Lizzybear
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jul 23, 2006
- Messages
- 2,955
9th October
Up early (me) and late (Steve) Salem was the plan for today so we got showered and dressed and were out the door around 10:15. Salem is 35 minutes away but the traffic means it takes more like an hour to get there so by the time we stopped at IHOP our planned breakfast was more like an early lunch! I ordered strawberry and banana pancakes with hashbrowns, bacon and overeasy eggs and Steve ordered a spinach omelette with hashbrowns (I think he ended up with my eggs aswell!)
Me sitting in restaurants seems to be a recurring photo theme!
Bill was $30 including tip and we drove the remaining 10 minutes or so to Salem, parked up and had a wander.
Witch graves
Salem has a lot of museums/various attractions that you pay around $10 per person and place to get into which can really add in the course of a day so we decided to pick two places: Count Orloks Nightmare Gallery and The House of the Seven Gables. Id done some research beforehand and these were among the highest rated so Im happy to report we were pleased with our choices! The Nightmare Gallery was awesome: A sort of waxwork museum of horror movie characters (all original costumes, props etc) It seems a fairly new attraction and the two guys who own it are really enthusiastic and keen to expand the exhibits as they make more profit, they also recognised that we were from the north of England specifically! Only downside is no photos which Steve was a bit gutted about. The House of the Seven Gables is a bit of dont touch kind of place which I suppose would put some people off but we thought it was really interesting, especially going around all the secret passages. No photos again though, only outdoors.
I'll have one of these in my yard for silliness purposes please!
I bought a few things in the gift shop here: A witch chocolate pretzel, sea and cranberry scented soaps for my mum, a Salem fridge magnet and a house protection charm for my sister. We spent a bit of time wandering around Salem, no shortage of tacky gift shops and tourist trap museums and tours here so in my opinion its best to do as we did and plan what you want to do in advance.
Amazing!
Those corn stalks were on every lamp post in the city
Has to be done
Even Steve got in on the action!
Steve bought a couple of Dickies shirts from an army surplus store and treated us both to Ben and Jerrys before we returned to the car around 3:30. Parking was $5 and we drove oh so slowly back to Boston, stopping for fuel on the way. Id planned to buy a bunch of stuff from Old Navy so we walked over there (so handy being near the retail park, not so much for our wallets though!) and bought a hoodie, pyjama pants and some vest tops and Steve bought a hoodie. Being the impulsive person that I am I decided as soon as we got back to the hotel that Id exchange the vest tops and have a longer look in the morning, which Steve unsurprisingly opted out of joining me in! Takeout for dinner tonight, this time from another pizza/pasta place which I cant remember the name of: We ordered a mushroom and aubergine pizza, an eggplant parmigan with ziti and a side salad because clearly we forgot how large last nights portions were and these were no different, oh well! After dinner we watched some TV and played on the DS and laptop before bed around 10.
Up early (me) and late (Steve) Salem was the plan for today so we got showered and dressed and were out the door around 10:15. Salem is 35 minutes away but the traffic means it takes more like an hour to get there so by the time we stopped at IHOP our planned breakfast was more like an early lunch! I ordered strawberry and banana pancakes with hashbrowns, bacon and overeasy eggs and Steve ordered a spinach omelette with hashbrowns (I think he ended up with my eggs aswell!)


Me sitting in restaurants seems to be a recurring photo theme!
Bill was $30 including tip and we drove the remaining 10 minutes or so to Salem, parked up and had a wander.


Witch graves


Salem has a lot of museums/various attractions that you pay around $10 per person and place to get into which can really add in the course of a day so we decided to pick two places: Count Orloks Nightmare Gallery and The House of the Seven Gables. Id done some research beforehand and these were among the highest rated so Im happy to report we were pleased with our choices! The Nightmare Gallery was awesome: A sort of waxwork museum of horror movie characters (all original costumes, props etc) It seems a fairly new attraction and the two guys who own it are really enthusiastic and keen to expand the exhibits as they make more profit, they also recognised that we were from the north of England specifically! Only downside is no photos which Steve was a bit gutted about. The House of the Seven Gables is a bit of dont touch kind of place which I suppose would put some people off but we thought it was really interesting, especially going around all the secret passages. No photos again though, only outdoors.




I'll have one of these in my yard for silliness purposes please!
I bought a few things in the gift shop here: A witch chocolate pretzel, sea and cranberry scented soaps for my mum, a Salem fridge magnet and a house protection charm for my sister. We spent a bit of time wandering around Salem, no shortage of tacky gift shops and tourist trap museums and tours here so in my opinion its best to do as we did and plan what you want to do in advance.

Amazing!

Those corn stalks were on every lamp post in the city

Has to be done

Even Steve got in on the action!
Steve bought a couple of Dickies shirts from an army surplus store and treated us both to Ben and Jerrys before we returned to the car around 3:30. Parking was $5 and we drove oh so slowly back to Boston, stopping for fuel on the way. Id planned to buy a bunch of stuff from Old Navy so we walked over there (so handy being near the retail park, not so much for our wallets though!) and bought a hoodie, pyjama pants and some vest tops and Steve bought a hoodie. Being the impulsive person that I am I decided as soon as we got back to the hotel that Id exchange the vest tops and have a longer look in the morning, which Steve unsurprisingly opted out of joining me in! Takeout for dinner tonight, this time from another pizza/pasta place which I cant remember the name of: We ordered a mushroom and aubergine pizza, an eggplant parmigan with ziti and a side salad because clearly we forgot how large last nights portions were and these were no different, oh well! After dinner we watched some TV and played on the DS and laptop before bed around 10.