On Golden Pond

Day 11 - Monday - September 19

EC/NE Camping Adventure 2022

Some days are not all sunshine and blue skies. 😁We drove from Cape Ann, MA to Lincoln, NH in steady rain and set up camp in a great campground - Lost River in North Woodstock, NH. Unfortunately, we had to set up in off and on showers, fighting a muddy mess. BUT, our site at the campground was amazing - right on the banks of a beautiful little river. Once we finally got set, we headed out to just checkout the area. We lucked out and caught a break from the rain long enough to hike a couple of trails around Squam Lake. If you’re not familiar with Squam, it is the lake where they filmed On Golden Pond!

We’ll be exploring more of the Squam Lake area, along with Lake Winnipesaukee! (If that lake rings a bell, you’re probably a Bill Murray fan!) 😁

Salem & Marblehead

Day 10 - Part 2 - Sunday - September 18

EC/NE Camping Adventure 2022

The second part of this day we headed over to Salem. This was our fourth visit in the last five years to Salem in the fall. It was more crowded this year, but nothing too bad. We got to see all the usual stops and I picked up a few new dresses at Modern Millie to cram into the trailer. 😜🤣 Seriously, if you like some of the great print retro dresses I wear, check out Modern Millie’s online shop!

https://modernmillieshop.com/

After a little shopping and sightseeing in Salem we headed over to Marblehead! We discovered this beautiful town last year and wanted to make a return. Marblehead is so laidback and delightful. It also has a great history as the birthplace of the American Navy (although, nearby Beverly disputes this and says they hold that honor).

We just enjoy walking the streets and taking in the atmosphere. It is a bit like Provincetown, but WAY less crowded and less bustling.

The town is home to the Marblehead Light, Fort Sewall, Little Harbor, Marblehead Neck Audubon Wildlife Sanctuary, Crocker Park, and Devereux Beach. Archibald Willard's famous painting The Spirit of '76currently resides in Abbot Hall. We arrived too late in the day to visit the hall this time around, but it is well worth a visit.

Our next day on this camping adventure finds us heading north to New Hampshire for a few days.

The Hammond Castle

Day 10 - Part 1 - Sunday - September 18

EC/NE Camping Adventure 2022

We crammed a lot into this day, for sure, with visits to Hammond Castle in Gloucester, Salem and ending the day at Marblehead. With so many photos taken at the castle, it needs a post of its own. 😁😉

First, what young girl doesn’t dream of living in a castle?! When Jeff said we were going to visit a castle on this day, I had no idea it would be as elaborate and amazing as this! Now, I truly want to visit the many castles in Europe!

Hammond Castle is located on the rocky coast of Gloucester, Massachusetts. The castle, which was constructed between 1926 and 1929, was the home and laboratory of John Hays Hammond, Jr., an inventor and pioneer in the study of remote control who held over four hundred patents. The building is composed of modern and 15th-, 16th-, and 18th-century architectural elements and sits on a rocky cliff overlooking Gloucester Harbor.

The castle operates now as the Hammond Castle Museum, displaying Hammond's collection of Roman, medieval, and Renaissance artifacts as well as exhibits about his life and inventions. The Great Hall contains a one-of a-kind, massive pipe organ which Hammond had commissioned to be built. It took ten years to complete! The organ has been used for recording sessions, concerts, and various ceremonies over the years. Sadly it fell into silence several years ago.

Cape Ann residents, Hammond’s friends, and luminaries including Walt Disney, Marlene Dietrich, Noel Coward, and John D. Rockefeller Jr. flocked to his tours and galas. Disney privately screened his 1940 masterpiece Fantasia in the Great Hall, which doubled, thanks to Hammond’s acoustical innovations, as a concert arena and recording studio where George Gershwin and other prominent musicians performed and played the 7,400-pipe organ. Overnight guests were treated to “playful” pranks. Hammond might appear suddenly in their rooms, late at night, from a hidden passageway, asking his favorite question: “What do you think of the castle?” Or, as visitors gasped in fear, he’d swan-dive into the courtyard’s decoratively green-tinged fountain and fish pond—then surface, smiling: the water was dyed to mask a nearly nine-foot swimming pool. They might also be subject to his in-house “weather system”: doused by rain or shrouded in fog through specially designed steam pipes, which primarily watered his collection of tropical plants.

It’s an amazing place to visit if you find yourself in the Gloucester area. It’s open seven days a week May through October, and weekends April, November and December. The castle is closed January through March.