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!
I didn’t really expect to be going to the Time Zone on this particular day but while in Rome (or rather Lincoln RI…) It’s one of those places this country mouse finds bizarre and slightly intimidating. Why? Well, I’m just not used to indoor go-kart tracks, all the blinky lights and loud noises of an arcade, or really anything else in this sort of venue. Smidge overstimulating. That being said I managed. My only real regret is buying the fish and chips at the cafeteria. Don’t do that. I thought fish would be easier on my already pissed off stomach but alas… What they served me was some sort of batter fried fish jerky that went down with a crunch.
The escape rooms were fun though. They reminded me a lot of the Boda Borg that I went to several years ago. Instead of one theme that brought you through one experience it was a set of twenty-five rooms, each with totally different mini puzzles and quests that only took a few minutes each if that. I really enjoyed the physical ones that asked participants to throw balls, or pucks, or line up metal rods and pass each other a ball with them. I’m not athletic at all but these simple tasks I had a much better chance of actually figuring out than anything involving math or abstract thinking. I’m godawful at those…
ANYWAY – it was a fun way to spend an hour or two. I only managed to take photos of the arcade from above as I ate lunch and nothing of the actual escape rooms as I relinquished my belongings to the locker before going in.
I know I have written about the Rhode Island Antique Mall before, several times in fact, but I continue to blog about it because there’s always something new to find here no matter how often we go or with whom. It’s always a fun little adventure!
This time around we were a group of four just poking at random things on both floors. As usual there was a delightful assortment of what I can only kindly call “folk art” of strange badly formed animals. And of course what antique store isn’t complete with at least a couple paintings that look like they could be totally haunted? It was light on the soul-sucking dolls on this particular day but what it lacked in that department it made up for in vintage Victorian porn which was everywhere. There was even a weirdly homoerotic postcard of presidents Lincoln and Washington in a seemingly forced embrace. Was this… the beginning of slash fanfiction?? We may never know. What I do know is that the speculum on display in our last visit seems to have been sold, luckily not with the Cat O’ Nine Tails that was next to it. That would have concerned me that there may be a serial killer in the area if they both sold to the same person.
At one point myself and one other in the party decided to play Racially Insensitive Bingo and we browsed to see the most offensive antiques we could find, marking off our imaginary cards with each ethnicity. It wasn’t long before we found something godawful for everyone… a wine corkscrew in the form of a faceless black figure (which got double points for also being sexually offensive,) some cigar-based paraphernalia with the familiar Indian chief, lots of literally yellow slant-eyed Chinamen, and for added flavor a few Gypsy fortune tellers. I don’t know why anyone in this day and age would want to touch any of these things with a ten-foot pole but OK…
All and all it was another great trip and I still highly recommend this place if you like wandering through isles of creepy old things. And the turn over is shockingly high making each trip a new experience!
It’s spring and its finally time to start up Catching Marbles again! And what better way to do that than to take a sweet little amble through a garden cemetery? And let me tell you this one was a douzy!
I’d never heard of St Anne’s but it’s a Catholic (mostly Italian) cemetery hidden away in Lincoln Rhode Island. There are a lot of normal head stones here but there’s probably even more that are severely monied. I’m talking vault styled mausoleums complete with stained glass windows, family plots that look like their own mini gardens, stones that are enormous and ornately carved with religious imagery, and even one where the Virgin Mary was kept safe behind a milky aquarium-like shield. Clearly many of the people here were wealthy beyond measure. And Italian. And Catholic. And perhaps had a lot to repent for. Make of that what you will. I’m not making any potentially lethal enemies today!
St Anne’s was shocking not just in how much wealth was on display here but just how many people were buried on these hallowed grounds. What initially looked like an ordinary mid-size cemetery from the gates just sprawled and stretched out for acres and acres. We only explored a small fraction of it. Enough to get a lifetime’s worth of Virgin Marys, starved Jesuses, and sooo many creepy angels. I’d love to return here during a different time of day when the lighting is kinder and see if I can get any more dramatic cemetery photographs. All and all even though my camera fought with me the whole time this was an awesome trip I would highly suggest to any other taphophiles and I would be more than content to return here myself someday.
I can’t tell you how many times I have driven by Aardvark Antiques, saw the big lions out front, and made a note to go there without ever making it. It’s one of those things – you know, a thing in town you just keep putting off because it’s so close.
Finally, the intrigue got the better of us and we decided we’d take a little poke at it. Nothing could have prepared us for what was beyond the big wrought iron gates. There in a small yard was a fascinating array of outdoor statuary. Some concrete, for those of us who aren’t dropping a trail of gold coins like a goblin, and others were bronze for those of us who really are. A life size bronze stallion galloped in place with a sort of intense realism. He demanded a $22,000 price tag. But if stallions weren’t your thing there were also an assortment of Grecco-Roman styled statues, a few dragons, a herd of African Safari animals, some creepy children, and two giant dancing frogs for anyone who was both rich and quirky.
