New Port with a Salem Chaser and a cute blonde girl

So this past weekend my girlfriend Caroline came out to visit me (the cute blonde part of the title)! On Friday I gave her the Storrs Mansfield grand tour, complete with the old grave yard walk, the old country store, and the grand tour of the forest section. But, before this great tour started we stopped at the University of Connecticut dairy bar and got some fresh ice cream, they even had the cows next store to prove it! Here is a picture of Caroline at the general store, with our special old fashion root beer.
On Saturday we went New Port, RI with the intent to see the Vanderbelt Mansion, a.k.a. "The Breakers." We found the mansion without to much trouble, and was blown away with the size and elegance of the outside. We bought tickets to see the inside, and then we got along with the tour. The tour lasts about 30 minutes and it takes you through the major rooms such as the grand room, Mr and Mrs. bedrooms, the dining room, breakfast room, and some other stuff. Everything in that place was down without price in mind, imported that and handbuilt this. It was pretty cool, here is a picuture of the outside.



We then toured around the town of New Port and we saw the oldest taven in America, the White Hoarse Inn. We stopped in there and I got a beer, I mean, I had to have one in the oldest tavern. We then saw some of downtown New Port and it was really cool with a old like feeling to it.

We then departed from New Port and headed up to our next destination, Salem, MA. This is the Salem where the famous Witch trials were held back in 1692, but more on that in a minute. We stayed at a nice hotel called the Hawthorne Inn, it was a certified historic hotel so that was pretty neat. At this point we are really hungry and it around 8:30PM and we really need to go get some food, and we are out east so Caroline really wants some good ol fashion Lobstah. So we went to the ocean side and stopped in at a restauratn, we sat down, got our rolls served to us, and we both ordered lobstah. The waitress then came back in a few minutes and told us they were out, oh nooooo!!!! So I then ran along the seaside looking for some lobstah, the first place I saw was called Capts, and I walked in (or ran in sorta) and asked two important questoins. 1) did they have lobstah? 2) Did they have a table for us to sit and eat the lobstah is the answer to question one was yes? The answer to both questions was yes, so I ran back, grabbed my hungry damsel, and we were off to Capts.

At Capts we had a really nice table, looking over into the ocean, and we ordered our lobstahs. To make a long story a bit shorter, the lobstah was great and Caroline and I had a really nice dinner, here is a picture of our feast, 1.5 pound lobstahs cooked in aluminum foil with water inside over a fire.


The next day we were off expolring the strange town of Salem. I say strange because that town is really controlled by the Witch hunt idea. There are lots of things to see involving the Witch trials, and the whole feel of the town relates to this. We first did a little tour that explained some of the background, this place was a little weird, the tour had cheesy displays and a pretty cheesy tour guide, but of well. The next thing we went and saw was the official Salem Witch Museum. This was a little better, and had a play sort of thing that give you a really good idea on how the witchtrials happened, and a lot of very interesting history. Here is a picture of the wicked witch of the west, and me. Oh wait, that is Caroline ;)


One of the other neat things was the memorial that was recently made for the 19 people who were wrongfully killed during the witch trials. The 300th anniversary was back in 1992, and a little park with stone seats was made to honor those who were wrongfully hung. One of the more interesting people who was killed was a man named Giles Corey. His wife was accused and he was questioned by the judge, and 80 something year old Giles did not answer one question. The judge then tortued on by stoning him. With means that huge bolders were put on Giles to try to make him talk, but the only words that we would say were "more weight." They gave him exactly what he ordered and he was pressed to death, because he would not speak, the originator of the 5th amendment I guess. Here is a picture of his "grave" in this memorial, which I thought was done very well.

Overall it was a great weekend, with lots of great sights to see such as The Breakers and the very cool town of Salem. It was sad seeing Caroline off at the airport, but like all the other weekends where my friends and family have come out to visit me, all good things must come to an end.