"Witch" you were here!

Greetings all!

Since our last blog we have travelled to southern Vermont and had a visit with the folks at the Robb Family Farm in Brattleboro and managed to pick up some farm fresh maple syrup (Grandpa Ralph - too bad you weren't with us)!

We then travelled to east Massachusetts to a State Forest in the Boston vicinity. Talk about crazy traffic and roads! Our 3 big Massachusetts outings consisted of:

*A quick road trip up to Gloucester which is right on the ocean - very beautiful! Tyrone managed to sneak in yet another swim in the ocean.

*Salem - which is witch central. This is the spot back in the late 1600's when 14 women and 5 men were hung (not burned at the stake) because the community felt they were witches (which they weren't).

Salem certainly has a witch theme with many different themed restaurants, gift shops, etc.. Apparently it's quite wild around Halloween! Emma and Leah were quite intrigued to learn about the present day witches.

We also visited the Maritime Historic Site which talked about non-witch things like the maritime history of the area.

*Boston - We also jumped on the"T" to check out the downtown sites, especially the Boston Common area. We walked along the Freedom Trail where the freed slaves walked so long ago. One of the stops along the way was the State Building where we saw a statue of a relative of Ray's by the name of Anne Hutchinson. She lived back in the Puritan times and was considered to be a courageous exponent of "civil liberty and religious toleration".

Our plans are to continue north through New Hampshire and northern Vermont - we just finished a great visit to a Shaker community which we will talk about soon.

Our blog question - After viewing the statue of Ray's relation, we did some further research to find that he is actually distantly related to a handful of notable individuals including George W Bush, Marilyn Monroe and another actor from the 80's (which there is a resemblance - Helen you should get this) - who is it??

Bye for now.