Expedition East Coast: Day 16 Salem, Boston, WiFi crisis & Sam Adams

CrispyA · 13 Oct 18, 12:01 PM

3 August

I didn't sleep very well and we were all up early. Breakfast was quite disappointing, which was a shame. The breakfast area was really crowded and there weren't enough places to sit, and the food offering wasn't great either.

We got on the road and headed further on down the coast. The drive is pretty but very slow going at times due to volume of traffic. I had wanted to visit Ogunquit beach as it is supposed to be very pretty - in fact, the name means "beautiful place by the sea" but the traffic was so bad getting through Ogunquit that we couldn't bear to turn off and then have to fight our way back through it again so we gave that a miss.

Eventually we arrived at Salem where we were planning to have a look around and get some lunch. I wasn't sure what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn't the fairly tacky tourist trap that Salem turned out to be. There were occult shops and witches everywhere, which was ironic as the whole issue with Salem was that there were never any witches, just innocent women (and some men) who were the victims of a panic.

We did amuse ourselves thinking about the kids comedy programme, Sorry I've got no head where there was a regular sketch where someone would shout "Witch" at someone who was annoying them and a load of men in 17th century costume would arrive and carry that person off. As a man in a somewhat goth outfit with a large black hat passed us, me and the kids looked at each other at the same time and whispered "Witch!". Fortunately we didn't attract the attention of any witch-finders. Phew!

We found the tourist information centre and spent a little time trying on hats and reading about the witch trials.

As we headed back to the car, we spotted this statue. I used to watch reruns of "Bewitched" as a child, but the rest of the family had no idea who this was!

There was some historic architecture but not much.

We were parked outside a church which had a "Black Lives Matter" banner outside and stopped to read this really interesting explanation of why they had the banner up and what it meant to them.

Then we made a classic error. Instead of heading immediately for some lunch, we agreed to set off for Boston and "find somewhere on the way." We should have learned by now and will certainly never make that mistake again. Having made this mistake already, we really should have learned by now, but we clearly hadn't. Fools.

The journey through some fairly uninspiring suburbs took forever and it was raining. And we didn't see anywhere that looked like a good place to stop. The traffic was absolutely horrible all the way into Boston and nobody was in a very good mood by this point. Hangriness had set in and the tone of conversation was generally terse.

The plan had been to go to the Converse Factory shop as there were some other outlets nearby also but when we got there, we couldn't find a parking spot and there were no places to get a quick lunch either. The mood at this point had sunk to rock bottom and the driver declared that we were going straight to our AirBnB and would eat snacks there.

Just to help matters, there were some major road works in Boston and we got caught up in it all with the journey to Jamaica Plain taking forever. Remember, everyone was hungry and completely fed up at this point. Why we didn't just eat in Salem I will never know!

We found our AirBnB eventually and met Kenji, our host. The rest of the family are even more introverted than me and were not looking forward to having to speak to somebody (!) but he was very lovely and friendly and happy to show us around his home and answer any questions.

We had originally booked another AirBnB apartment back in October 2017 but the host had cancelled on us with no explanation the day before we flew out to the US. Cue a panic search of AirBnB as there were no hotels available and we had booked Kenji's place. In the end, this turned out to be a blessing as it was a lovely place to stay, in a really good location.

Kenji is an artist and his apartment was eclectic, to say the least, with art made from everyday objects all over the place. It was also spotless and very comfortable. He was going to a craft fair in Portland for the weekend, hence the AirBnB rental, and was very attentive, making sure we had everything we needed and offering us bikes if we wanted them.

Once we were in, we had snacks and the hangriness abated somewhat. Then we connected to the Wifi and that's when the trouble started! Everyone was able to connect their devices to the WiFi - apart from Evan. Oh dear. We tried over and over again but it just wouldn't work.

Have you ever seen a teenager afflicted with such terrible circumstances as not being able to get online? The rage was truly terrible to behold and us calling him Chuckles again really didn't help. There wasn't anything anyone could do - his phone just wouldn't connect no matter how many times we all tried it.

