Cape Cod Lavender Farm – Harwich MA

By now we were running out of ideas of places to go and were hankering for something a little different. That’s the thing about travelling, at first you’re happy with anything and everything but eventually you get jaded and the desire for novelty sets in hard. This time around we decided to check out a lavender farm. Why? Mostly because we’d never been. So, we packed up the cat in her protective bag so we could stroll through this beautiful setting with her.

It was a gorgeous (if not oppressively hot and humid) day and finding the farm was somewhat tricky. We went from full civilization, to a very house filled neighborhood, to a couple one lane dirt roads (driveways?) with arrows pointing the way. Before we knew it we were in the woods. It was crazy. We drove up and there was an adorable little gift store, signs to be careful of dogs while parking, and there was a little path to the lavender field. We took that first and before we knew it we were standing in front of the most whimsical and charming little fairy castle which looked over the whole field. We’d missed it blooming this year but it still smelled very much of lavender. Normally lavender gives me migraines but on this particular day I had come prepared as I already had a migraine before arriving! You might think this would have made for a miserable experience, but I’ve had so many of these damn things in the past few years I was determined not to waste another day sitting on my ass waiting for it to pass and this delightful fairy friendly farm was soooo wonderful. It was worth the drive where I came *this* close to pulling over and puking in the breakdown lane three times. SIGH. (I have learned my lesson – I did push myself too far this time.)

Better still there was a path you could walk down that led us deeper into the woods which just got more whimsical looking the more we walked with trees covered in lichen and arching across the path. I was so incredibly at peace here. And the cat was too. She was sprawled out in her bag purring up a storm and allowing herself to be carried place to place like a tiny furry queen. There were even birds to watch as mourning doves were everywhere making their haunting little calls. My companion thought they were owls at first (because of the noises they were making.)

We stopped in at the gift shop before we left. There was lavender everything there – from the expected soaps to lavender maple syrup?? Odd but interesting! A teenage boy ran the counter and seemed very happy to be there. I bought a book of other plant nurseries and gardens throughout New England figuring it’d give us something else to check out.

This was a very small place that didn’t take us long at all to explore but if you happen to be in the area I definitely recommend checking it out. It’s a slice of a fairy tale. Absolutely stunning.

August 8, 2022 0

Mayflower Hill Cemetery – Taunton MA

We headed over to the Mayflower Hill Cemetery after reading online that there was a haunted cemetery marker there in the shape of a rocking chair. It was the stone of a young girl who died in the 1800’s and was reported to have come back for a little sit-in every now and then.

When we drove in we found the chair almost immediately with no searching. This once again disappointed my companion who loves the thrill of the chase. Even worse we are both super jaded by going to other amazing cemeteries and this one seemed to lack character.

“No wonder they think this stone is haunted, it’s the only one that looks any different than the others.”

And it was true. This cemetery had a profound lack of creativity. The rocking chair was piled with toys but there wasn’t much else going on. Just a few cast iron stones smattered here and there. We did however find a pretty big monument to fallen veterans which included cannons that were suspiciously pointed directly at local houses and a few mourning women type stones. Curiously Jane Toppan was supposed to be buried somewhere out here. She was an Angel of Death, a female serial killer nurse who admitted to killing 31 of her patients between 1880-1901 with morphine. She died in an insane asylum and doesn’t appear to have much of a marker, just a tiny headstone reading, “981.”

July 8, 2022 0

Dighton Rock – Dighton MA

If King Philip’s Cave was a bit of a disappointment surely we could find something else cool to see in these parts. Why not check something off my list that has been on there for a few years? Dighton Rock. Dighton Rock is a boulder that was discovered covered in all sorts of strange petroglyphs. We have no idea what it says, who made it, or why. It’s just a total mystery which of course beckons me like nothing else.

There’s a long-standing story that the indigenous people didn’t build anything out of rocks or have a written language when the colonists came over buuuuut the more I poke about New England finding curiosities like these the more I think that’s a load of hogwash. We don’t know shit about the people who lived here before us because we kinda sorta killed them off and drove any survivors away. Suffice to say whole civilizations were lost and clearly this rock was part of that.

The rock is advertised through signs on the main highways nearby and I have passed by it a number of times. It’s actually located within a park, Dighton Park, in a building that calls itself a museum that was built around it.

When we got there we parked in a parking lot that claimed it was $3 but had nowhere or no one to pay. It seemed to be a very pretty little park with lots of grass for children to run and some picnic tables near the water, all surrounded by trees. Honestly it was one of the sweetest parks I remember. There was even a young woman here at one of the picnic tables playing her guitar. She waited until we were out of sight to start singing The House of the Rising Sun but she shouldn’t have. She had a nice voice! And her guitar playing was also lovely. It echoed eerily in the air on this fine summer day.

