It was really cool being here, especially since I have been to the monument in Ohio. It also surprised me how many people were here. When I went to the monument in Ohio, there was maybe 3 or 4 cars, while this place was packed! I started out in the Visitor Center looking at the displays before going outside.
Next I drove to Cape Hatteras National Seashore, which wasn’t far from the Wright Brothers monument. I checked in at the Visitor Center. While I was there I asked for the ferry scheduled. The guy told me that there was a 3 hour wait to take the ferry. Dang! I definitely did not have time to wait 3 hours. I looked at the map and realized that the seashore actually stretches for several miles before getting to the point where you need the ferry.
After walking around it was time for the movie. The movie was very interesting. It was based on a Native American legend. It spoke about 3 boys from different tribes on the island that formed a friendship. After the Europeans came, 2 of the boys returned with them to England, which changed their lives and their tribes. One of the boys that went to England came back wanting to become like the Europeans and supported them. The 2ndboy that went came back rejecting everything he learned but he feared them. The 3 boy, the one that remained, was caught in the middle as battle lines were drawn and the tribes fought among themselves until they remembered their friendship and became close once more. My last stop of the day was to Fort Raleigh National Historic Site. I went through the museum first, which talked about the different Roanoke voyages. The first voyage was in 1584 and was a reconnaissance mission by Sir Walter Raleigh. He came to the New World looking for a place to settle. In Roanoke, the Native Americans traded with them and taught them about the land. They felt welcomed and returned in 1585 to set up a military outpost. The outpost depended on the Native Americans for food, which created harsh sentiments after they began to die of European diseases. The fort was abandoned and the soldier returned home. The last voyage was in 1587, where John White founded the colony. Life was hard and the colonists were running out of food since the Native Americans did not like them being there. John White agreed to return to England for supplies. However, White was not able to return until 1590 due to England needing every ship to face the Spanish Armada. When he finally returned there was no one there, only the words CROATOAN carved onto a post. When White tried to reach Croatoan Island, a hurricane forced the ships to return to England. The fate of the colonists, including White’s wife and daughter, remains a mystery. There are many theories, that they were killed by the Indians, that they joined the Indians, or that they moved on to another location, but there has been no evidence to support any of these theories. It is America’s longest unsolved mystery.
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My first stop for today is Colonial National Historic Park. I had only given myself an hour to explore, which was a mistake because the historic park is large. First, there are 2 visitor centers, which I didn’t realize. I was expecting to go to the one in Yorktown, so when my GPS started taking me out of the way I got confused. I ended up pulling over and using my phone instead. Once I got to Yorktown I realized that I could have just gone to Jamestown first. The historic park isn’t actually the city; it is a battlefield outside of the city. It is the last battlefield of the American Revolution. It was here on October 19, 1781 that the British laid down their weapons and surrendered. In the fall of 1781, Lord Cornwallis (the commander of the British army) occupied Yorktown in order to prepare for the winter. General Washington and his French allies under the Comte de Rochambeau saw an opportunity. The French blockaded Chesapeake Bay, which isolated Cornwallis and his army. They could not be rescued or resupplied. On land, the army under General Washington surrounded Cornwallis, leaving no path for escape. Finally, in October, surrounded and with no way of escaping, Cornwallis sent a letter to Washington to surrender. With no army, the British government agreed to peace talks and the U.S. won its independence in early 1783.
After driving around Yorktown, I took the Colonial Parkway to Jamestown Island. Jamestown was the first permanent British settlement in the New World. It was also here that the legend of Pocahontas was born when the leader of Jamestown, John Smith, claimed she saved him from execution. Life on the settlement was hard and brief. While the Native Americans originally supplied the town with maize, they eventually refused which caused death by starvation for many of the indentured workers. The Virginia Company of London had issues finding workers until they started sending poor women and children there to work.