I did understand - it's important to be able to connect with your friends at his age - but we were powerless to help. And he was not getting any kind of perspective on this at all - it was the worst apartment in the world and he would rather have slept in the streets etc. In the end, having agreed to download Snapchat and Instagram onto my iPad so he could use them, we told him to get over himself and stop being so dramatic.

Having resolved the WiFi crisis, to an extent, we set off for the Sam Adams brewery which was a 2 minute walk away. We booked on to the next tour, with both kids being given wristbands to really enforce that they were not legally old enough to try any beer. It was especially galling for the 18 year old to be given a "not yet" wristband but in the US you have to abide by US law.

It was a bit early for our tour, so we had a short walk to familiarise ourselves with the neighbourhood before heading back for our tour. Paul was really excited while Evan still had a face like a smacked bum.

The tour is free and as it was late on a Friday afternoon, there was a somewhat rowdy crowd all looking forward to some free beer! We learned about hops and brewing at Sam Adams before heading for the tasting room and getting to try three of the beers. There was plenty to go around and we had good fun. Well, the three of us did . . .

This picture cracks us up particularly.

There was root beer for the under 21s but as root beer is vile, neither kid fancied it. (Strangely, Hannah used to like it but has now come to her senses!) They were very patient while we drank beer and had fun, even if Evan's face never cracked.

Kenji had recommended a couple of pub nearby for food and after getting ready, we headed for Doyle's, which was a short walk away. On the way there, we spotted a local baseball game setting up in the park and promised Chuckles that he could watch a bit of it after the meal - if he stopped complaining about the damn WiFi!

It was a good meal and the pub was very friendly. Fortunately, the game was in full swing as we left and we watched for quite a while.

Hannah and I sat on the bleachers with the other Mums and girlfriends and had fun chatting with them. They were quite bemused that British tourists would be staying in Jamaica Plain and would come and watch a local ballgame, but we explained that we like doing stuff we can't do in England.

One of the Mums suggested fixing Hannah up with her son and we did try to persuade her that there was a future in this relationship but alas, they never even spoke! It was good fun and we enjoyed the chat. We told them that we had Yankees vs Red Sox tickets for Sunday and were assured that it would be a great game and we would love Fenway Park. One of them recommended the sausages - telling us that the one time she had been to Fenway and hadn't been able to eat one due to being ill, she had been so disappointed that she cried. Wow, those must be some sausages!

Then it was back to the apartment and to bed.

Melbatb · 14 Oct 18, 06:44 AM

Sorry - I am not really laughing about the wifi issues! But it sounds so familiar as a mum of two teens!

The Sam Adams tour looks great and watching a local baseball game is always fun! We found driving through Boston horrendous! Like any big city I guess!,

katiebaz · 14 Oct 18, 08:10 AM

Love the picture and totally get the teen WiFi dramas! Shame Salem was a bit tacky and the rule about getting food whilst you can is one we have ignored at our peril several times. The tour looked great and hope the WiFi situation improved!

CrispyA · 14 Oct 18, 12:33 PM

Originally Posted by Melbatb

Sorry - I am not really laughing about the wifi issues! But it sounds so familiar as a mum of two teens!

The Sam Adams tour looks great and watching a local baseball game is always fun! We found driving through Boston horrendous! Like any big city I guess!,

It's okay to laugh - even Chuckles can laugh about it now. I guess it's true that driving in any big city can be awful but Boston did seem to be particularly bad. Can't imagine that being my daily commute.

Originally Posted by katiebaz

Love the picture and totally get the teen WiFi dramas! Shame Salem was a bit tacky and the rule about getting food whilst you can is one we have ignored at our peril several times. The tour looked great and hope the WiFi situation improved!

The tour is really good and very good value for being free! We will no longer ignore the food rule in future - and have even made a note to remember it for next time! Teen Wifi drama was quite funny in retrospect and when I told Evan that I was writing about this day in the trip report, he did manage to laugh at himself about it. Everytime we look at those photos, we all have a good laugh.

i love jack · 14 Oct 18, 04:27 PM

Oh dear poor Evan

bet he would have quite liked a beer after all that stress too

**Fuellady** · 16 Oct 18, 08:26 PM

I'm glad your emergency AirBnB was nice, despite having wifi issues! Oh dear, poor Evan. I have teens too, so I know how it can be.

