41 - 3/9/11

Initial Impressions

Christopher Setterlund

41 – 3/9/11 – In My Footsteps Trip

Made a trip today up to Georgetown, Mass., and back to Ipswich to shoot it right.  270 total miles, $30 in gas thanks to the Middle East again.  Why only 2 towns?  That will become clearer as you read.

            I was cruising along Rt. 3 making great time until WHAM!  Traffic.  No, not at the Braintree Split where it usually happens, but around Exit 12 for those who know the area.  Ended up spending 45 minutes there crawling along and learning as many license plates of those around me.

            As we sat in traffic I decided to make the best of it and blasted Billy Ocean’s ‘Suddenly’ and sang it for all of those around me.  There was also some old man smoking in his car which was not a big thing except for the fact that he had all of his windows rolled up.  Slowly but surely there was more smoke in his car.  I guess just driving old was not challenging enough.

            I arrived in Georgetown an hour later than I wanted to.  I had never even heard of this town until a few months ago.  The first place I stopped at was the site of the Goodrich Massacre.  It is where a family was killed by angry Native Americans in 1692.  The problem I had with this was that it said that the site was ‘Ten rods east’ of the sign.  Rods?  What the hell are rods?  Who uses that unit of measurement?  So I snapped photos in that general direction but rods, really?

            I parked at an abandoned antiques shop so that I could cross the street to shoot the Samuel Brocklebank House, the town’s historical society.  Once I stepped out I heard what sounded like someone banging on the windows inside the antique shop.  I looked and saw nobody which creeped me out.  After shooting I came back to my car and waited and then heard the banging again.  Have to check and see if that building is haunted because there was nobody else there but me.  Nice.

            The Georgetown Town Hall is the first one I have seen that used to be something else.  It was originally a school a hundred years ago.

            I need to get a bumper sticker that warns people behind me that I make frequent stops like a mail truck.  That would have come into major use when I hit Ipswich.

            I stopped at Pentucket Pond, there was a woman and her daughter there as well, she gave me some really dirty stares.  Do I really look like one of those guys like you see in the horror movies?   Wait, don’t answer that.  It also snowed a little there too which helped me forget that lady who hated me.

            My GPS decided it would be funny to send me up a steep barely paved hill and down a similarly awful section of road in the Great Neck village of Ipswich.  Sure, it was technically the quickest route but one slip would have sent me off a cliff to my grave with the GPS’s British voice laughing.

            Ipswich has the most historic homes of any town I have ever seen thus far.  There was no way to photograph all, or even most of them, so I decided to focus on the 17^th century ones.  I counted eight of them in my travels, pretty impressive.  This is where I could have used the ‘frequent stops’ bumper sticker again.

            Went back and reshot the Whipple House c.1677, this time I actually spent the extra time to walk down to the really old Choate Bridge from 1764, there were so many cool spots.  I loved the Riverwalk which crossed over the Ipswich River.  The falls were great but not as great as the history of Ipswich and America mural painted on the side of the EBSCO Publishing building.  Amazing.

            Was psyched to stop at Dunkin’ D’s for a quick lunch until the lady alerted me that they had no hash browns, the essential part of any meal there.  What a rip off, although the lady asked me not to tell anyone that the boss there was so stupid that they didn’t order hash browns.  I agree.

            Castle Hill was the crown jewel of my trip.  Almost didn’t get in since they needed cash which I didn’t have, the guard didn't accept cards, yay.  I had to drive all the way back into town to find cash, no ATMs so I had to go into Shaw’s, bought me a 5-Hour Energy so it wasn't all bad.  Oh yeah and I didn’t eat my Dunkin’ D’s food for like an hour thanks to that craziness.

            The mansion at Castle Hill was featured in The Witches of Eastwick, the lady there last summer said The Next Karate Kid, I had to look it up to be sure but yes it was filmed there too.  Never saw either movie and seeing the grounds is as close as I will get.

            It ended up being so cold on top of Castle Hill that my hands were too numb to shoot any more photos.  In the end my battery was almost dead from Ipswich alone.  I figured that with it being late I should quit while ahead and save my last stop for another time.  See, the stupid traffic cost me an hour so it’s the traffic’s fault I stopped early.  Also, it was so obvious that nothing was going to top Castle Hill so why even bother.

            Still managed to get stuck in more traffic, this time going through Boston, and the damn GPS tried to make me drive in the Carpool Lane again, idiot.  You’ll see by the photos below that it was all worth it.  Ipswich was even better this time despite it being freaking cold.  Cheers!

The possibly haunted antiques shop.

Spotted this on my drive through Georgetown.

Part of the amazing mural along the Ipswich Riverwalk.

The incredible mansion atop Castle Hill.