Sunday Adventure in Salem

Finn is on a bit of a train kick at the moment so we decided to take the “mummy train” to Salem. Although disappointed that Mike was not our conductor, (“But why doesn’t he work on Sundays Mummy?”) we had a great train ride.

 

Here is conductor Finn waiting for the train (all decked out in his engineer hat, overalls, and even train socks). 

 

 

What is it about downtown Salem? For starters, we got off the train and headed for the main street only to be detoured around a bomb threat at the Salem Courthouse. You may be thinking, why was there a bomb threat at a Courthouse on a Sunday morning? Beats me, but I’ll certainly be checking the Salem Evening News tomorrow to see what it was all about.  Walking around the main streets this morning the place felt deserted.  There are definitely some great shops, and you can tell that the feel of the place is starting to change. But on the whole, sometimes it feels like a pretty desolate downtown. You wonder what it will take to make it more of a Newburyport/Portsmouth type place. But even in the four or so years since we lived there, it seems to slowly be moving forward with the addition of places like Crunchy Granola Baby, Cornerstones Bookstore, and Seed Stich, just to name a few. 

Every February around Valentine’s Day Salem has an “Salem’s So Sweet” Chocolate and Ice Sculpture Festival. Finn and I walked around admiring the sculptures. It’s too bad they had kind of a crappy weekend weather wise, but then again hosting an event in the middle of February does set you up for that.

Finn checked out the teddy bear sculpture and astutely decided it was “cold”. 

Our favorite sculpture by far was the witch in front of the Salem Witch Museum.  

 

It was pretty hard not to say “Help, I’m melting…”  

The favorite part of our trip was our visit to A & J King Bakery. You would think saying to a young child “You can have whatever you want” would be a real treat, but in fact I think it’s one of the worst things you can say. I mean, how on earth are they suppose to decide? It’s overwhelming. So after starting (and drooling) at his multitude of choices for what seemed like eons I finally sent Finn to the table telling him I would choose two things and we could share. He was game.

He looked a little skeptical when I arrived with a sticky bun. He decided to go for a taste test. Finn and blueberry muffin

  Finn meets a sticky bun:

A man after my own heart, the sticky bun won and he proudly announced it was all for him. No sharing this time Mummy! The blueberry muffin got a bag for the trip home.

Sticky bun = sticky fingers. 

 Cool tree shadow on the wall of the Yin Yu Tang Chinese House at the PEM.

Despite a rather rainy finish, we had a great morning.