Massachussetts

boston

We took the train into Boston with our good friend Patty. After we got there we took the hop on/hop off trolly tour, (because nobody wants to drive in Boston)!
It was a nice day; here’s a shot of downtown with the clock tower in the background.
One of the highlights was seeing Cheers!
I only have outside pictures because they were charging admission to go in on top of any food or drinks you wanted; no thanks! Plus the line to get in was out the door!
We did stroll through this old park. Very pretty with lots of history throughout.
A statue of George Washington .
People and geese enjoying a nice day in the park; all completely ignoring the “KEEP OFF THE LAWN” sign!
Another critter enjoying the park.
The Boston Fire department.
A statue of a hometown hero, Bobby Orr, for making the winning goal for the Boston Bruins in the 1970 Stanley Cup game.
And finally a beautiful bridge, kind of obstructed by the bumper to bumper traffic!

glochester

Another day we met up with Barb and Zach and Barb’s friend Nancy. she took us on the grand tour of Gloucester (pronounced Glowster) This was a statue in tribute to all the fishermen lost at sea.
Beautiful day to tour the coastline!
This was a statue in honor of the fishermen’s wives who lost husbands to the sea.
Another statue in honor of the fishermen.
Typical rocky coast of New England.
This house was actually in Salem, but I included it because of the witches of Salem 🙂

gloucester, the hammond castle

We of course had to visit this castle! For those that don’t know, when Jan and I met, she was Jan Hammond.
It’s an amazing Medieval castle built in the early 1900’s
Built by John H. Hammond, Jr. ( No relation to Hammond organs, typewriters or Jan’s ex’s family) to house his massive collection of Medieval artifacts and his laboratory where he worked on many inventions in guided missiles and radio communications.
This entry door is massive, solid steel!
A proper Medieval castle entry complete with tower and moat (dry moat, but then alligators wouldn’t fair well this far north!)
And of course gargoyles!
The inside is very impressive! Lots to look at and take in! This is the main room.
His castle is complete with a massive organ (no, it’s not a Hammond organ)
There was this intricate and beautiful hand laid glasswork!
An interesting and whimsical statue.
This is a shot of the balcony where part of the 8200 pipes were for the organ, along with a stained glass window.
One of the many rooms, this I believe was a sitting room
The dining room.
It even has an atrium courtyard! Depending on his mood, he had it rigged up so he could make it rain in there! Pretty cool!
And in that courtyard; a nude self likeness statue of Mr. Hammond, just to creep out his guests!
The library, complete with this unusual piano with a vertical string bed. It looks like a cross between a spinet piano and a harp!
This door leads to the families private residence. It was specified in his will that these rooms were not to be accessible to the public when this property became a museum.
They had very elaborate ornate furnishings for sure!
And many beautiful stained glass windows too.
The work area was particularly fascinating to me! He was working on some very advanced stuff for the time! This was a Dynamic Multiplier he developed to pipe his organ music or even recorded music throughout the castle! Very advanced for the early 1930’s; it involved over a dozen patents he was awarded! It was even stereophonic.
More information on his many achievements in sound and radio.
His first patent in 1909 for wireless communications! The boat is his yacht, I’m assuming he was able to communicate from the castle to the yacht, amazing for that time!
And lastly, he even developed his own RV; made from a tractor-trailer! It had an automatic sand and salt spreader in case he wanted or needed to drive it in snow or ice!