We returned home from Salem late Friday night. I had a great time, and I want to thank Destination Salem, William Morrow, and Brunonia Barry for the great trip!
We were waylaid for five-six hours in Pennsylvania when our car broke down. Our radiator cracked and we overheated. However, I have to hand it to Karl’s Towing in Saylorsburg: they fixed the problem and we were on our way. They charged us a fair price, too. I think given the circumstances, they worked as quickly as they could. It was a rotten situation to be in, but they made it bearable.
It was late at night when we arrived in Salem, so we didn’t get to look around as we had planned. The next day we started out with a ride on the Salem Trolley. We walked around town, looking at everything. We went to the kitschy Salem Witch Museum I took pictures of the Witch Trials Memorial at the Old Burying Ground. We visited the House of Seven Gables. We visited a wonderful old candy store near the House of Seven Gables called Ye Olde Pepper Companie. We had a wonderful dinner at Sixty 2 on Wharf.
The next day we started with a wonderful breakfast at the Hawthorne Hotel and went to the Peabody Essex Museum and rode the schooner Fame. We only had two nights in the hotel, so that evening we visited my friend Ha in Concord. We spent that night in her condo in Cambridge, then left the next day. All in all, we needed more time. I really think that six hours would have made a difference, but c’est la vie, and we had a great time anyway. I would love to go back and visit any time. We had a wonderful time. Everyone was so friendly, and it was amazing to be in the presence of so much history—literary and otherwise.
Here are some pictures from the trip. All of them are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license, so if you want to use them for your unit on The Crucible, feel free to grab them.
Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.
My schedule has changed to mostly American lit this year, and I'd like to pair a contemporary novel set in each period with some of the shorter pieces from the actual time. Do you think The Lace Reader would work for this? I just started reading it but I'm trying to plan the first quarter. Thoughts?
Hmm. I am not sure it has wide enough appeal. Kids might actually like The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane better for what you're thinking about. It's pretty good, and it's out in paperback now. However, if you really want to teach a book with an unreliable narrator, then The Lace Reader would work.