Mom and Daughters' Trip - Salem

Our East Coast Adventure had been spectacular thus far!!! We decided to take a day trip from Boston to Salem - I reserved a car at Hertz several months prior to our arrival and I have to say I was really mad that we had to wait over an hour for a car to arrive - apparently they had accidentally given our car away.... The upside was I got an upgrade with a GPS... the downside - I did not listen carefully enough and missed a turn -ended up in an underground tunnel under the ocean going in the opposite direction of our destination... To top things off - Massachusetts drivers are INSANE... Later someone told me that they call Mass. drivers "mASS Hole" drivers for a reason....

In Salem we had three (3) tours lined up - The first one 'Grave Matters' at 1:00, 'Witch Walk' at 3:00 and later in the evening - We had a paranormal ghost tour... Because our car was late getting to us AND I got lost - we were a few minutes late - thankfully - we were the only ones on the tour and all was good... except for the fact that the only reason we were alone was because Salem's temperatures hit the record for that day... 105 with 60% humidity... We were dying...

Grave Matters - a tour of the 2nd oldest graveyard in the nation - The tour showed us the different etchings and what they mean - We saw an original pilgrim's tombstone - a few of the witch trials judges...

2nd Oldest Graveyard in the Nation

A Mayflower Pilgrim's tombstone - the case around is to protect

Very cool tree in the graveyard

The Witch Walk - this tour showed us many of the locations relating to the Salem witch trials - this horrible injustice that took the lives of 19 innocent people.

The Witch House - Original home of Witch Trial Judge Jonathan Corwin

Nineteen innocent victims were killed - 18 hung - 1 pressed

We had some time to kill after our 2nd tour - It was so very hot outside so we had a very long lunch in a cold restaurant... Then went to a very cheesy wax museum - shopped a little - had some ice cream... The heat was also bad for the small town - several of the shops closed early... very early for a Friday...


Finally the time arrived for our paranormal ghost tour... Ghost tours in Salem is very big business... And it seemed ALL the tour guides hated our guide... Our guide was a self described ghost hunter and Voodoo practitioner ... She had been on several ghost hunting shows and was very arrogant - She was known to bash the other tours as fakes... She cracked me up.... She did take us to some places that even freaked her out - There was this one place The Joshua Ward House - that is supposedly the most haunted building in Salem - She said that she did an investigation there and put a tape recorder in the basement and recorded a voice saying "I want to keep you".. Another story about this building is that there was a real estate party and pictures were taken and one picture of a young woman realtor turned up to show a scary/creepy image in front of the woman - the woman was not seen in the photo... We saw copy of it- if it is a true photo - I would have been creeped out too...

Above is the Joshua Ward House - it is believed to be haunted by the Sheriff from the Witch Trials - he would take accused "witches" to his home and torture them to confess.. People have been pushed downstairs - Also - it is said that Giles Corey the man who was pressed to death haunts this location... The guide refused to get close to the building...

Above is the original Salem Jail - this place is supposedly extremely haunted - it was vacant for many years but was bought by a Boston company and has been converted into a restaurant and condos - if I remember right... Several prisoners were hanged in this building - where the kitchen is today...

Above is Howard Street Cemetery - this is right next to the old jail. This cemetery is reported to be haunted and many ghosts/orbs have been caught at dusk.. Giles Corey is supposed to haunt this cemetery as well as the Joshua Ward house.. Giles was crushed to death in the alley behind the cemetery...

Our drive back to Boston was not so bad - I wasn't in a hurry and the girls were a great help... The next morning we went on our final leg of this wonderful journey - We traveled to my sister's home..