wasn’t the most challenging but at the same time the last thing either of us wanted today was to be fighting against the gravity of various hills. Still, the path was nice. It seemed as if a lot of people had been through here even if it looked at times quite hairy and overgrown. To the side we were even lucky enough to find a wee little cemetery nestled in the woods, protected by stone walls. Most of the monuments seem to have been missing to time but a small handful still stood wearily looking over what appeared to be a farm of some sort. A rooster crowed in the background and melted my heart. I forgot how much I loved that sound.
I was doing pretty good even though I almost immediately started overheating. I was able to make almost the whole loop (which was less than a mile) before I had to sit down. By then I could feel the heat coming off my face like a burner. I was dizzy, disoriented, and knew I was in trouble — yet again. I sat on a cold rock, my feet propped up on another rock. I didn’t have any water so this would have to do. Luckily by then we were really close to the car and I cranked up the AC and went home after recovering for a few minutes.
Despite these difficulties it was very pretty! The overgrowth gave it a sort of fairy like charm. I snapped a few shots with my phone and decided to come back on some cooler day to take the longer loop path.
All and all we learned some history, enjoyed a lot of greenery, somehow avoided a plague of ticks (seriously, take bug spray) and managed to not die of heat stroke. I’d call that a win!
Of all the free little libraries I have visited throughout New England the one at Pickety Place has the most endearing back story and dare I say it’s also by far the most whimsically beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
The story starts in 1786 when this sweet little cottage was built in what I can only guess was wilderness. I don’t have any idea how it’s managed to stay standing (and so loved!) throughout all these years but it still there proudly in the middle of nowhere. It is such a charming and unique setting that Elizabeth Orton Jones used it as the model for her illustrations in Little Red Riding Hood (Little Golden Books, 1948).
Currently it stands as a restaurant and museum surrounded by the most delightful little flower and herb gardens. It has remained burned into the memories of locals because it’s not just a restaurant, it’s an experience. When I went to find it (looking for the library on the grounds) I was wound down a series of increasingly sketchy dirt roads until I was sure the Prius and myself were going to be eaten by bears. And then out of nowhere appeared this property and it’s weird Byzantine parking lot amongst the trees. Seriously the parking lot was the strangest I’d ever seen.
I did not go on a day the restaurant was open because I was only looking for the library and… well to be frank, I’m way to poor for this sort of thing. I can’t even afford McDonalds on my own much less an experience, but that being said I am told the food is out of this world. I’ve literally never heard anything bad about this place which brings us to the library – that sweet, ornate, library just bursting with love.
The library is made from the stump of a very old and very beloved tree which succumbed to the forces of nature and split in twain during a particularly egregious snowstorm. The tree could not be saved but the mourning process brought forth an idea – what if what remained could somehow be repurposed and given a new sort of life? And that’s how this stunning little library came into existence. The stump was deprived of its bark, stained, hollowed out, and artists were commissioned to create exquisitely carved doors, a stained-glass window for the back, and a roof. I can’t tell you how mesmerized I was by this creation. And I was so honored to leave a signed copy of my book Achilles in Heels in it! But you know what was even more amazing? Someone “caught” my book and left a wonderful review on BookCrossing before “releasing it into the wild” to be captured by someone else. I have donated signed copies of my books to dozens of libraries at this point and this was the first one someone publicly claimed through the Book Crossing program. Can you say my heart nearly exploded in warmth and joy? Because it totally did.
After checking out Nathan Hall’s Antique Center we still didn’t have enough for the day and were far enough from home to want to slip yet one more little exploration in there, so we ended up not too far away at Another Man’s Treasure which was our second pick after the first turned out to be an obsolete store… Anyway, it’s in a little plaza, in the corner store at the back.
And I must say the displays in this place were really nice. They even somehow made a couple jars of pickled god-knows-what from god-knows-when look amazing! And they somehow managed to make a couple closets into displays as well. All and all though this was a rather small shop and didn’t have much in the way of the usual things I am drawn too. It was all a bit… sanitized… but hey, if that’s the sort of thing you’re into check it out if you find yourself in the area!
The Nathan Hale Antique Center was one of our more unique adventures. We had travelled all the way out to Connecticut after getting a lead from an antiques pamphlet having no idea that this particular shop was in an old church. I admit the outside looked pretty run down and we had our doubts but upon wandering the whole perimeter looking for an entrance we found a little shop in the basement selling all sorts of Christmasy things (as it was December) mixed among the antiques. It was small, charming, and sweet, and we were told all of the upstairs was also an antique store if we wanted to wander back outside to the front entrance.