We managed to find the museum nearby but it was all locked up. There wasn’t any opening hours posted anywhere. It was just a whole lot of nothing. When we got back to the parking lot we found a sign saying to call for opening hours so we did and got an answering machine asking to wait for a call back for an appointment. We didn’t leave our info, it seemed unlikely anyone would call back within any reasonable amount of time to come down here and unlock the museum for two out of towners. Their website claims that opening hours are dependent on local health regulations… so I am guessing Covid has struck again.

So we wandered back to the car and started driving off when my travel companion yelled, “PARK PARK!” I stopped, and parked again. He’d seen a sign reading, “Dighton Cemetery” and wanted to check it out. However, upon further inspection it read, “Former site of historic Dighton Cemetery.” In other words no stones remained. We hiked down the trail a ways anyway. It had a lot of bowed trees going over the path from both directions and I found it to be quite whimsical, but my travel companion was disappointed there wasn’t an actual cemetery. He had wanted to stumble blindly onto another sweet forgotten collection of headstones in the woods like we’d seen at Historic Cemetery 26. No such luck. As for myself I was trying to keep positive but I was suffering from heat stroke and a migraine was kicking up so we went back to the car and continued our journey to find a real cemetery to round out the day.

July 8, 2022 0

King Philip’s Cave – Norton MA

On this particular day we decided to muck about the Bridgewater Triangle which is supposed to be a hot spot for ghosts, UFO’s and even Pukwudgie sightings. Pukwudgies are part of Native American folklore and are said to be small troll like creatures that lead people into the woods never to return. Sadly we didn’t go at night to poke at these phenomena but we did decide to check out a bit of indigenous history in exploring King Philip’s Cave.

King Philip was the name we gave the local chief of the Wampanoag tribe in the days of our early colonization. He was initially in favor of working with the white colonists and establishing trade but things sort of went south when we kept coming over in droves insisting the locals bow down to our rules and religion. And so “King Philip” (Metacomet) started to lead the other indigenous tribes in a war against colonist expansion.

King Philip’s Cave is where he hid during key moments during the war. We thought this might be an interesting thing to see so we prepared for a day of hiking and drove to a quaint little neighborhood on a private road that had a sign up saying, “Residents and guests only.” We decided we were guests and drove in anyway and at the end of a cul-de-sac there was a couple parking spots on the grass a big sign reading King Philip’s Cave completely obscured by another truck parked there.

We headed in and realized this wouldn’t be a day’s hike. The “cave” wasn’t far from the road at all and was just barely obscured by trees. It wasn’t a cave either, rather just a pile of glacial rocks sitting atop each other in such a way that a small tunnel was created through them. You see this sort of thing a lot around these parts and I suspect being at the end of a cul-de-sac this may have been some child’s favorite place to play. It was interesting but entirely underwhelming. There wasn’t even a plaque at the cave itself explaining it (though there was one at the entrance of the trail.) It was all very… half-assed. We’d seen this before looking at other places important in King Philip’s War and other bloody skirmishes with the people who already lived here. It’s almost like we’d like to forget it ever happened…

Luckily we had other plans that day to go see Dighton Rock and the Mayflower Hill Cemetery also in the area so the day wasn’t a complete wash.

July 8, 2022 0

Cambridge Antique Market – Cambridge MA

It was yet another day and yet another antique store. I know we’ve been hitting a lot of those lately but it’s hot outside at this time of year so I tend to run for the shade. This time it was at the Cambridge Antique Market which was 5 whole floors of weirdness.

I wasn’t in the most receptive of moods knowing that Cambridge is basically parking purgatory filled with empty parallel parking spots because there’s signs with super conflicting information wafting above each space confusing the ever-loving shit out of even the locals. You’ll see cars driving around and around the block for hours because there’s also not enough spaces to go around. It’s a nightmare. The antique mall was fortunate in that it had a parking lot but it was tiny, shoved between the building and some fences, big enough for maybe 10-15 cars. The front part was full so I had to go to the even tinier back bit which had parking so tight and bizarrely shaped it’d take me a 300 point turn to eventually get out. But parking drama aside this was another delightful adventure.