After Jamestown I tried to go to Cape Henry Lighthouse, but the road my GPS tried to get me to go on was closed. I had to turn around and I ended up pulling into the State Park where I was able to get directions. The lady told me the only way to access it was through Fort Story. So I plugged that into my GPS. I didn’t realize there was a fort over here or else I would have added that to my itinerary. I quickly realized that the fort was still operations as a military base, but they allow tourists to see the lighthouse and the first landing site. I was able to pull into the parking lot right outside the first checkpoint after turning over my driver’s license. Then I walked over to the bus stop where they checked to make sure I had no weapon before I boarded the bus. I also got a pass with a map to show what area I was allowed to be in. It was a small rectangle and they warned me the path was not marked but if I was caught outside of it I would be charged with a felony. I made sure I did not go close to the edge of the marked area.
My next stop was the Discoversea Shipwreck Museum. I was really confused at first because my GPS took me to a souvenir shop. I looked for the museum but I couldn’t find it, so I decided to go in the shop since it had a lot of cool looking souvenirs. When I was inside on the back wall there was a sign leading up to a free museum. I had found the museum.
After looking through the museum I drove about an hour to Assateague Island. I thought it was just a state park, but it was actually a national park so I was able to get a stamp for my book. They also had a little museum talking about the diversity of plant life on the island and the horses. Assateague is famous for the wild horses that live on the island. After I got my stamp I went back to my car and drove over the bridge into the park.
I then drove 2 hours to Great Egg Harbor NSRR. I wanted to get a stamp for my book while I was here but I had problems finding it. First, this site apparently stretches across several counties and there were separate visitor centers, but they didn’t really give the address on the National Park Service website. So I found an address online that I thought was a visitor center. It turned out that it wasn’t and I didn’t have cell phone service to try to find another one. Instead I decided to give up and go to my hotel for the night
I meant to get up early to go to Gillette Castle State Park when they opened at 10am, but it didn’t work out. I ended up getting there at 10:30. I hoped I would be able to squeeze into one of the tour since I’m a party of one but it didn’t work out. I would have had to wait an hour before the next tour so I decided to move on.
After I finished on the path I decided to head back to the hotel. It started raining as I was leaving and I still had to drive to New Jersey. To get to New Jersey I would have to go through New York City, but the traffic looked bad on the map so I had to drive further to go around NYC. It probably took longer, but it was better than sitting in NY traffic.
I decided to start my adventure today at Blackstone River Valley National Historic Park. I went first to the visitor center, which wasn’t only for the national park. The guy there was very helpful. He gave me several brochures to all of the different locations. The park includes several different buildings that were instrumental in America’s Industrial Revolution. A lot of them are still closed due to covid, but the Slater Mill across the street he said was open.
Roger Williams was a pioneer for religious freedom in the United States. I knew that several people decided to colonize America due to fleeing religious persecution in England, but some of those people also faced it in the U.S. One of them was Roger Williams. He fled England to Massachusetts over religious differences, and then had to later flee Massachusetts. He came to Rhode Island, where he laid the principles that the government should have no control over how you worship. Eventually, he had to journey to England to gain a charter for the land, which he was successful in obtaining. England granted him land for the Rhode Island Plantation. With this, he was able to cement his beliefs into law for the state. Thomas Jefferson later used his ideas when he was drafting the U.S. Constitution and it is why we now have freedom of religion in the U.S. There really wasn’t much to see in the park. Mainly I just walked around and looked at the displays.
My next stop was Fort Adams State Park. I made it just in time to join the tour. The fort was very interesting. The engineer was Simon Bernard, who was actually a French man who had fought in the Napoleonic wars. Most of the American engineers were insulted so they refused to work with him. All except Joseph G. Totten, who became America’s undisputed expert on fortifications after Bernard returned to France. The fort was designed so no one could breach its walls. And if a lucky few did, there were back up fortifications so they wouldn’t get far.
After seeing these at Plymouth I drove 45 minutes to New Bedford to see the New Bedford Whaling National Historic Park. The museum at the national park headquarters is still closed due to covid, but the rangers gave me a map and a brochure. They recommended that I go to the Whaling Museum and the Seamen’s Bethel & Mariner’s Home since the second one is free. So that is what I did.
Now it mainly houses displays on Moby Dick. One of the most famous whalemen was Herman Melville. Melville lived on a whaling ship for 18 months, and after he left the crew he wrote the novel Moby Dick. The novel itself is fiction, but most of the descriptions are based on fact as he drew on his experiences as part of a whale crew.