And we were happily surprised by this recycled church! Here there were several stalls with different kinds of antiques, all very well displayed for the most part. It was cozy and warm and everything I hadn’t previously associated with an old church. There was even a few vendors who’d set up on the podium. Obviously, all the pews were gone. I was surprised to see more medieval looking art in a few nooks and corners as well as a lot of country chic type decor. It was all very cozy.
And another great thing about this place was that there was another antique store right across the road and another still just down the street a little ways although that one was closed on that particular day.
OK, so this post has been sitting in my draft folder since December… Whoops. Time to let it see the light of day!
Middleboro Antique Co-op was another delightfully large mall adorned with a life size Betty Boop! And since it was the holidays she was surrounded by three big Ho Ho Ho’s. I’m sure nothing was meant by this. (Seriously though, I fucking love Betty Boop in all her salaciousness. You go girl!)
ANYWAY. This place does not look that big from the outside and initially when you walk in it still appears pretty small with a bunch of little rooms off to the side. It was very spacious once you got around some of the corners and everything was laid out very professionally. Being that it was right before Christmas there was also a surprising amount of people. We walked through looking for our usual taboo items but this all seemed pretty tame except one really odd book called “Pepe was the Saddest Bird” that ended with an ad to buy war bonds. Weird. Will have to look into that later.
Another absolutely bizarre find was what I am GUESSING was an ad for baby food where two toddlers were bareknuckle boxing??? Obviously, the bigger fatter baby was black and wearing a potato sack. You know, got to get that racism in over the initial shock of forcing babies to fight to the death or whatever.
At some point my travel companion went to the bathroom and then disappeared. No idea where he was. I walked back to the front where the bathrooms were and nope… no one. Turns out this place has a basement and it’s sprawling! And also has a lot more of the odd and cheaper stuff down there where I am guessing vendors pay less for less than prime real estate. And that’s where there were booths full of terrifying dolls and I was loving every second of this. I think there may have even been one there with actual human teeth which is something I just learned some dolls have. Isn’t that a comforting thought!
Anyway, this place took a couple hours to go through and we could have spent more time there if we weren’t both getting a smidge hangry by this point. We left after marveling at a decrepit Gothic pram.
Apologies this blog entry is two weeks late. I am trying to clean up my “haven’t actually posted” list. ANYWAY, it’s been a very long time since I have done anything athletic. I used to be very fit when I ran a farm but these days? Yeeeeeah. Between trying to stay put to avoid covid and not having a farm to run I’ve become quite “domesticated,” as my father once said about his overly rotund cat. It was time to change things up.
That’s why when my mother and myself were invited to join the Muddy Princess Mud Run we went for it. And then spent months not preparing. I was a little concerned because I’d done the Warrior Dash at the same location some years ago and that was proper hard. When I was way more muscular. I had learned I was afraid of heights that day – as I had one leg over a 17-foot A frame and the other on the opposing side – and that was anything but fun. My shitty ex balked and sighed in annoyance until two complete strangers helped me down. Bless those people. They were so nice it totally overrode the red flags my ex was waving so proudly. BUT ANYWAY…
Thankfully the Muddy Princess was not nearly so hardcore. At its heart it was a fundraising event for breast cancer. And a women-only space for the day. Which is good because the Warrior Dash sounded like something to accomplish but the Muddy Princess Mud Run just sounded like someone’s weird fetish. And with so many people in tutus I continued to ponder this even after arriving.
I’d been talked into a tutu too and was feeling ridiculous but I guess that’s part of the fun. My mother was already having a hard morning. Her stomach was upset even before we left. So imagine how happy I was to find the first few obstacles on this obstacle course were insanely easy – like walk through the bubbles! I breathed a sigh of relief. I was going to smoke this course.
Some of the obstacles got somewhat harder – go over the wall, climb the tires, that sort of thing, but I managed to do all of them except one which I’ll get to. We were probably a third of the way through the course when my mother started looking like absolute dogshit. I felt she was overheating but every time I asked her she insisted she wasn’t. But she was getting weak.
Halfway through the race I called out to the rest of the group to wait up. I’d found her some shade and she needed a good long rest. As we sat there one of our team members got a text alerting her that her partner who was fine just minutes ago was now being rushed to the hospital. It had nothing to do with the event but thank goodness it happened there where there were so many people to help! She was rocked. We all were. But there was nothing any of us could do so we continued on. My mother was doing better again and ready to go.
