Category: Massachusetts

Brimfield Antique Fair – Brimfield MA

Brimfield MA is known throughout New England as hosting the largest antique fair in the area and they do it three times a year – once in spring, once during the summer, and once during autumn, each time lasting about a week. And these fairs are serious – they are HUGE. Basically a good chunk of main street (all lined with antique shops) turns the entire area into one giant open-air market with literally hundreds of vendors. Every conceivable space that’s not being used for selling is turned into a giant Byzantine parking lot and even so… it’s hard to find parking when it’s busy.

I’ve been to Brimfield before and knew it was something you take a whole day to do. I have been wanting to go back for years now but have never managed to get someone to go with me and it’s one of those things I’d rather share than go alone to because it is such an experience. So I was happy when a few weeks ago my companion brought it up. This year I wouldn’t forget and I wouldn’t go in summer (in the miserable heat!)

We woke up late that day and honestly I was expecting to spend the day looking for a dentist so I didn’t really try to wake up early but instead of this my companion really wanted to go somewhere so I laid out two options – Brimfield which was two hours away or an abandoned fort that was 15 minutes away. The fair closes at 5 and with two hours of driving that was only two hours to spend there. I once again said it was a HUGE event and said maybe we’d better go the next day but no, he was all charged to go on Tuesday. So off we went.

The weather was PERFECT and I was very excited to finally be going. I wanted to see if I could find any terrifying medical antiques (not that I can afford them) and just have a generally good day. It’d been so long since I had been there that I had forgotten about the parking situation. By the time I drove up we were already running out of time and I passed all the parking lots (as many had “full” and “closed” signs out and the ones that didn’t also didn’t look promising.) I drove one mile an hour through the whole fair in a row of traffic as people who were completely unafraid of cars just walked in front of them whenever! I had to turn around and seek parking somewhat outside of the festivities for a cheaper $10. The lots more centrally located were $20. The sight of all the people and everything going on immediately sent my companion into a downward spiral of overwhelm. It wasn’t a great start.

However, we were successful at finding parking (there were TWO spaces left) and we went on our merry way. The one great thing about the Brimfield antique fair that has nothing to do with antiques is all the food trucks. They’re everywhere and make spending the day there a lot more pleasant. I could smell fried dough (which I really wanted – but couldn’t figure out who had it) and I found the lemonade stand that uses real lemons that is SO GOOD in summer heat. We started to wanter into the back end of the antique fair and look around and without even going far we found this fabulous orange couch I totally fell in love with and the usual parade of probably haunted dolls – two of them were even anatomically correct baby dolls. (Just why??) There were also marbles up the wazoo!

Sadly, nothing I picked up was marked with a price. Not the marbles, not the cool rock skulls I thought would make a nice fish tank decoration, not the partially hidden Tupperware tub FULL of racist bullshit, not the odd rusted out farming implements, not the possessed dolls… and I know if something isn’t marked it’s too expensive for me. Some of the vendors were also missing in action which didn’t really help matters. By now my companion had gone from overwhelm to shutdown as his toothache became too much to bear. I rescued him from an old hippie vendor who was trying to talk to him as I chatted happily with other vendors. And it’s weird. I used to come to these things HATING the social aspect of it but today I was really enjoying the chit chat.

We wandered back and forth with no sense of direction for only an hour or so before heading back to the car, having seen only the tiniest bit of the fair. We had stayed only long enough to see some truly bizarre art, some odd ideas of lawn ornamentation, and the closest thing to a medical antique I could ask for – a poster of the spine for chiropractic usage. I never did get my fried dough but it’s probably for the better. By the time I got done driving 2 hours home a migraine had set in and I was exhausted – but still happy I went! And as usual I can’t wait to go again.

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Sleepy Hollow Cemetery/Author’s Ridge – Concord MA

*Scroll to the bottom for photos or enjoy a good read below.

A few weeks ago I heard a book calling out to me as I strolled haplessly through a Barnes and Noble. It was titled Over my Dead Body and it was all about the evolution of the garden cemeteries starting in Paris and working their way over here to the United States. It was a very informative (and often funny) read which mentioned a lot of cemeteries here in New England, one of which I’d never been to before.
So that’s how I ended up at the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord Massachusetts last week. It’s the home of Author’s Ridge which is where Lousia May Alcott author of Little Women, Henry David Thoreau author of Walden or Life in the Woods, Ralph Waldo Emmerson the poet, essayist, and philosopher, and Nathaniel Hawthorne the author of the Scarlet Letter and The House of Seven Gables are all buried quite close to each other.

