Yesterday morning started with my first legit winter run. I mean, I’ve been running all “winter” in Phoenix, and the lows in Phoenix do get down there sometimes, but I don’t think it really counts. Yesterday I put on long yoga pants, tall socks, leg warmers, 2 long sleeve shirts, a sweat shirt, performance fleece, a hat and gloves. Ummm, I was regretting my top half a little bit. My face was so cold, but my middle body was totally over heated! Also, this neighborhood is super hilly. I don’t think I encountered flat road for more than 10 seconds. I was pretty proud of myself for busting out 2.5 miles with an average pace of 9:03. Not too shabby for winter/hills/vacation 🙂
After I got back, we made breakfast and then headed out to Salem. I have to be honest, I’ve never thought too much about Salem or the witch trials.
Oh, just all of us with our awesome porta potty friends.
I don’t think it was even in my school curriculum (Arizona schools are so awesome), but I found myself fascinated! It’s so hard to believe that at one point you could so easily be hanged just for being different. Our society isn’t perfect by any means, but looking back on things like this, I really do feel like we’ve learned a lot, and although our justice system is by no means perfect, we’ve come a long way.
We started by exploring the graveyard.
Whhheeeeeeee!!!!
Tree huggers
We looked at the “witches” grave stones and I found this one especially interesting. He refused to plead guilty or not guilty so they pressed him to death with stones to make him talk. He still refused, so for two days they stacked more and more stones on top of him until he finally passed.
After the graveyard, we went to the wax museum and explored downtown Salem.
After walking around for a bit, we stopped into Salem Beer Works for some drinks. Jason, Nacho and I each ordered the sampler with 4 oz samples of 4 different beers.
Yummmm. The Rustic Porter was definitely my favorite.
Steve just got the Black Stout which was also delicious and David ordered an Irish coffee. It was disgusting. Here is the evidence.
Steve got a candid of Lisa trying a sip.
There was no cream, no sugar. Just about half coffee and half whiskey. Holy hell. That’s a little too intense for this girl. I mean I like coffee, and I like whiskey, but I need some half and half in there or something! Yikes!
After Beer Works, we headed back to Rockport to make dinner at David and Lisa’s. More on that coming soon 🙂
Only you would be swinging on a tree branch in the middle of a graveyard 🙂