Then we came to the giant inflatable pink sofa wall. It was STUPID. Only two on my team even attempted it, one being me, and we both failed HARD. The damn obstacle was only halfway inflated making it impossible to grab ahold of and even more impossible for it to stand up long enough to allow people to climb over it. It rocked violently back and forth. People were flying through the air. The women who did go over seemed to accomplish this through pure luck and had to be pulled over from the other side by someone else as there was not a goddamn thing to hold onto at the top to hurl yourself over. We left this obstacle super annoyed. Later we’d be talking to the EMT’s on duty and they said this wall was killing them. That in two hours they’d attended to around ten injuries from this damn thing – mostly broken arms but also a few broken legs and a dislocated shoulder. None of these maimed people allowed for themselves to be driven to the hospital by ambulance. All wanted to drive themselves and only asked to be driven to their car and released. Why? Because ambulance rides are expensive!! If this doesn’t tell you everything you need to know about the American healthcare system I don’t know what does.
We had gotten around 2/3rds of the way when my mother started to crash again. Fortunately, we were just outside a new obstacle that had to have participants go through one by one instead of by group so there was an obscenely long line. I left her in the only bit of shade I could find and she sat on a log recovering and waiting for us. She knew where I was in line by my crazy orange hair. My cousin kept her company. Eventually I noticed an event truck making it’s rounds and I ran back to my mom to ask if she needed me to hail them down and get her back to the beginning but she insisted she was feeling better. So I went through the obstacle – which was a 2-foot-deep puddle of “mud” water that I am sure just smelled like cow poop, which we had to go through on our back. A chain-link fence was above us to grab and propel us forward. It was fun! And I was soaked and cool. I wish my mother hadn’t skipped this obstacle. She might be cool too!
She joined us again after and we completed the rest of the course. When the last big obstacle came up my mother did try it. It was a tall adult sized inflatable slide that you had to climb up and slide down. It was easy. She should have been able to make it but I guess she lost her grip on the last rung and fell to the bottom. I was concerned but she didn’t try it again. The last obstacle was another climb under something kind of deal. There were a lot of those on that day and earlier on I happily hummed Bridge Over the River Kwi as we went. I thought it was funny. My cousin looked up like she was trying to figure out what that damn tune was. Just a stupid military reference, my little hint of joyful chaos.
And then we were gathering our medals at the finish line – so close to the air-conditioned car that I could stop worrying about my mother. But first we had to gather our things and go get a bottle of water and maybe something to eat. In full sun. Outside a food truck. Mother found shade next to the food truck in a tent but it wasn’t enough. After a few bites of fruit leather she was on the ground dry heaving. Weak and unable to say much we tried to give her water. The teenagers who were running the food truck were wide eyed and terrified of what was going down. This was beyond their pay grade but they gave her a cooler to sit on and so much free water.
And then before I had any idea what was going on word got out there was someone overheating over here and I was suddenly surrounded on all sides by off duty nurses who were putting water-soaked napkins on her neck and forehead and telling her to lie down on the ground with her feet elevated. They asked if she could get to the shower station not far away but she was too weak. Instead they took her T-shirt and soaked it and came back. One nurse in particular refused to leave her until she’d proved she could eat a whole hot dog bun given to us for free by those same freaked out teenagers. And a piece of candy which was manifested from the crowd. She struggled but got it down.
By then the EMTs arrived. Two who came in and tested her blood sugar and took her temperature. By now she was recovering but another member of our crew was down. Same reason. Heat stroke. Although she decided to stay in direct sunlight even when being attended to by the same nurses and EMTs. Why? Because the tent smelled weird. I shit you not. Mother on the other hand had gained enough stamina to be led to a golf cart and driven to the shower station where she was doused with ice cold water. The color came back to her face. She was speaking coherently again.
It took quite a while but eventually my mother was able to make it to another tent halfway between this one and the parking lot where she rested again before making it to the car. She spent most of this time lamenting how stupid and weak she was but we told her she was doing fine, it happens to the best of us. Even me. Heat stroke was so imminent during my trip to see Rhode Island’s only covered bridge that I had to send my travel companion out to bring the car back to me. It was either that or an ambulance. I knew I was teetering shockingly close to needing that.
But hey this whole experience gave me lots of tips on how to cool down should it happen again! Put cold on the back of the neck, the forehead, the armpits, and possibly even the crotch. Soak your clothing if you can. Lay down with your feet elevated. Drink. Drink some more.
Despite all the drama it was fun and I don’t regret the experience at all and quite frankly it was a nice way to kick my own ass as far as getting back into shape. It’s time. And hey, I’m sure the charity part of this event means something too. Anyway, if you find yourself thinking about doing one of these runs you should try it! And if you need encouragement here’s a few photos of me getting through the course with all the elegance of a drunk buffalo.