Inside was even more interesting. This place was packed from floor to ceiling with just about anything to delight any eccentrics in the area. On the wall a giant moose head glowered down at us. The ceiling formed a canopy of random hanging things – everything from bicycles, to chandeliers, to a life-sized angel being lowered down from the heavens. It was almost like if the Catholic Church had a junkyard of antiquities. Moving on we came to a whole room full of stained-glass windows clearly from churches. Some were just ornate and colorful while others displayed whole religious scenes.
The furniture in this place all looked like it’d been freshly imported from some castle on Game of Thrones. Crazy heavy carved wooden chairs, tables, and writing desks played among smaller items that ranged in all categories. There was even a cabinet full of what looked like medieval Jesus paintings. And a lot of Asian pieces as well. It felt like getting lost in a bit of a time warp. Should I ever find myself a wealthy eccentric I’m coming back and just pointing at things to load into the truck! This was well worth the visit!
“I know where I want to go this week!” “OK, where?”
“Lawrence Mass!”
“….WHY?!”
OK, so it might not be fair but my numerous run ins with Lawrence Mass haven’t left a particularly good taste in my mouth. My first time there the car stalled out in the middle of the night in front of a gas station where the cashier was happily holed up behind a bullet proof window wall. This was long before Covid so it wasn’t there for germs. The only other people around was a roving band of teenagers who looked pretty fucking rough. During another exciting detour I somehow ended up in a psychiatric waiting room in Lawrence where the people watching were… we’ll just say interesting.
So yeah, I wasn’t exactly hopping at the idea of going to Lawrence on purpose. But you know, every city has its good sides and bad sides, maybe it was time to look at it in a gentler light. Apparently there was an antique mall there. I know, the idea of an antique mall in the same vicinity as the above scenario seems preposterous but there it was… in an old mill building, sprawling for thousands of feet on several floors.
And I must admit it is kinda fun to go into a place that could be either amazing or absolutely awful. Keeps you on your toes, you know. And this place was full of surprises. First of all we kinda had a hard time finding the entrance as old mill buildings are like rat’s nests anyway. When we finally figured it out we entered to find an astonishing amount of random junk, very reminiscent of the junk shops in Maine. And then we turned a corner and found the clowns. Hundreds of them, all locked away in a display case with a few paintings spilling out into the general area. It was unnerving. And I like creepy dolls!
After this though we wound our way deeper into the mess and it started to have a healthy mix of junk store, proper antiques, local country chic crafts, and oodles of totally random things. We could have spent a week there picking. I ended up with a Janis Joplin album for $12 which made me super happy. I’d hoped to get some Christmas shopping done here but as sad as it is my family just aren’t as weird as I am and I found nothing to their tastes.
We did however go outside and across the parking lot where we were promised another floor of antiques. They had a completely different flavor. Up there we found lots of swanky furniture and a bunch of salvage items including a giant room full of doors that set off my sense of whimsy. Which one goes to Narnia and which one has a rabbit hole behind it? NOBODY KNOWS. And to make it all the more magical I found a Superman trap! I mean a phone booth. A real phone booth, complete with a phone, for only $900! Man, did that bring back memories.
All and all though this was worth the trip (even thought the GPS was being a total dick and wound me through Boston for no conceivable reason.) And hey, if you have someone who likes either junk or proper antiques this place was appropriate for gift shopping. I took lots of photos but then I lost the memory card. I guess I must have eaten it because it is goooone. Luckily I took a few cell phone snaps that I was sharing with Twitter as I was walking through so this entry won’t be completely naked.
Slater Mills was one of those places that I keep hearing whispers about and had on my list but we didn’t end up there until we realized it was a national park and one we could stamp on our National Park passport…
Turns out the park is very new. Hasn’t even been open for a full year yet and we were around the 4,000th visitors there. It’s a sweet little outdoor park with historical markers and in the information center you can sign up for a tour that happens twice a day. We were lucky because we had no idea about this but ended up there 15 minutes before the tour started! So we gathered with what appeared to be one large family full of well behaved children and one older couple who was eying my orange hair in the suspicious way older white men tend to.
The staff were super friendly and the tour was short but information packed. We got to actually go inside the factory which was the first industrial cotton factory in New England! In fact it was the only industrial mill in the United States and the backstory to it was more than a little bonkers.