Shame you were disappointed with Salem. The brewery tour looks good, how fab that it's free too

CrispyA · 17 Oct 18, 08:06 PM

Originally Posted by i love jack

Oh dear poor Evan

bet he would have quite liked a beer after all that stress too

Lol, he really would have done! We shouldn�t laugh at him really, but that face . . .

Originally Posted by Fuellady

I'm glad your emergency AirBnB was nice, despite having wifi issues! Oh dear, poor Evan. I have teens too, so I know how it can be.

Shame you were disappointed with Salem. The brewery tour looks good, how fab that it's free too

The brewery tour was great, really good fun. Evan is over it now (I hope!) but it was a little bit tense!

**WileyCoyote** · 4 Nov 18, 05:15 PM

Oh Lord, not stopping for lunch, traffic and teen WiFi traumas. That�s about as nightmarish as it can get on a road trip. I think the witches of Salem hexed you for dissing the tacky town !
Poor Evan. When they say a picture paints a thousand words ...

CrispyA · 4 Nov 18, 08:16 PM

Originally Posted by WileyCoyote

Oh Lord, not stopping for lunch, traffic and teen WiFi traumas. That�s about as nightmarish as it can get on a road trip. I think the witches of Salem hexed you for dissing the tacky town !
Poor Evan. When they say a picture paints a thousand words ...

I think those witches did curse us. Or at least Evan! Poor kid - those pictures are never not funny!