Honestly it was weird I didn’t know about this place before seeing as I am constantly enamored with authors, cemeteries, and history. Still. Sleepy Hollow is a large cemetery with clearly marked signs leading to Author’s Ridge and scant parking so keep that in mind if you visit.

So how did all these icons of their era end up buried in a row? Simple, they weren’t. Back in the day the cemetery more or less bought their remains so they could put them here to drive-up tourism. Capitalism at its finest. Nothing is off limits. Not even celebrity corpses. But it worked! And people are STILL flocking here. Although oddly enough there were remarkably few pennies. Alcott had the most. I wonder if they weren’t being cleaned up or if this bunch just wouldn’t be fond of having pennies left for them. They seem the type…

I’d been accidentally stalking the life of Lousia May Alcott for some time weaving in and out of the strange and wonderful landmarks they had something to do with and I have been coming to learn they were a fascinating individual, possibly even a trans or non-binary icon as in their own words they declared, “‘I am more than half-persuaded that I am a man’s soul, put by some freak of nature into a woman’s body.” And they liked to be referred to as gentleman, like a boss! They were buried in a family plot with their author mother Abigail May Alcott and author sisters Elizabeth Sewell Alcott and Abigail May Alcott Nieriker. Their last remaining sister wasn’t a writer but she was inspiration for Meg in Little Women and she also resides in the family plot. Her name was Anna Bronson Alcott Pratt. Pretty hard-hitting literary family there.

Admittedly I don’t know much about Emerson, he’s flown under my radar for some reason. Though I did previously visit the former resting spot of Henry David Thoreau’s cabin in the woods aside Walden Pond. I could appreciate his deep and intense need to be one with the wilderness. However, my knee jerk reaction since childhood was to not have any real fondness for Nathaniel Hawthorne. I decided at 12 he was whiny, and my opinion has only gotten bleaker with age. He wrote The Scarlet Letter and The House of Seven Gables which is a real place and a delight to visit. He’s buried with his likely more talented writer and artist wife Sophia Amelia Peabody Hawthrone who was relocated from her original burial in London in 2006! THAT POOR DEAR.

I will note now there are other authors buried here who are not on author’s ridge. They include but may not be limited to:

  • Novelist, poet, and screenwriter Millen Brand known for his 1937 novel The Outward Room and his 1948 screenplay The Snake Pit.
  • Prominent transcendentalist, poet, and dear friend of Thoreau: William Ellery Channing whose books include “The Woodsman” (1849), “Near Home” (1858), and “The Wanderer” (1871)
  • Intrepid journalist Irene Agnes Dolores Corbally Kuhn who was the first woman to broadcast on the radio in China and whose career spanned a great many interesting topics from interviewing Charlie Chaplin and Margaret Sanger to covering the Lindbergh baby kidnapping.
  • Robin Moore – the author of The Green Berets and The French Connection
  • Franklin Benjamin Sanborne – Writer and one of the “Secret Six” who funded John Brown’s Raid on Harper Ferry sparking the Civil War. Gotta love a trouble maker!
  • Margaret Sidney – Children’s book author of The Little Peppers and How They Grew series under a penname.

Not be outdone there are other people of historical note here. In fact many of them are written up on a board near the entrance of the cemetery that also has a little map and I think a QR code for an audio tour. We decided to wander around like cracked out squirrels looking for whatever took our interest in any particular second weaving in and out of some areas several times, talking to other lost cemetery goers, and getting distracted by beautiful monuments and really ornate slate stones. So much diversity here!

As we wandered we found slates with ornate carvings – sometimes whole family crests, as well as a number of modern stones that had the deceased’s signature on them. I’ve never seen either of these before or a slab of green granite being used instead of marble. There was also Edward Nealy’s memorial which was an old indigenous mortar being currently used as birdbath. A slate stone commemorating a woman who was a teenager when the British came into the tavern she lived atop of and announced their occupation of the colonies. There was even a few Asian stones with characters on them but my two favorites were a fairly recent burial who had A TON of rocks set on top of his stone. He must have been loved by SO MANY people to have acquired that many rocks! On the complete opposite side of the spectrum I found a husband and wife drama from the 1800’s. They were in a family plot and the husband had practically his whole obituary on his stone – totally mental amount of words and aside him his wife had a matching stone that literally only ready her name, date of birth, and date of death. WOW, what happened there?! Upon closer inspection she didn’t have the same surname so I am guessing she remarried after her husband died and then came back to be buried awkwardly in the family plot. Ooooo the scandal!

