Howdy, I'm from Texas!

Salem was great. We had a blast. Steve needed to get outta Texas for a bit... and I wasn't ready to go home.

We noticed that when people in New England ask, "Where are you from?" and we say "Texas", they give you a strange look. But if you say you live in Austin, they always light up and say, "oh, I hear great things about Austin" or "I hear it's really nice and pretty."

Austin has a much better rapport than the rest of the state.

Steve greeted everyone with a "Howdy" and if someone honked at me for not driving fast enough I'd just say, "I'm from Texas!"
I didn't notice it at all until we got in the car to go to the airport, but my rental car had Texas plates! How strange is that?! I rented it from a small Hertz in Maine... spooooky. :)


I think my favorite museum in Salem was the House of the Seven Gables... Originally it did have seven gables, but not when Hawthorne wrote about it... The house is restored to be more accurate to the book (which I don't remember at all). It's beautiful...

It's amazing how much history is in such a small area. The first night we were there (and met Harvey in the RV), we were walking around... and went to a pub called The Old Spot. We had no clue that the house across the street was the original Parker Brother's Clue (as in the board game) house. Turns out there was a murder there... the man's last name was White and he was killed in the bedroom with a lead pipe. The floor plan is the same as the game... strange... I never would have thought that it was based on something real...Here's a pic of the clue house:


and we were walking by the 2nd oldest cemetery in the US, and had no idea. We went to the cemetary and looked for the headstones of the people who had a part in the witch trials. We ended up going back there with paper and crayons and did some rubbings...


When we went back to the cemetery, we met a girl (who was a witch) dressed in a black velvet cloak, putting spells on the headstones... She told us how she really wanted to move to Salem... where did she live? Well, a 10 min walk away from Salem... I consider that living IN Salem... but, well... whatever.


We really saw a lot... my feet were killing me... I was wearing new Converse sneakers Kel gave me... and my feet aren't used to being in real shoes...

Now I'm back in Lockhart, Texas... I just picked up Dylan from Emily's... he was so happy to see me that he did the happy-paws-prance dance... I already miss the cool weather... The leaves have already started to change up north.

I have another trip to plan for... The beginning of Oct., Justin and I are going to Big Bend... I'll be doing nature journaling and he'll be the photographer... We'll be camping... I'm excited... but nervous about the "camping" part... I'm a HUGE fan of indoor plumbing. But it's going to be amazing... I can't wait!