Today I’m spending the day in Salem, which is known for the Salem Witch Trials. It is such a big part of our history that I’m interested to learn more about it. The first place I went to was the Witch Dungeon Museum. This is a recreation of where the prisoners lived. It isn’t the original one. Apparently that building is under a bank now, but they recreated it based on the original floor plans.
After the play we found out what happened to everyone accused of witchcraft. Basically after someone was accused they had a choice. If they plead guilty, they got to live but had to forfeit all of their possessions and wealth and remain in prison. If they plead innocent, they were put on trial and were hung. So either way it was a lose lose situation. One man refused to answer, so he was tied down and large stones were placed on him until he pleads innocent or guilty. His only response was “more weight” and the stones eventually broke his ribcage and he suffocated to death.
A voice came on to talk about the events in Salem at the time to show how an entire town was overtaken by witch frenzy. As the voice talked, the different displays would light up so you could see what was happening. It walked us through everything, how the town was poor and it was difficult to survive. Especially for women, who were very repressed during that time and had strict rules to follow. Nine girls spent the evenings with a slave woman owned by the pastor, who told them stories of witches and magic. It wasn’t long before the girls became sick and started seeing things. The doctor was called in, and could find nothing wrong with them. And then the girls began accusing different people in town of being witches and torturing them. They started with the outcasts, people that no one wanted in the town anyways, but they quickly started targeting the wealthy. One of the people they accused was John Proctor, who was a trapper. He was one of the few that stood up to the girls, saying that they were making it all up. For this, he and his wife were convicted of witchcraft. He was hung, but since his wife was pregnant at the time her execution was delayed long enough for the furor to die down and she was eventually pardoned. The witch trials continued until most of the town was locked up or had been accused. Finally, the girls accused the governor’s wife of being a witch. She was arrested based on the accusation and the governor finally acted. He disbanded the courts and ruled that people could only be convicted based on actual evidence, not based on the spiritual attacks. His wife was declared innocent and freed as well as several people that were in jail accused of witchcraft. The show ended with one of the girls admitting in church years later that they had made it all up and asking for forgiveness. After the show was over, we went into a different room that had displays. One of the missions of the Witch Museum is to make sure that witch-hunts never happen again. This room told stories on how our perception of witches has changed over time. A long time ago, it was elderly women, many of whom were midwives, which were accused of being witches. Over time the perception changes to women or men riding on brooms that looked like hags. And then you have the modern witches portrayed in movies, which are beautiful and can be good. Finally they went over modern witch-hunts like McCarthy’s search for communists, the Holocaust, or how the Japanese-Americans were treated during WWII. It also reminded me on how Asians are treated today because people are blaming China for the Covid pandemic. Basically a witch-hunt is started after there are stressors, and then some group of people gets the blame. Hopefully, by recognizing that this is happening we can prevent future witch-hunts from happening.
I then drove into Portland to see the Narrow Gauge Railroad, which is an actual railroad that you can get on and learn about the history of the area. There are also actors on the train that you can interact with. However, when I got there the area was under construction and I couldn’t find a place to park. I was already running behind schedule so I decided to visit Portland another day and see the railroad.
My final stop for the day was at America’s Stonehenge. I didn’t even know we had a Stonehenge, but we apparently do. With the name, I expected something like the one in Britain with the large stones, but it is nothing like that. Instead of large stones in a small circle, the site is spread out. There is an area where the people lived that is made out of stone and then a large area is spread out behind it. As you walk along that area, there are small stone monoliths that are positioned to tell the different astronomical events.
After I finished at America’s Stonehenge, I tried to make it to Lowell National Historic Park so I could see the area and get my stamp, but I didn’t make it in time. Instead, I decided to see it on another trip and booked a hotel in Salem to continue my journey.
Today I’m going to Acadia National Park. I wanted to get a hotel closer to the park so I could get there early, but the hotels close were expensive! It was going to cost me an extra $150 in order to be 30 minutes closer to the park. So instead I stayed in Bangor an extra night and drove an hour to get to the park. I didn’t get up early enough because of the time change, so I got to the park around 9 am. After stopping at the visitor center to get my stamp, I went to Jordan Pond. I found a trail there that was a 3 mile loop that I wanted to hike. Unfortunately there was no place for me to park. The area was packed with cars constantly circling trying to find a spot. I realized quickly that it was not going to happen. So I left the area but got turned around. At some point I ended up leaving the park and then I drove around in a circle trying to get back in. The roads were really confusing!