But I suppose I should get back to the other famous people buried here… My favorite I think was a very unassuming one. Her name was Anne Rainsford French Bush who was the first woman to get a driver’s license! I left her a penny (as there were none there and if I am thankful for anything in this life it’s that I, as the owner of a pair of tits and a twat, have the freedom to drive a car. VERY UNDERATED RIGHT.) Not to be outdone there was also Katherine K Davis who wrote the lyrics for The Little Drummer Boy. Her stone was the hardest to find as it was a flat ground level stone and there were soooooo many ground hornets in the area. Thousands. I tried taking a photo but they were too small to pick up. You’ll just have to believe me this was the biggest swarm of ground hornets I have ever seen in my life. This cemetery is known for bird watching as migrating birds seem to love it here – I suspect many will get eaten by them in a month or two.

Daniel Chester French, the sculptor responsible for the seated Lincoln in Washing DC also shares a residence here with the other authors and artists. And in a quieter but no less important role we also found Mary Lemnist Titcomb – the creator of the first bookwagon (or bookmobile,) Elizabeth Palmer Peabody who helped create the kindergarten system in the US, William Monroe Spencer – the first man in America to manufacture graphite pencils, and Ephraim Wales Bull – who bred the first Concord grapes, and Marc and Emily Daniels – a married couple working in television as a director and camera coordinator respectively. Marc’s resume is impressive including episodes of I Love Lucy, Hogans Heros, and Star Trek and Emily was one of the first women to work behind the scenes with the cameras on shows such as I Love Lucy. Their stones were the only ones we did not find. I don’t know where they were hiding but we looked a good long time for them – with a terrible map, a confused GPS, and a broken gut instinct.

We didn’t bother to try and find the oodles of politicians and famous gun makers. Suffice to say we’re both a little weary of such things at the moment.

All and all this cemetery has soooo many historically interesting people, especially women of note as well as authors. It was on some beautiful grounds and aside from the lack of parking and the thousands of hornets it was actually really pleasant! I would highly suggest it to any cemetery or literary lover.

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Glenwood Cemetery Ashby MA

I have driven by this cemetery hundreds of times but only recently noticed it because it’s tucked away on its own little road and not something you’re likely to notice unless you’re like me – constantly on the lookout for stones. I had noticed there were a few at the top of the hill all tucked away when the leaves fell off the trees and I have been waiting all winter for the snow to melt so I could go check it out properly.

Ashby is the same town with the grave of a black revolutionary war soldier named Prince Estabrook who is literally just down the road a little bit. Very close. So I was hoping for something else cool here.

As I drove down the little dirt road that ends in the cemetery I noticed there was a house on my right and a turnoff on my left. Was the turn off parking for the cemetery? There weren’t any signs and it looked kinda sketchy ahead so I decided to park there anyway and save the Prius an embarrassing moment stuck in the mud or needing to reverse or something.

There was an old man at the entrance fixing the little fence and dealing with the egregious number of tree limbs that had come down during this past winter. He seemed grumpy at first, or maybe confused why anyone was walking up, but I gave him a big smile and said hello and he warmed up instantly. Above him a big sign read no pets allowed which is bizarre for a cemetery in the middle of nowhere that already doesn’t appear to have any regular visitors but whatever, you do you.

I then walked into the older part of the cemetery which was near the gate. Almost all marble stones from the 1800’s. Not anything particularly remarkable about any of them. Similarly, a quick check with Find A Grave told me there was no one of note in this cemetery. No one?! That’s a first! Even the tiny cemeteries usually have some town contributor or local businessman of note. There were over two and a half thousand stones here, how could none of them have anything to say??