We had chosen this local for it’s size. It was in another mill building and sprawled out for five whole floors with who knows how many different vendors, each a new chance to find something crazy or wonderful. We’d been in a car a long time though and I had to pee so I tried to find the bathroom right off and it was… a whole separate adventure. They had an old one stall bathroom that felt like the light should be flickering. The lock on the door was this tiny antiquated dead bolt that barely aligned with the door and I was more than a little amused that they had tried to add a little class by using toilet paper with frills. I’ve never seen anything like it! It was like using a doyly! I washed my hands with their fittingly super fragrant soap and hopped out as quick as I could. This adventure was followed by getting into an elevator that could be the whole set for a horror movie any day.

But all the endearing architecture aside this place was packed full and there was a lot to find. There were the usual assortment of haunted dolls (this time featuring an old lady marionette!) deranged Buddhas, terrifying paper mâché masks, weird novelty postcards showing a woman riding a giant grasshopper, boxes and boxes of instant ancestor photos, cannibalistic looking horses, likely serial killer clowns, a smoking bunny, a boot with Chewbacca’s face on the heel, and sooo many freaky cookie jars! I mean just hundreds of them scattered about like tinker tape. We must have been in there a couple hours – time having completely evaporated.

Yes – this was a win. A really wonderful find and I would completely suggest it to all my eccentric friends.

June 24, 2022 0

Buddha Bob’s – Eastham MA

Our trip to Cape Cod was one of those last-minute things where we really didn’t know what we wanted to do… so we decided to fill up our National Park Passport with stamps. That being said we ended up stopped in traffic in front of Buddha Bob’s only a little down the road from Salt Pond which was our real destination. And this place looked so bizarre that we decided right then and there it needed more investigation.

It was… a trip. WELL worth the detour! I parked in front of a Bigfoot wearing gold chains and that’s where we started. Have you ever been to a little shop that has no idea what it is? This would have been that. It was part rock shop, part lot for eccentric yard and garden ornamentation, part commissioned junk shop. As such we found everything from a pair of bronzed baby booties, to Buddhas of every conceivable size, to LOTS of pretty rocks inside, to a pair of Turkish looking marionettes (perhaps haunted!) to a rather fetching (if totally rusted) statue of Achilles. Fuck knows my Achilles heel is… Achilles himself. That’s how I ended up writing a whimsical satire about his teenage years but I digress.

Buddha Bob’s was an adventure for sure. No one quite knew what would be around each corner and to my great delight the people running the shop were just as unrepentantly weird as the shop itself. This was my kind of place. And my travel companion lucked out by buying two hematite rings for $1.88. I know in previous entries I have been a little dubious about the whole hematite ring thing but I guess it’s not so bad if each replacement is less than a dollar… This was my happiest tourist trap yet. FEEL THE WHIMSY!

June 24, 2022 0

Sturbridge Antiques – Sturbridge Massachusetts

We had initially set out to go to a different antique store somewhat nearby but since none of us were capable of reading opening hours on the internet or the signs on the door we arrived to a completely dead complex. Closed except for weekends. Undeterred we asked the Google Gods and they said we should try Sturbridge Antiques so off we went!

I was happy to find it seemed to be a decently sized building but when we first entered it was a little unnerving. This place seemed swank, maybe just an eensy bit out of all our price ranges. However, this was just the front of the store. There were over 80 dealers here and I must say this place had some of the weirdest most lovably eccentric antiques ever. Obviously, this started with a small alligator skin trunk labelled “doll trunk” that had all sorts of cool compartments. And the dolls… this was THE most doll infested antique store and every one of them was creepier than the last. I was THRILLED. Just two dolls in and we came across these beauties straight out of someone’s deepest nightmares:

I thought there couldn’t be anything more hair raising than those little beasties but I was delighted to find that just around the corner the dolls started getting decidedly more terrifying. Because the only thing creepier than a potentially haunted doll is a basket full of doll heads and a few limbless torsos spread about. There was even a disembodied doll head that had three faces. And if that wasn’t bad enough there were clown dolls and whole circuses to accompany them. They even had monkey dolls attached to what looked like torture devices (which I think probably allowed them to do flips or something.) And this was the first time I ever found a deflated rubber doll! Creepy! Eventually I even found an old cardboard photo depicting a family in a living room with a dastardly doll walking across the floor seemingly on it’s own, no one batting an eye. Meanwhile I found myself once again playing What’s the Most Racist Thing You Can Find with a new participant this week and low and behold the dolls got in on this too as there were mammie dolls spread like confetti through a great number of booths. And this place seemed to keep going and going and going…

I was on a mission to find some marbles because I have been told I need to “start doing the marble thing again” where I take photos of marbles on the trails that I review for this blog and leave them there in the hopes whoever finds them will find a little joy in it. I haven’t done this in ever – mostly because pretty marbles are hard to find! But most antique stores usually do have jars full marbles next to their jars full of mismatched buttons. We did find one big mason jar full for $18. I held out because they were mostly cats eye and I really favor the solid colored ones. Eventually though we came across a stash of “uranium marbles.” What the…? You mean someone thought radioactive marbles were a good idea?? Yes. After a quick consult with my phone I learned that when uranium is mixed with glass it can be used to make marbles that fluoresce under the black light. Intrigued I took a little baggy of them to play with later.