Basically the man who founded the mill was already a wealthy merchant who had made a fortune in the slave trade. However he seemed to have had an existential crisis and decided slavery was wrong and he shouldn’t be involved with it so he looked for new endeavors. England was going full steam ahead with the Industrial Revolution but the men who made, operated, and maintained their machines were forbidden to leave the British isles with their knowledge. This didn’t stop one fo them from disguising himself as a farmer and sailing across the pond anyway. And when this engineer met the wealthy merchant it was all over.
The mill opened in the late 1700’s and had twelve workers – who were not slaves. They were however children aged 6-14 who worked 12 hour shifts 6 days a week. I guess enlightenment is a gradual process with some. In any event the mill was very successful and operated well into the 1800’s. it was powered by the local river but now their one machine is powered by a motor. I took a short video.
*credit for the featured image goes to Wikipedia – I took 20 or so photos but for some reason they’re not showing up on the card so I had to improvise! Good thing I took the below video with my cell phone!
Went to New England's first cotton mill today. It was founded by a wealthy slave merchant who had an existential crisis and decided slavery was wrong…. right before hiring a dozen 6-12 year olds to operate his machinery for 12 hours 6 days a week. 🙄 pic.twitter.com/8Wj7NtPYAc
We still had some time to kill before we had to go to the airport so for our last little adventure we decided to go to the Monocacy National Battlefield to see where some of the events we’d been reading about actually took place. I’ve never been to a battlefield so I was just expecting a big field somewhere with nothing going on… that’s not what it ended up being.
When we drove in there was indeed a big field with a few cannons set up which is exactly what I pictured but there was also a large visitor’s center. I have to admit at this point my body was DONE with me, especially my feet which were on fire. So I was hoping for a very little display to see and then beat it back to the car. However the visitor center was like a well maintained museum in it’s own right. I sat in the gift shop and talked to the cashier a while waiting for my travel companions to make use of the facilities. I just needed to sit. He seemed a friendly older gentlemen who asked the usual questions – from where had we come from? Everywhere.
When my companions returned he gave us all a huge spiel about the park. It wasn’t just this field or even the museum attached to it. The park actually owned all sorts of properties across town and if we wanted to see all the sights we had to get a little map and do a driving tour! And if we wanted there was a few hiking trails as well – one which was supposed to have a nice view of the city. I had wanted to go on a hike but right now, in the condition I was in, the thought made me want to cry.
He also told us about the National Park passports which were like mock passports you could stamp at every national park you visit. We were all intrigued so we bought one. I was too tired to comprehend anything so I merely stamped mine with one stamp and called it good while my companions stamped theirs with all four at the station and added a sticker. I still have no idea where the sticker came from but I took a pic so y’all can see what it’s supposed to look like. In any event this will give us something else to do when we get home – visit all the national parks of New England! (Of which there aren’t many but you never know where I’m going to end up so I’m OK with that.)
When we drove off we made it to an old farmhouse which was basically taken over when Confederates marched through. The place seemed eerily quiet now. Peaceful. It was hard to imagine that it’d ever been a place of great violence and conflict. But it did get me to thinking about what it must have been like to be a farmer minding your own damn business and suddenly find your property filled with an invading army. What chaos! And how scary that would be! It was humbling.
The other stops on the car tour were basically other properties that were involved in this march as we followed the procession. It was very spaced out and hard for me to follow in any capacity. By the time we got to the hiking trail we wanted to attempt I was on the fence if I should push myself any further. My feet gave a defiant NO but the rest of me was like, “This is our LAST stop on this trip, you can’t falter now!” So I went on the little hike, hobbling the whole way. It was much farther than I had been led to believe and we never did get to see that view of the city but despite that it was a gorgeous area to be hiking. All the trees looked like they were about to spring to life and start lobbing apples at us – or maybe the weird “brain fruit” we kept finding on the ground. Everything about these things made me want to play with them and learn more. They were the size of a softball, hard as a rock, with the lumpy texture of a brain. I cracked one open and it seemed to contain a fibrous mush that smelled faintly of pineapple. Others that had been squashed in the road appeared to be decaying into an alien goo. What were these things?! Turns out they were hedge apples, grown in the area mostly to keep pest bugs at bay. They’re mildly toxic and horses that eat them foam at the mouth. Good to know!
We didn’t make it to that many stops on the self tour because by now the clock was ticking and we really did need to get back to the airport (and it’d be another 6.5 hour drive home from there.) That was no small feat and I paid for it dearly but it was worth it. This little trip out of New England was exactly what I needed to lift my spirits and get me back into the swing of things. It’s funny how travel can do that.
Ever just wander in some place with heavy college vibes and look around nodding, “This makes no sense but I love it.” That was what Pretzel and Pizza Creations was. It was a tiny booth eatery that served not just pretzels and pizza but also ice cream and one “adult shake” because why not?? This place was the chaotic fever dream of tired tourists, stoned college kids, and the otherwise hungry.