I continued to walk. It was a nice little setting surrounded by thick woods on all sides. Then I spotted the new part of the cemetery, the section that seemed to still be taking in new residents. And for the first time since the Weeping Angels found their way onto Doctor Who in 2007 I FOUND A WEEPING ANGEL! I’d been looking in every cemetery I visited for years and although I found tons of weeping women and lots of angels I’ve never found a weeping angel. It was on a new stone. In fact it was one of only a tiny handful of stones that showed any personality at all. I got up close to it (without blinking) and saw it was the stone of a young man. I don’t know what happened to him but it seemed obvious he probably got this special treatment due to his age and perhaps the sudden circumstances of his death. It was sad but I told him he had a beautiful monument before moving on (I talk to the ‘residents’ of these cemeteries all the time – best be nice and respectful so I don’t drag anything I don’t want home.)

It was only after the weeping angel I started to see a glimmer of personality elsewhere. There was a stone that was in the shape of a horse and then off in a corner with their backs facing the rest of the graveyard I found two slates and went to investigate. They were THICK slates and I was a little shocked to find they were modern. Real modern. Set in the 1990’s but with traditional crudely drawn Cherub head decals. never seen this before but I was intrigued.

I moved back into the older bits of the cemetery and was delighted to find some more modern slates from the 1920’s-1950’s, some with crude cherub heads some with exquisitely delicate carvings of flowers. They all looked like they’d been put up yesterday. Absolutely beautiful. And then I was back at the gate having explored the whole cemetery in a pretty short time.

This was the perfect little distraction for the day I was driving by and if you’re in the area, perhaps eating at the 823 Cafe & Tavern or checking out the Old Burial Ground just up the road this might be a fun little bonus. Otherwise, it probably isn’t worth the drive…. there really wasn’t much here.

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Route 18 Antiques Mall – Lakeville MA

This antique store was a little different than our usual fair. It was super easy to find in a little plaza right off the highway. It was of moderate size and seemed to have more a thrift store feel to it. Like it wanted to be an antique store, and it did have some old stuff, but at least 40% of that was just outdated somewhat recent technology and entertainment. You know, the place to get your CDs and VHSs.

And initially it was kind of sweet and grandmotherly but then we started coming across the most racist shit we’ve found to date. First, I found an old Raggedy Anne and Andy children’s book with a mamie doll blatantly taking up the whole cover. Obviously, I had to paw over that and make my own judgements. The book was $15 and falling apart with every breath but I am glad I flipped through it because in the middle there was an absolutely terrifying illustration that sure looked like a lot like that same mamie doll drowning a clown in the sink. Now I’m not saying that’s what’s actually going on but damn, that’s what it looks like to me! I admit I almost bought it just so I could frame that one page and hang it up as a conversation starter. The only thing that stopped me was the fact it was super racist in addition to being morbidly hilarious.

But that was nothing. At some point we rounded a corner and in a glass display case was the most racist thing I have ever seen. Keep in mind in previous adventures we have seen hundreds of mamie dolls, dozens of super racist ad posters, Chinamen saltshakers, troubling depictions of American Indians, gypsy fortune tellers, but this… this took the cake. It was anti-Japanese. A magazine from World War II with a pinch-eyed and jaundiced chimpanzee wearing a swastika on the cover. Even worse it was placed rather carelessly next to a symbol clashing monkey. We both gasped. And then took photos to prove we’d actually seen such a thing.

Hilariously we accidentally ended up back at this store two or three weeks later and we had to go check in on that insane magazine. SOMEONE BOUGHT IT. I kid you not, it was gone!! The dilapidated mamie doll book was still there though — case you still need a good dose of racism.

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Taunton Antique Center – Taunton MA

The Taunton Antique Center was another one of those crazy surprising stores that just kept going and going and going. Initially we thought it was just a modestly sized furniture based antique store off a main street because when you enter that’s all you see and it looks like that’s all there is. But once you start moving further in you realize the beautiful furniture is just one room and there’s a back room full of little things behind glass and then another room off to the side that leads into an absolute labyrinth. There were hallways and nooks, a whole section dedicated to thrift store type things and a basement that just didn’t quit. Really something for everyone!!

It was like the character of the store itself kept warping and moving as we travelled deeper into it. This place was very charismatic and absolutely INFESTED with terrifying antique horses of all shapes, sizes, and fur lengths! Some were small, some were chubby, some were big enough for a small child to ride, some had red eyes, some had soulless black holes were the eyes were supposed to go. All of them looked not quite right. And beside many there were more creepy Victorian paintings and prints – always a joy to see.