Other fun finds were a porcelain violin that looked like it could actually play, a children’s accordion, TONS of ladies hats (probably more than even dolls!) a glowing radium clock, a mange-addled teddy bear, a cool homemade marble slide that looked like it was 100 years old, a trove of nice fur coats, a goodly smattering of fancy hand mirrors, entirely too many nightmare inducing clowns, and a weirdly lecherous Buddha. By the end of the day we awarded a cast iron piggy bank as being the most racist piece in the shop and we were gleefully taking pictures of it when the woman working the counter burbled we could take as many photos as we wanted. She was really sweet and rang up my marbles after a 20 minute detour to play with what was clearly a haunted ventriloquist dummy. He was $45 and came REALLY close to coming home with me but he had no hands or feet and the mechanism to make his mouth move was busted and I have been having some insane problems with mice lately so I was hesitant to purchase anything I’d have to keep safe as it were. Still…. he was so perfect. Even came with his own little coffin for some reason.

This antique store was super fun. I would definitely go again. My only complaint was that later on when I got home I put my marbles next to a black light and they didn’t glow at all. They were just regular marbles. And I was sad. But maybe another visit for a haunted ventriloquist dummy could solve that…

June 4, 2022 0

Burial Hill Cemetery – Plymouth Massachusetts

Before setting out for Plymouth Rock earlier on in the day we had a brief discussion about where the oldest gravestone in New England was. Did we have gravestones that dated back to the original Pilgrims? I mean… it’s not like they packed the boat with a gravestone for each passenger before they set sail. If they did that would have been super ominous.

“Should we bring more food?”

“No, Prudence over here still needs room for her gravestone.”

See, that just doesn’t track.

“The oldest graves would have been Native American.” My companion tries to argue.

Well yes and no… I mean yes, there were as many indigenous peoples here when the Pilgrims landed as there are people all together now. But the natives weren’t into marking their graves with anything. From what I gather most of them in the area merely brought their dead to sacred spaces and allowed them to be eaten by the animals they worshipped in life. A way more beautiful and nature friendly good-bye if you ask me but what do I know.

But back to the pilgrims… what were they doing with all their dead?! According to Google the oldest gravestone in New England goes to one of the original Pilgrims Myles Standish who died in 1656 and is buried in Duxbury in what is claiming to be also the oldest cemetery in the US. However now that we were on Burial Hill in Plymouth a lot of the plaques were claiming they had the oldest grave markers. The oldest still standing was of Edward Gray who died in 1681. And here’s where the nit picking begins because even though the gravestones were originally made with wood and have long since decayed several of the plots here potentially predate old Myles there. Do I smell a pointless small-town feud??

All quibbling aside the cemetery was indeed on a very steep hill which was… fun… to climb. And there was a pretty nice view up there which makes sense because before it was a cemetery it was the site of our first fort. I guess it didn’t take that long to piss off our neighbors and we went from, “Can we borrow some food so we don’t die?” (probably mimed as we didn’t have any way to speak to these people) to “Oh, by the way, since you’re all heathen savages and all have you ever heard about the one and only true God?” in what, fifteen minutes? Something like that. Yeah, I’d build some thick goddamn walls too.

ANYWAY. Back to the present. Many of the original stones have been re-backed and preserved with startling efficiency. There’s also a number of monuments and plaques and the most beautiful carvings of death heads, skulls, and cherub heads. Some were VERY unusual. And I took ALL KINDS of photos… but my camera lens decided to crap out so none of them are even remotely sharable except for a handful I took with my cell phone. I apologize for that but here they are.

May 29, 2022 1

Plymouth Rock & Pilgrim Memorial Park – Plymouth Massachusetts

We were once again trying to figure out something to do when Plymouth Rock came up as “the most underwhelming school field trip ever.” Would it be less so in adulthood? Or would we find… a rock, an ordinary rock? It was time to find out!

