The Distracted Wanderer

Salem, Massachusetts may be known as "Witch City" due to its horrific historic past as the site of the worst case of mass hysteria ever in Colonial America which led to the deaths of over 20 people, but there's a lot more to this Massachusetts North Shore destination than the Salem Witch Trials including a lot of great places to eat. As many times as I've eaten in Salem - and it's been a lot! - I have never once had a bad meal in a wide variety of restaurants. Not. Even. Once.  During one of my many wanderings to Salem, my Distracted Sidekick and I decided to check out  the  Ugly Mug Diner  as even though I am an admitted classic diner snob, I'm never adverse to trying out a diner that isn't housed in a historic dining car made by the Worcester Lunch Car Company or Fodero or Jerry O'Mahony or Kullman or … well, you get the picture! Out of all the possibilities laid before us in Salem, the Ugly Mug Diner had two things going for it that made me decide...

I recently took a mid-week wander up to Salem, Massachusetts as I was not only having a major case of wanderlust but because the Peabody Essex Museum was having an exhibition on the 1692 Salem Witch Trials that I really wanted to see. Normally, I wouldn't go anywhere near Salem in October having witnessed firsthand the kinds of crowds the city attracts during the entire month when my friend Juli lived there, but with the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic having canceled all of the city's annual "Haunted Happenings", I thought it might be worth making the trip.  Knowing that things have been scaled way down from what you would normally find in Salem in October, there wasn't going to be any distracted wandering going on during this trip though. Nope, it was was going to be a very carefully planned out trip with a pretty solid agenda in place. As I wanted to make sure that the things that I wanted to see and do were going to be possible, I purchased tickets online for the a...