There was also a lot of chickens which made me doubly happy and even some paintings that looked medieval or at least older than the US. It was A LOT to take in. This was another one of those antique stores that could easily take up a whole afternoon and not need anything else.

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New Bedford Antiques at the Cove – New Bedford MA

So, I may have been a little burned out towards the end of 2022 and I may have decided to take the month of December off as far as writing blog entries. This however does not mean I didn’t go to a bunch of antique stores and now I am left with figuring out which I went to, what was in them, and which photos go where… In case you find yourself in a similar dilemma DON’T DO THIS. And if you do make sure to at least take a photo of each’s store’s sign so you can remember. Otherwise… well… good luck.

I do however remember the New Bedford Antiques Cove. New Bedford is the former whaling capitol of the US so this huge antique store in a sprawling old mill building is chock FULL of scrimshaw. None of which I took photos of! I really don’t know why. In addition to scrimshaw there was also plenty of whale art and harpoons aplenty! In addition to this they also had a vast array of completely unrelated and probably haunted dolls and creepy paintings. Just a big old cache. This was also the first time we had come across an old wax cylinder recorder. Very neat! Probably should have been in a museum.

All and all this was another all-day adventure because of the enormity of the place. Definitely worth a little road trip to see such an assortment of different venders. Something for everyone! And if you’re into the whole whaling aspect there is a Whaling Museum in New Bedford as well.

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St Auburn Cemetery – Cambridge Massachusetts

St Auburn Cemetery is where it all began – garden cemeteries, that is. It’s the first in the US and with over 170 acres and with 93,000 people buried here there’s A LOT to check out!

Garden cemeteries came into existence before the country had any official parks and they were used as green spaces for living people to enjoy during the day. And St Auburn is gorgeous. It’s immaculately landscaped with all sorts of exotic trees and shrubbery, a few little ponds, and many hills and crevices. It makes for a unique and serene experience especially if you go at the right time of the year like we did when all the trees were in full Autumn colors.

Funny enough, I’d never actually heard about St Auburns. It was suggested by my traveling companion who also had no idea what it was. As such I didn’t expect much but WOW. This place sure is something! We were barely out of the car when we stumbled upon a huge sphinx, like the one in Egypt! Just sitting there with its big lion paws and judgmental face staring down at us. What the…? Now that’s a strange sight in New England! Around it were other Egyptian inspired monuments and that… was just the beginning of our discoveries.

Near the sphinx was a big church looking building… Bigalow Chapel and a number of the stones surrounding it seemed to mimic its ornate style. But then directly across from that family plot there was a stack of granite boulders making another weird memorial. And sitting nearby was a full bronze statue of… someone. Someone who I am sure felt he was important enough for a bronze statue although none of the crew today recognized his name or possible accomplishments… but nice statue!

I was hopeful on this day to find the oldest part of the cemetery where all the old slate was… but we only found modern slate, some which were clearly recently placed and had yet to have anyone buried under them. Is slate coming back into fashion?? You have no idea how close I am to buying a slab of slate directly off a local quarry and having fun carving my own. It’d be… something. That’s for sure.

ANYWAY – aside from such morbid thoughts we continued to be surprised by the weird elements of this cemetery including a series of crypt-like mausoleums buried directly into the hills. And some more traditional mausoleums. One which was chained from the outside, a second which had a broken door that looked like it broke from the inside, and a third that apparently gave a good knock. And I mean if I were buried above ground in a tiny marble house, I’d be desperate for escape too. Or maybe they were just offended by comments like, “Watch out! Unnecessarily hot Jesus to your left!” But I mean you can’t beat doing a cemetery tour with people willing to make gentle fun of hot Jesus. This one had missing fingers which made him weirdly even hotter. I said what I said.

We did find other notable people buried here… There was a memorial to Robert Gould Shaw the first colonel to lead the 54th Massachusetts Infantry – otherwise known as the North’s first black regiment during the Civil War. Shaw was white and when he died during the second battle at Fort Wagner the Southerners threw him into a mass burial with all the men that he led. He’d eventually be dug up and reburied in Beaufort National Cemetery in South Carolina which begs the question why is his memorial here in Cambridge MA? Maybe because he’s buried under an “unknown” marker in SC or maybe because the locals here felt he needed something proper. Funny enough I find memorials without bodies fairly frequently on my travels and one of the biggest reasons is there is no body or it’s a famous person whose hometown also wants to show some respect even if they’re buried elsewhere. And then we come across stones that have whole stories on them… like this one:

“Charles Turner Torrey was arrested for aiding slaves to regain their Liberty.