I didn’t really know what I was heading into. My school wasn’t swank enough to cart our little asses to something like this so I’d never been. When we pulled up there was a truly pathetic little parking lot fit for two cars or so (OK, slight exaggeration but not by much!) that was entirely parallel parking. Nooope. Not going to do that. So I turned around and parked at the beach a few feet down the road which did have proper parking thank you very much. We put money in the parking meter and made our merry way into Pilgrim Land.

Obviously, we went to check out the rock first. I’d seen it on TV before but what I hadn’t seen was the absolutely enormous structure built over this sad little rock. The thing was penned in on all sides with iron bars like it was some sort of ferocious beast.

“Is it a dangerous rock?” I asked. “Why is it in a cage?” This is the sort of humor you’re in for if you travel with me. Grade A dad humor. Even though I’m childless and I guess technically female.

An older lady, who must have been a local, actually answered me. Well, this was new.

“See that camera there?”

“Yeah…”

“They put that in a few years ago. Someone came in and spray painted a bunch of things. It was a mess.”

“Oh no…”

“And people keep throwing their kids in there to get the change.” I looked into the pit and at the change in the sand. Was this some sort of lucky dirt fountain? Having no idea what to reply she went on. “I can’t imagine that. I mean look at how they must come out! Through the bars. You know how many 911 calls we get because some kid has tried to cut their nose off trying to go through them? All for what? 20 cents? Hope it was worth it!”

OK, now I really didn’t know what to say. I was just smiling awkwardly and wondering where this was going. Not that I am unfriendly I just have trust issues when it comes to random strangers telling me things… was she a tourist guide? Or just a lonely old lady? You never can tell.

She went on. “So you from around here?”

“No, we’re just visiting…”

“Well, you see that stairway across the street?”

“Yeah…”

“If you want to climb it there’s a crypt up there with the bones of the pilgrims and a really nice place to sit. Plus it’s a great view!”

“Ooooh… thank you…. We will definitely check that out…”

This we did. But before I get to that part I’d like to take a moment and talk about the rock because it is, and was, for all intent and purposes – just a rock. Not only was it just a rock it was a rock that’d been bust in half and glued back together after they attempted to move it to a better spot. Even more despairingly it says all over the place, on every plaque, that we think this is the rock the pilgrims adopted as their mascot but in reality we have no idea where they actually landed. It could have been 5 miles down the beach for all we know and this rock might be – get this- just a rock. And here’s where it gets really funny. Nearby there is a gift store and I swear to God – it sells rocks. Tiny polished rock babies so you too can have a Plymouth Rock. This is capitalism at it’s best.

There is also a replica of the Mayflower floating out there in the bay. We didn’t go on it. I’m a bit sketched out by boats and have kind of decided the only time it’d be worth getting on one would be if someone was kind enough to bring me to a good shipwreck to poke at. New England has to be littered with them. Shame the visibility is probably slim to nil with sharks and whatever cruising through the darkness looking for a snack. Oh well. Maybe someday…

In the meanwhile, we did climb the stairs across the street and found all kinds of historic goodies up there. Just as promised we found a terrific view of the building the rock was in as well as the bay and a big rectangular monument with the bones of some of the original pilgrims. Apparently, they’d been discovered at various points through archeological digs and were carried back to be buried here. Some of the plaques stated these original graves were forgotten because they had wooden markers which decayed but this monument said most of the graves weren’t marked at all because the pilgrims didn’t want the locals to know how many of them died and just how easy it’d be to kill off the remaining. It’s hard to say if this was paranoia or just karma biting them in the ass for treating the indigenous peoples like converts for Christ. It is super telling that one of the first things they built was a fort.

Here too was a statue of a local Chieftan, probably the one they first met. I couldn’t help but feel uneasy in his presence. For one he was wearing a loin cloth. In cold-ass New England. An unhelpful completely historically inaccurate stereotype put up by “the improved Red Men” some years ago probably in an attempt at inclusion. Cringe. To top it all off he looked forlornly across the bay – at a bunch of boats and white tourists. OK, now I’m uncomfortable.

There were plaques everywhere talking about all sorts of things – even the first women who don’t really get mentioned a lot. And then a few weird mentions of things like a bridal tree planted in the 1800’s which… didn’t result in a wedding… and honestly I’m confused why we were still talking about it. Maybe it was to add flair to the rock. Look, now it’s a rock and a tree. We ambled through a nearby park/garden and read even more interesting tidbits before walking up the street to Burial Hill which was by far my favorite part of the day.

May 29, 2022 0

Canal Street Antique Mall – Lawrence MA

“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.

December 14, 2021 0