Salem has an outside as well!

No more indoors!  Salem is a town!  And it has streets and old house and Dunkin' Donuts' and street signs that would confuse a cartographer (but I shall not GO there.  The sign points in the wrong direction!)

There is an historic district, and, heaven help me, I'm going to try to spell the word correctly just one time: McIntire Historic District.  There - that's the correct way. And, to save myself embarrassment, hereafter, I shall refer to it as the MID.

The MID starts about half a block past the Post Office on 2 Margin St.  I should have taken pictures of every house that I saw, but I was too overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of old homes and the nature of the streets and back ways to them.  So, pitiful tourist that I am, I did the best I could to capture the essence.

No, this isn't a house (if it was, it fell down).  It's a picture of a portion of sidewalk taken at about shin level to show the irregularity.  Quiz:  what's causing the warping of the brick?

Virtually every home boasted a sign like the ones above.  Almost all of the homes are currently being used as residences, just as they have been for the last couple of hundred years. 

And, if a visitor looks through the backyards from house to house, this is the kind of skyline that's visible.  Chimneys everywhere!   Steeply pitched roofs.  And sheds, fences, or hedges

Things are a bit scraggly right now, as we roll through April (remember, these pictures were taken on 3/27/11), but in the summer, the trees and bushes will provide privacy and shade.

And everywhere there is stone.  Stone set as walls, as benches, as part of foundations of houses. 

Stone is set into stone.  This is a compass rose set into the pavement at the corner of one street in the MID.



Stone makes up churches:

This is the first Unitarian Church, the oldest church in Salem.  I'm looking forward to seeing what it looks like when the land is greener!

I wish I had more pictures - yet another reason (if I even needed one) to head back to Salem in a few weeks!

But at least here's a smattering of what you can see in Salem if the mood takes you and your feet wander there.

More wanderings ahead!  AND, I am ever so happy to report, we have had snow today!  April 18 and it's snowing - not sticking or anything, but snowing nonetheless!

Bah!

Off I go to cause more mischief!!!!