Florida Cracker Boston Trip: Day 2 - Memorial Day

Monday, May 29th - To Salem and back

Tewksbury

I slept in late that morning until about 10am. I got up and checked on the girls. Lauran was sleeping the sleep of the innocents. She was out on the sofa while Megan was back in the second bedroom. Judy was also snoozing pretty heavily, so Megan and I went out to forage for breakfast for the family.

We found a local store and picked up some supplies: break, peanut butter, grape jam, nachoes, salsa, stuff from the basic food groups. We paid for our groceries and headed back to Judy and Lauran. When we got back everybody got up and had a very late breakfast. Lauran was still zoned out from here staying up since Friday, and Judy's joints were really bothering her. Megan and I wanted to do something, so we decided to go see the new X-Men film.

Spoilers

• Jean Grey is alive but comes back as Phoenix, the 'bad' girl.
• Phoenix kills Cyclops when Cyclops first finds her at Alkali Lake (Megan says good riddance to him).
• Frasier looks good as a blue furball.
  
• Mystique looses her mutant powers when injected with a 'cure' while being rescued.
• Phoenix kills Professor Xavier.
• Magneto looses his mutant powers when injected with the same 'cure' that robbed Mystique of hers.
• Rogue deliberately takes the cure so she can lay hands on her hottie, Iceman, without killing him.
• Megan thinks Hugh Jackman is hot, hot, hot.
  
• Wolverine finally kills Phoenix to save the world from Phoenix's 'class 5' mutant powers.

Oh. One other item. At the very end of the movie, Eric Lensherr, a.k.a. Magneto, dapperly dressed is sitting in Golden Gate park in front of a check board. The last thing we see is Magneto raising his hand before a chess piece and we see the piece begin to move without him touching it. Are his powers coming back? Can you say X-Men 4? Sure you can!

Heading to Salem

Megan and I got back from the movies around 4pm and found everybody awake - finally. We talked about what we wanted for supper. Judy suggested a trip to Salem and an evening meal there. I said fine so everybody got dressed, we piled into the fabulous Ford, and off to Salem we drove.

It took about an hour to get everybody moving and get to Salem. We arrived around 5pm at the outskirts of Salem, and then started to drive like a tourist (slower than normal) while we wound our way through Salem. Being summer, we still had plenty of daylight so I was able to see clearly as we passed several key landmarks more than once.

When we finally stopped we parked next to the Salem green. When Megan and I were out earlier we'd noticed flags and bunting all out for Memorial day. Considering Massachusetts deep historical roots, it wasn't surprising to see many observances just about everywhere we drove. There were people walking to a number of gatherings, carrying lawn chairs and food and heading to various spots to gather and remember.

We walked around for a while, then got back in the car and headed for the waterfront. We parked in the lot next to the House of the Seven Gables, then walked back towards the waterfront. Along the way we passed the Friendship of Salem, a replica ship based on designs from the late 1700s. In spite of Nathaniel Hawthorn and the Salem witch trials, Salem has a very rich nautical history.

We had dinner at Victoria Station, a restaurant chain that used to be in Atlanta. I was surprised to find it still in business. I thought it didn't exist any more. By the time we finished it was getting dark, so we piled back in and headed back to the hotel. On the way out of Salem we got some local icecream, then finished it up on the drive back to Tewksbury.