Finally I got passed it and then I had to hurry through the rest of the loop so I could get back to Cadillac Mountain before 12. My ticket is only good for 11:30-12. I ended up getting there a couple of minutes past 12, but the guy still let me through.
I then drove an hour to Prospect, Maine to see Fort Knox and the Penobscot Narrows Observatory. Both were located in the same area so I went to the Observatory first. The Observatory is located in one of the pillars of the Penobscot Narrows Bridge. They have an elevator that will take you to the top and when the doors open it is all glass so you can see out.
I found out that the sun rises earlier in Maine than it does at home. It woke me up at 6am so I closed the blackout curtains tighter and went back to sleep until 7. At 7 I woke up again, read a little, and then went downstairs for breakfast. After breakfast I got in my rental for my first day’s adventure.
I also went into the visitor’s center and got my stamp. It was the first place since I have been here where they enforced wearing a mask. They also only allowed 5 people in the building at a time so I had to wait outside for a little while. I even had to put my book at the end of the counter and step away so they could stamp it for me. After I finished here I drove another 2 hours to Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument. It was difficult because my GPS wouldn’t recognize the address to I found an area close by and then just followed the signs. The signs took me down a side road, which turned into a gravel road. I knew I was in the right place because I at least kept seeing the signs but I got so lost. I just kept making random turns trying to get somewhere, but I also had to go only 15 miles per hour because the gravel road had several potholes and I was worried about damaging my rental car. Especially since I didn’t pay extra for the insurance…
After I made it back out I went to Shin Pond Village, which had my stamp. It was an extra 30 minutes out of my way, but I felt I deserved it since I was lost in there for so long. Then I had another 1.75 hours to drive back to my hotel in Bangor. I wanted to get some seafood for dinner so I can try the lobster that Maine is famous for but all of the seafood restaurants were either closed or they were closing within the next 30 minutes. Instead I went to Longhorn Steakhouse and order to go so I could eat in my room. Now to get some rest for tomorrow’s adventures.
Today is the day I start my East Coast trip. I have the next 3 weeks off work so I’m going to fly to Maine and then drive back to Texas during that time. I had been hearing that the airports were super packed and people were missing their flights because of that. So I scheduled an uber to come pick me up at 9:30am so I would have plenty of time to get there. The uber was late, but I still got to the airport at 10:20am, so I have 3 hours to get through Security and catch my flight. It was lies that the airport is packed. There was no line to check my bag or to go through Security, so I had plenty of time at my gate to wait. While I waited I did a little work. It was almost time to board, so I bought some water and M&Ms and then went closer to the boarding area only to find out that the flight had been delayed because they were waiting on the crew. The crew showed up about 20 minutes late, but that wasn’t too bad. And then when the crew was doing their pre-flight check they found some maintenance issue that caused the plane to go out of service. So then we had to wait another 1.5 hours for them to find another plane. I was worried about missing my connecting flight, but when we landed I checked and that flight was also delayed. Instead of leaving at 7, it was going to leave at 10pm, so it wouldn’t land until midnight. There was another flight that left at 9pm, so I switched to that one. Apparently everyone else on the other flight also switched, because it was a full flight. I got the seat right behind 1stclass so at least I had a lot of leg room.
We finally landed at 10:45pm in Bangor, Maine. Unfortunately my bags did not change flights, so after I got my rental car from Avis I had to wait for my original flight. The good news is they were able to leave earlier than originally expected and they were only 20 minutes behind my flight. Literally everyone on that flight switched, because when the baggage came out it was only 4 bags including mine. And the other 3 bags were from people that were on my flight. I was so excited to go to the hotel and go to bed. But bad luck hit again. I got everything loaded in my rental car and then switched the car on only to find out that one of the tires had low air pressure. So I had to go back inside so they could give me a different car and then move all of my stuff to the new car. But I did eventually make it to the hotel to get some much needed sleep before tomorrow. |
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June 2022
AuthorThese are details from my adventures around the world. |