13 Oct 18, 12:01 PM	#1
	13 Oct 18, 12:01 PM CrispyA Imagineer
CrispyA Imagineer Join Date: Oct 11	Expedition East Coast: Day 16 Salem, Boston, WiFi crisis & Sam Adams 3 August I didn't sleep very well and we were all up early. Breakfast was quite disappointing, which was a shame. The breakfast area was really crowded and there weren't enough places to sit, and the food offering wasn't great either. We got on the road and headed further on down the coast. The drive is pretty but very slow going at times due to volume of traffic. I had wanted to visit Ogunquit beach as it is supposed to be very pretty - in fact, the name means "beautiful place by the sea" but the traffic was so bad getting through Ogunquit that we couldn't bear to turn off and then have to fight our way back through it again so we gave that a miss. Eventually we arrived at Salem where we were planning to have a look around and get some lunch. I wasn't sure what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn't the fairly tacky tourist trap that Salem turned out to be. There were occult shops and witches everywhere, which was ironic as the whole issue with Salem was that there were never any witches, just innocent women (and some men) who were the victims of a panic. We did amuse ourselves thinking about the kids comedy programme, Sorry I've got no head where there was a regular sketch where someone would shout "Witch" at someone who was annoying them and a load of men in 17th century costume would arrive and carry that person off. As a man in a somewhat goth outfit with a large black hat passed us, me and the kids looked at each other at the same time and whispered "Witch!". Fortunately we didn't attract the attention of any witch-finders. Phew! We found the tourist information centre and spent a little time trying on hats and reading about the witch trials. As we headed back to the car, we spotted this statue. I used to watch reruns of "Bewitched" as a child, but the rest of the family had no idea who this was! There was some historic architecture but not much. We were parked outside a church which had a "Black Lives Matter" banner outside and stopped to read this really interesting explanation of why they had the banner up and what it meant to them. Then we made a classic error. Instead of heading immediately for some lunch, we agreed to set off for Boston and "find somewhere on the way." We should have learned by now and will certainly never make that mistake again. Having made this mistake already, we really should have learned by now, but we clearly hadn't. Fools. The journey through some fairly uninspiring suburbs took forever and it was raining. And we didn't see anywhere that looked like a good place to stop. The traffic was absolutely horrible all the way into Boston and nobody was in a very good mood by this point. Hangriness had set in and the tone of conversation was generally terse. The plan had been to go to the Converse Factory shop as there were some other outlets nearby also but when we got there, we couldn't find a parking spot and there were no places to get a quick lunch either. The mood at this point had sunk to rock bottom and the driver declared that we were going straight to our AirBnB and would eat snacks there. Just to help matters, there were some major road works in Boston and we got caught up in it all with the journey to Jamaica Plain taking forever. Remember, everyone was hungry and completely fed up at this point. Why we didn't just eat in Salem I will never know! We found our AirBnB eventually and met Kenji, our host. The rest of the family are even more introverted than me and were not looking forward to having to speak to somebody (!) but he was very lovely and friendly and happy to show us around his home and answer any questions. We had originally booked another AirBnB apartment back in October 2017 but the host had cancelled on us with no explanation the day before we flew out to the US. Cue a panic search of AirBnB as there were no hotels available and we had booked Kenji's place. In the end, this turned out to be a blessing as it was a lovely place to stay, in a really good location. Kenji is an artist and his apartment was eclectic, to say the least, with art made from everyday objects all over the place. It was also spotless and very comfortable. He was going to a craft fair in Portland for the weekend, hence the AirBnB rental, and was very attentive, making sure we had everything we needed and offering us bikes if we wanted them. Once we were in, we had snacks and the hangriness abated somewhat. Then we connected to the Wifi and that's when the trouble started! Everyone was able to connect their devices to the WiFi - apart from Evan. Oh dear. We tried over and over again but it just wouldn't work. Have you ever seen a teenager afflicted with such terrible circumstances as not being able to get online? The rage was truly terrible to behold and us calling him Chuckles again really didn't help. There wasn't anything anyone could do - his phone just wouldn't connect no matter how many times we all tried it. I did understand - it's important to be able to connect with your friends at his age - but we were powerless to help. And he was not getting any kind of perspective on this at all - it was the worst apartment in the world and he would rather have slept in the streets etc. In the end, having agreed to download Snapchat and Instagram onto my iPad so he could use them, we told him to get over himself and stop being so dramatic. Having resolved the WiFi crisis, to an extent, we set off for the Sam Adams brewery which was a 2 minute walk away. We booked on to the next tour, with both kids being given wristbands to really enforce that they were not legally old enough to try any beer. It was especially galling for the 18 year old to be given a "not yet" wristband but in the US you have to abide by US law. It was a bit early for our tour, so we had a short walk to familiarise ourselves with the neighbourhood before heading back for our tour. Paul was really excited while Evan still had a face like a smacked bum. The tour is free and as it was late on a Friday afternoon, there was a somewhat rowdy crowd all looking forward to some free beer! We learned about hops and brewing at Sam Adams before heading for the tasting room and getting to try three of the beers. There was plenty to go around and we had good fun. Well, the three of us did . . . This picture cracks us up particularly. There was root beer for the under 21s but as root beer is vile, neither kid fancied it. (Strangely, Hannah used to like it but has now come to her senses!) They were very patient while we drank beer and had fun, even if Evan's face never cracked. Kenji had recommended a couple of pub nearby for food and after getting ready, we headed for Doyle's, which was a short walk away. On the way there, we spotted a local baseball game setting up in the park and promised Chuckles that he could watch a bit of it after the meal - if he stopped complaining about the damn WiFi! It was a good meal and the pub was very friendly. Fortunately, the game was in full swing as we left and we watched for quite a while. Hannah and I sat on the bleachers with the other Mums and girlfriends and had fun chatting with them. They were quite bemused that British tourists would be staying in Jamaica Plain and would come and watch a local ballgame, but we explained that we like doing stuff we can't do in England. One of the Mums suggested fixing Hannah up with her son and we did try to persuade her that there was a future in this relationship but alas, they never even spoke! It was good fun and we enjoyed the chat. We told them that we had Yankees vs Red Sox tickets for Sunday and were assured that it would be a great game and we would love Fenway Park. One of them recommended the sausages - telling us that the one time she had been to Fenway and hadn't been able to eat one due to being ill, she had been so disappointed that she cried. Wow, those must be some sausages! Then it was back to the apartment and to bed. __________________ West Coast July - August 2014, Howdy Texas! August 2015, Rocking in the Rockies July - August 2016, Bier, Bratwurst und Bahnsteige: Berlin 2017, Touring Tennessee 2017, Expedition East Coast 2018, Hola! Madrid 2019, Great Lakes Grooving 2019, It's Czech, Mate, Prague 2022, Veni, Vidi, Edi, Bibi Italy 2022