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?

August 21, 2022 0

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.

August 8, 2022 0

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