Massachusetts Road Trip (July 2003)
by The Cranky Yankee
(photos by C. LeBeau)
Here's another
roadtrip that The joey Zone and I took. We headed up to Burlington, MA for the
annual
Readercon (sci-fi/fantasy/horror convention...no fat fanboys in bad William
Shatner costumes here...this is strictly serious reading/writing/discussing
books). We
took the MASS Turnpike up to get there faster, but on the way home, we took
secondary roads purposely to "see New England."
We got on Rt. 62 and followed it through many towns. First stop of note was Concord, MA. We made an effort to stop at various old cemeteries and burial grounds along the way, and we pulled into a big one when we got to Concord (not knowing what it was). It turned out to be a very good decision...it was Sleepy Hollow Cemetery.
Many famous people are buried here,
including Henry Thoreau,
Nathanial Hawthorne,
Louisa May
Alcott and Ralph
Waldo Emerson. Other people buried
there include the guy
who carved the Minuteman Monument and
the seated Lincoln
figure in the
Lincoln
Monument....I believe his name is
Daniel
Chester
French.
There's a huge and beautiful monument
right 
there in the cemetery that he carved for three brothers
who died in the Civil War (the
Melvin Memorial, also called
Mourning Victory).
Also buried there is
Franklin
Sanborn, who was one of the "Secret Six" who helped financed John Brown and
his Harper Ferry debacle. This guy was a friend of Thoreau and Emerson.
We did not get a chance to explore the rest of the cemetery as it was around 4pm and we had a long way to go yet. We drove into the center of town where I spotted an ancient burial ground. I took about two rolls of film there (lots of examples of a specific carver whose identity escapes me right now, but whose carving is prominent on the cover of Allen I. Ludwig's "Graven Images" book) while Joey perused a couple of bookstores. There is much to see in Concord, but we didn't have time to explore like we wanted. We'll have to make a return trip.
We followed Rt. 62 thru Maynard for a
while and manage to stop at a few more burial grounds, then
picked up Rt. 85
past Hudson. Rt. 85 brought us through Marlborough and some other small towns
including Hopkinton
and Hopkinton State Park. Very pretty, but uneventful. Eventually, we got
to Milford and then Mendon, where we found a 
road-side fried food shack called
George's Surf n' Turf. Hamburgers, hot dogs, and fried seafood...right up our
alley! They had car
hops...just like the old A&Ws! How cool is that?
From there we made our way to Rt. 16,
entering the Blackstone River Valley
Corridor toward Uxbridge and then Douglas.
Joey and I
decided that of all the towns we went through, Uxbridge was our
least favorite. We didn't like it all…there was something very plain and
depressing about it, but we couldn’t put our finger on it. We drove through
Douglas, where we spotted a bizarre Ice Cream Man on the side of the road ("How
does he walk?" asked Joey).
We then went from
Douglas to my hometown of Webster, where I made Joey drive through town so I
could check it out since I haven't been there in 13 years. I was shocked to see
my grandfather's property across from
Cranston Print Works. It had been
torn down and a warehouse
built in it's place!!! I knew my father sold it to
commercial interests, but I wasn't expecting to see that. It kind of
bothered
me...I practically grew up in that house. From Webster, we just got on the
highway and headed to Willimantic, CT. It was dark and we wanted to get home.
Joey Zone and I plan on taking a couple more road trips before the summer is
through.
My cemetery
scrapbook is growing nicely along with our trips. But
compared to other trips, this one was not as
"anomalous."
Summer is half over
and I'm sure many of you have had some road trips or planning to take one.
Please
join the
New England Anomaly e-mail list and share with us your New England road trip
and any anomalous
adventures and/or sites along the way.