For this humane act he was indicted as a criminal convicted by the Baltimore City Court and sentenced to the penitentiary for six years.

While on his death bed he was refused a pardon by the Govenor of Maryland and died of consumption after two years confinement a victim of his sufferings.”

And there’s a story I didn’t know that sort of gives me a little hope in humanity so that’s good…. it’s funny how life affirming a trip to a cemetery can be. Especially when there’s so many stones in the shape of beloved dogs for some reason.

We spent an entire afternoon sorting through the stones and enjoying the pretty trees. We even stumbled into several sections with stones that were engraved in foreign languages – some even Asian. 11,000 steps later we went back to the car completely exhausted and not having seen the whole place! How much did we miss? I don’t know but I have a feeling we will be back.

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Blue Hills – Abigail Adams Trail – Milton Massachusetts

It’s come to my attention that if I don’t want to turn into a completely miserable person I need to get out into nature at least once a week when possible. So that’s what we did – this time we ended up at the Blue Hills Reservation for a day of hiking.

The weather was perfect – not too hot, not too cold, and with the trees changing into their vibrant Autumn colors it was just pure bliss to be out here. And we had also decided to bring Stormy the cat along in her little soft cat carrier in the hopes of trying out her harness for the first time.

We parked in the first parking lot we came across and tried to find a trail at random but there were a lot and many crisscrossed and none of them seemed like they were marked with titles… All we knew was that we were trying to reach the summit where there was the ruins of an old observation tower and a weather station. Upward we went!

If we are to believe the signs we only climbed about half a mile from the parking lot before we found what we came for – a big stone structure just quietly sitting in the woods surrounded by picnic tables and overlooked by a tower to one side. I chucked at the old decaying fireplace which had “No fires” written on it. This seemed to be a lovely place to play with the lighting and do a bit of whimsical and nature photography. There were other people about, some even had dogs, but everyone was pleasant and respectful. And that was all good because up until this point I had been struggling with a migraine and such intense dizziness and nausea that I had to take several breaks on my way up. I was asked why I had even bothered to go out on this day but it wasn’t that bad earlier on in the morning when we had left! Such is the nature of my life.

When we got to the top we stopped and let Stormy out of her carrier to go explore a bit with wide eyes. She was very unsure of the place but seemed to settle in a little bit until other hikers would walk by and she’d fixate on them like they were monsters come to eat her. It’s weird as we had both thought she’d been plenty exposed to people up until this point. She didn’t even seem to care about the dogs!

I left her and her human to climb to the top of the observation tower a story above. It was primitive but beautiful and the view on this Autumn day was as breath taking as you’d expect. So many vibrant trees spread over the landscape and off in the distance you could see the city of Boston. I have found Boston to be a strange place – still surrounded by a lot of woods. Eventually my companion made it up here too with the cat and we all enjoyed this great view.

The weather station was a quarter of a mile up another trail, basically just around the corner but it was being renovated and not open to visitors until 2023. Fair enough. On our way down we took the Abigail Adams Trail and ended up in a totally different parking lot, having to walk a little ways past the visitor center to a different parking lot where we found the car still minding it’s own.

This excursion was brief but very enjoyable. I would call the trail short but moderate difficulty as it was mostly a steady incline with lots of rocks with which we had to scrabble across. Not appropriate for anyone who needs a flat or very easy trail, and not enough of a challenge for people into real hiking. The perfect in between!

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Freetown Fall River State Forest – Assonet MA

It’s funny, when you travel around like I do trying to hit different places every time you leave the house it pretty much ensures that someday you’ll forget where you have been and end up there again during one of those hazy deja vu moments I have become so familiar with. That was the case with the Freetown Fall River Forest. It had long been a source of fascination considering it is supposed to be the epicenter of all the weird happenings in the Bridgewater Triangle. I mean there are stories about this forest that include fairy lights, full ghostly apparitions, murders, UFO’s, bigfoot, a liberal dose of satanic panic and even the delightfully strange assortment of pukwugies – which are little anthropomorphic porcupine type creatures that shoot poisoned darts and lure people into the woods never to be seen again. They are from indigenous traditions in the area and as such are unique little cryptids.

