East Coast Easy

Just home from a great trip to Massachusetts, where the small town streets were winding & narrow, some of those little towns were only minutes apart, everything was very quaint, charming and historic looking. Cedar shake houses tucked into lovely lush green overgrowth, ocean backdrops and salty marine air ..it was lovely..

We made the trip out to tour the college our daughter is thinking about attending next year, we also took this chance to have a summer vacation/last road trip before Alexa is off to college. We took a very relaxed approach to this holiday, the only rules we set for ourselves were:

#1 Be in downtown Boston by Tuesday at 2pm (for the college tour, we actually arrived early & were able to have lunch in the cafeteria!)

#2 See the sea! The lovely rocky coast of Nantasket beach was so beautiful, we walked the shore and collected rocks & shells.

#3 Eat local seafood & drink local beer ..yes & yes!

#4 Find saltwater taffy! From Boston we followed the coastline up to Rockport, where we stayed at a cottage style inn (each room had it’s own outside entrance with a porch light ❤ & then while out looking for a place to eat, we stumbled onto Tucks Candies and had to stop in for sweets!

#5 Visit Salem, how fitting it happened to be the summer solstice when we finally arrived in Salem. We walked in Salem Common and toured the witch museum (a little cheesy) we also stopped at bunghole liquors (the name drew us in, they actually sold t-shirts that said “I got it in the bunghole” ..WHAT!?

#6 go to Northhampton & visit WEBS …yes there is a physical store! (my family said I looked like a stalker, but I had to snap photos to share). The front half is a massive yarn shop, shelves full of every kind of yarn, notion and roving, every wt, by every maker, cone, skein, ball, hank. The back half is a massive warehouse full of even more yarn, you can buy a multi pack bundle of your favorite or rip into a package and take just one.

That blue truck you see in the front windows reflection, it almost killed me as I got this shot!

The front of the store is huge!

To the left when you walk in, just past the checkout, is shelf after shelf (like 30 or so) filled with cones of silk, cotton, linen!

This isn’t even a ¼ of the front shop! There was even a discontinued & discounted wall, for odds & messed up balls, if you were willing to untangle a skein, you could get some good deals!

Lovely roving, they also carry spinning wheels!

Step into the back warehouse, OMG they have carts.

I sipped on .50¢ cherry pepsi as I lost my mind.

There were 8 isles & the overflow was on the front wall by the carts. Same discountable prices in house as online!

Large & odd ball cones were in the warehouse.

I really REALLY restrained myself, it was hard as they carried every glorious color and all of my favorite brands. But I stuck with some classic linen & tosh, I fell hard for the natural deerfield alpaca/silk, I want to make everything out of this, it’s so soft and has a lovely slight halo (wow) it would also be amazing to hand dye! Finally, I couldn’t leave without some pretty chained cotton!

As we traveled, we learned a few things along the way…

We had so much fun and are excited to go back, but also so very glad to be home sweet home.

Apparently out east, someone always has time to make the donuts, so many Dunks out there!

Downtown Boston traffic wasn’t as bad as we expected, nor were the drivers as aggressive and assholely (apparently masshole is the correct term) as we had heard, it might have been the years & years of experience my husband had driving/sitting in downtown Minneapolis/St. Paul rush hour or perhaps we are just as aggressive & assholey? We never got honked at, but quickly learned that car horns are frequently used to say “fuck you” in Boston, nothing like the “hello there” honks you get our little town!

Finding a place to sleep on the fly only works if there aren’t conventions going on, but once we found a hotel/inn & had its address plugged in, we turned off the GPS & just went driving, we found lots of off the beaten path shops, scenic roads, overlooks & restaurants. Once we were tired, terribly lost & ready to call it a day, bonbon (the GPS) lead us back to our beds no problem.

Not everyone in Massachusetts speaks with a New England accent, in fact we only heard 3 people with one.

No matter where you go, crane games are always total rip offs!