I was talked into trying the ice cream… And it was great. Tasted like Nutella. Shame I was already full to the gills… Still, we sat for a while and enjoyed the place all the same. It’d been a long and happy trip. No one really wanted to leave.
It’s hard to pass up tacos. They’re delicious and cheap and make for a great food to enjoy at the end of a vacation. So that’s what we did. We went to Taco Daddys which the locals all seemed to speak favorably about. It seemed like a popular place. We sat down at the booth and were served tacos in swift order. Except me. I ordered quesadillas. And they were the best quesadillas I’ve ever had! Crazy tasty!
Yup. Should we ever go back to Frederick Taco Daddys will likely be on the list of preferred eateries.
What’s a vacation without a stroll through a local cemetery? Boring, that’s what. Long before we packed the car we had our hearts set on checking out this cemetery. My travel companion was interested in it’s history (it is the mass burial grounds for a great deal of Civil War soldiers who died in the area during four separate battles – over 400 of which remain unidentified.) For me it was less about history and more about seeing what cemeteries look like in a different part of the country and this one looked big and old with some stones going back to the 1700’s.
We’d been flirting with this cemetery for days. Our first glimpse of it was at night when the gates were closed. We decided to walk around the fenceline aside the road and see how big it was to determine how long we’d need to explore it the next day. It went on and on and on and on…. and strange things kept happening. My camera refused to snap any photos, my travel companion was complaining of the smell of pipe smoke… It was time to hang this one up for the night.
The next day we once again didn’t make it there before dark. However there was still an hour or two before it closed so we drove in to check it out all the same. We noticed that there was a large monument at the beginning of it memorializing Francis Scott Key, the writer of our national anthem who was buried under the aforementioned monument. We would find his parents in the cemetery later on – protected by a little iron fence.
Also buried here were Barbara Hauer Fritchie who became famous when at the age of 95 she refused to surrender to the Confederate troops marching through her property. I guess at ninety-five you have very little to lose but it’s still a great story about a fiery old woman. And somewhere nearby there is the grave of the US’s first unofficial president and his wife who served before George Washington. I’m sorry I have already forgotten their names. Luckily I took photos that read John and Jane Hanson. So there, I don’t have to remember. Also of note was the first fireman to die in the line of duty, a bunch of soldiers from every war, and a memorial to the children who fought and died in the Civil War. Yes, children. And of course there are congressmen galore sprinkled throughout like confetti. And for the more gruesome there is a whole section for infants nicknamed “babyland” and a mass burial of Civil War soldiers who died in battle. This was more than enough to make me wonder if anyone was still lingering here after their demise. If so I didn’t feel any of them on this particular night.
On our last day in Frederick we took a huge chunk of time to go see the cemetery during daylight hours. It’s so big that it’s split up into sections – each named after a letter in the alphabet. I was drawn to the more ornate monuments, many of which had imagery on them I was completely unfamiliar with, others which I had seen before (like the cross and crown) but not often back home.
This cemetery was completely engrossing. Every time I thought we were done someone would find something else interesting. And we never did find the children of the Civil War monument but we did visit Confederate row where I learned that many of the confederates were poor whites… essentially fighting against their own interests (you can’t tell me an economy that favors slaves would have any higher opinion of exploiting those only one tier higher than them in class.) A lot of them were fighting for weird subtext kind of things like pride for their community or because that’s who their brother was fighting for or because of a convoluted misinterpretation of “states rights” – which I hear even today and it’s completely asinine. Freedom of the States does not mean freedom of the individual to do whatever the fuck they please – even the first pilgrims toppling off the Mayflower had a system of laws they had to abide by. Plus freedom of the individual should never extend to freedom of that individual to take the freedom of another individual. That’s just not workable in any way shape or form.
I got depressed thinking about all this. Because those Confederate soldiers who were so callously misled by the powers that be… they’re still very much alive in the bodies of their grand children. And still fighting against their own economic interests. And the idea that we never learn from history became very tiring to me.
My travel companion was struggling with all this too because at some point someone had torn down and defaced the Confederate memorial… which was placed by the Union to honor those they fought. I can understand the distress of this but I also understand there are A TON of Confederate statues erected in the 1960’s in direct response to the Civil Rights movement to basically scare people of color into accepting the status quo. And those statues… should absolutely be torn down. But this is America. We’re not good at nuance so maybe it’s for the better this statue has been lost. And maybe in the future, when we can all agree racism and all it’s various institutions are bad, can we look respectfully back at our own turbulent past.
This cemetery gave me a lot of food for thought. I learned things I didn’t expect and came home a humbler person for it.