I had a feeling I’d been here before but there wasn’t a Catching Marbles entry on it. Weird. Still, I suggested it as a place to go check out with a new travel companion who was here to meet me for a signed copy of my book. Sounded good to me so off I went…

Driving into the parking lot I remembered this place clearly. I had visited the previous autumn. We spent a few hours wandering the woods with a nonsensical trail map that neither one of us could make sense of, got lost, and eventually made our way back to the car. HMMMM. Perhaps this time would go better.

This time the park actually had quite a few other cars in it and I realized the weird parking lot actually went around corners and expanded a lot farther than I had thought. Even more interesting was a splash pad that was running with delighted children zooming through it. Still I parked near the entrance and after meeting with my hiking buddy we set off in the same direction I’d gone once before to what I now know is Bent Rim Trail. Mind you Bent Rim Trail is more of a road than a trail – no cars were allowed but we did see some cyclists.

We walked on Bent Rim Trail for awhile until we hit what looked like an actual non-road trail and we decided to try that one. There was no signs or markers but clearly this was a trail. I’d come hoping to find something weird, my friend had come hoping to find some cool plants to satiate her own special interests in biology. We were up for a brisk hike in the heat but luckily it wasn’t too bad beneath all these trees and the path was flat and easy to navigate. A few parts had rocky bits to scramble around but even that wasn’t bad. Unless you’re on a bike. Sadly, there wasn’t much in the way of plant diversity. It just seemed to be miles and miles of blueberry bushes. Although even that was kind of cool as many had blueberries on them.

Other than that the trail was pretty much a lot of the same. It was however very quiet and despite the parking lot being full of cars we didn’t hear any other people and didn’t see any either on the trip out. We continued down the path crossed the road trail twice before eventually hitting an actual road. The park is on 55,000 acres soooo how we managed to walk out of the park I don’t know. Getting back would be a challenge as we tried to get our phones to give us any clue whatsoever as to which direction we should take back. I was starting to see why this place had such a reputation for being a great hiding spot for bodies and ghost stories. Getting lost here is hideously easy and there is an odd sense you’re the only ones out here even if that’s not really true.

I have seen photos of this park that show water features and cool things. I don’t know where those are, only that we didn’t pass any. All we passed were several people walking dogs and a family taking a bike ride together who I sheepishly asked for directions from. We’d hoofed it at least four miles by that point and it was starting to get a bit dark so it was best to find the car soon. Luckily they told us vaguely where we were and how to get back. There were grid markers here and there reading numbers and letters… which would have been helpful IF THEY WERE ON ANY MAPS. Alas no.

We did end up back in the parking lot, somehow at the far side, where there was a random statue greeting people shirtless and proud. Bit weird choice but OK. Annoyingly we also found the trail maps on a bulletin board nearby which I had missed coming in, although I don’t think they would have helped much. In the meanwhile we both had a great time happily burbling about anything and everything under the sun and getting our exercise in! All and all a lovely time, even if it was super confusing and looked all the same. I can’t say I saw any bigfoot, ghosts, or UFOs but maybe you have to come at night for that?

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The Holy Trinity Cemetery – West Harwich MA

We drove by this cemetery on the way home from the Cape Cod Lavender Farm and decided why not make a detour to check it out. This would be only our second Catholic specific cemetery and as such it certainly had a flair for the dramatic. In the center of it there was an enormous Jesus on a cross with an inscription saying when the cemetery was founded and when this statue was put in place.

It was a decently sized cemetery with a good number of stones dating from the 1800’s to the present. For some reason the lichens seemed to really appreciate the setting here and some of the stones were absolutely COVERED in them making them impossible to read. There were crosses everywhere of course with a light smattering of angels. My favorite stone however was one that inexplicably just had 3 ducks waddling across it. Why? I have no idea but it contrasted beautifully with the grimness of all the crucifixes.

We did not find any graves of historical or famous figures and I am unaware of any ghost stories from these parts so all and all it was a pretty plain little resting place. Still, it was nice to stretch our legs a bit before going home.

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