The Distracted Wanderer

In my last post on our recent stay at the Hawthorne Hotel I showed you some the pictures of the door to Room #612 and the rather 'odd' bits of white light that appeared in the picture of the hallway in front of the door. I also mentioned a glowing green light on the side of the hotel closest to Salem Common that appeared near the 6th floor that I really couldn't figure out. While going through pictures for this post, I found that glowing green light again but this time it was located on the other side of the building and, just like before, definitely near the 6th floor! The picture above is a straight-out-of-the-camera shot that I took from across the street from the hotel shortly after we had returned from seeing the Salem Trolley presentation of " A Christmas Carol ".  As you can see there's a green traffic light on the corner as well as a street light on a pole to the side of the hotel in addition to a couple of other lights on the left-hand side of t...

After our tour of the Salem Marine Society cabin on the roof of the Hawthorne Hotel, the girls and I had one more thing planned for the night - a presentation of Dickens' famous classic " A Christmas Carol ".  But this wasn't going to be just any presentation of the venerable holiday favorite - this presentation was going to take place on one of Salem's famous red trolleys as well as other locations around town. I had read about the Salem Trolley & Griffen Theater Presents ... " A Christmas Carol "  back in November on the blog  Discover the Magic of Salem, Massachusetts  written by Kate Fox of  Destination Salem  - the official guide to Salem.  It sounded like it might be great fun so even though tickets were apparently selling like hotcakes, I managed to snag three for the 8:00 showing on Thursday, December 16th. What really appealed to me was the fact that the story took place on board a trolley as it made its way down the streets of ...

Following a lovely afternoon exploring the PEM and a little Christmas shopping in some of the eclectic shops nearby, the girls and I made the short walk back over to the Hawthorne Hotel where it was almost time to meet back up with Juli for our tour of the Salem Marine Society's meeting place on the roof of the Hawthorne. With a motto of "Where Virtue Reigns, the Unfortunate Find Relief", the Salem Marine Society , which is the oldest charitable organization in Salem, was established in 1766 by 18 local ship-masters and ship-owners "to provide relief for disabled and aged members and their families; to promote knowledge of this coast; and to communicate observations for making navigation more safe."  Members of the Salem Marine Society even paid for and erected a lighthouse on Baker's Island in 1792 to help sailors navigating the rocky shores of Salem but more on that particular item later! In 1830 Captain Thomas Perkins, who was a merchant of Salem but ...

Having paused to enjoy Christmas - and I hope you did, too - it's now back to our "mini-break" in Salem, Massachusetts and that post on the Peabody Essex Museum that I promised you.  The girls and I went to the PEM as guests of the Hawthorne Hotel and I am quite glad that we did as it's a remarkable place with some truly fantastic exhibitions and pieces of art. Founded in 1799 as the East India Marine Society by a group of Salem-based captains and supercargoes - the people who were in charge of the cargo that a ship carried and who were employed by the owner of the cargo - the Peabody Essex Museum is the oldest continuously operating museum in the United States. Members of the Society were required by the Society's Charter to collect "natural and artificial curiosities" from beyond the Cape of Good Hope or Cape Horn and as such, the East India Society members brought to Salem "a diverse collection of objects from the northwest coast of America...