Melby's Travels

A sunny day with friends! Since its early days, the town of Concord was known for its wealth. Every prominent figure who visited Boston would also visit Concord. The resources concentrated in Concord drew the attention of the British army in 1775; those resources were Minutemen munitions.  We visited the Old Manse, where Reverend William Emerson - the "Patriot pastor" - once resided. He was known as the Patriot pastor because he preached that people had the divine right to freedom and that there should be no taxation without representation. In fact, the British army and Minuteman had converged on the grounds of the Old Manse in 1775. All of the men in the Emerson family attended Harvard College, followed by Harvard Divinity School. The top Harvard student would often become the priest of Concord, though most of the Emerson family became priests in surrounding areas of Boston. Ralph Waldo Emerson, the grandson of William Emerson, did not want to follow in this tradition. While...

Leading up to this trip, there was anxious anticipation about the forecasted rain. Nevertheless, the Acadia trip had toughened my skin and I was undeterred by the potential storms. I had enjoyed Acadia despite being soaked for two days and figured that a little rain wouldn't do much harm on this trip to the White Mountains. Plus, the rain would be part of the immersion in nature. We drove up to the MITOC cabin on Friday night, stopping at Hannaford - a New England grocery chain with a large selection and good prices (thank you low New Hampshire taxes!) - along the way. One group decided to leave soon after trip planning to hike Moosilauke under the moonlight, sleep on the mountain, and wake up for the sunrise. I decided against it for my attachment to sleep and lack of layers for sleeping in mountaintop temperatures.  When the Moosilauke group returned in the morning, we departed for Morgan-Percival along with part of the all-nighter group. Like most White Mountain trails, the Morg...

Since the beginning of the summer, I knew I wanted to take advantage of the CapeFlyer train that runs seasonally between Boston and Cape Cod. We decided to head to Sandwich, MA as opposed to the more well-known town of Hyannis since there seemed to be a bit more than just beaches and oceans. Fun fact, Sandwich is the oldest town on Cape Cod. Naturally when going to a town named Sandwich, we discovered that a sandwich must be at least 35% meat and at most 50% bread according to the USDA. Not sure if that's by weight or volume? Also, what about a PB&J then? That's a sandwich according to the British Sandwich Association, which defines a sandwich as any form of bread with a filling. Is this at least 35% meat and at most 50% bread? After stepping off the train at Buzzards Bay, I savored the salty sea breeze. We wandered along Cape Cod Canal while waiting for a nonexistent bus. (It only operates on weekdays, but we were unaware of this.) People fished on the rocks and biked on t...

I primarily came to Rockport to attend a concert in the Rockport Chamber Music Festival, but I discovered that there's a lot more to Rockport than the Shalin Performance Center. Rockport is a small seaside town which used to subsist on granite quarries but is now home to 30+ art galleries!  On the short walk from the train station to the downtown area, we passed a handful of suburban homes with very colorful gardens. There was one house with all sorts of pink and purple flowers. Shortly after, we happened upon our first gallery. Little did we know that there would be many more. The initial density of a few galleries per block turned into streets of consecutive art galleries. All in this quiet seaside town! The fresh sea air is probably attractive to wealthy people in the area, supplying the clientele for the art galleries. Though I noticed that there was a mix of people visiting, including a decent portion of middle/working class Latin Americans. Look at the calm blue waters! Durin...

As I lugged my belongings across the river from Fenway House to MIT, from where we would depart, I felt rather unprepared for the 80 degree weather in Cambridge. I was wearing jeans and a sweater and had packed for the forecasted 50-60 degree, rainy/cloudy weather that was forecasted for the weekend. While it was cloudy, we didn't encounter rain until making to the Portland area. Visibility was low in some of these rain bursts. During one of these bursts, the driver suddenly realized that there was only one bar of gas left. We had not heard any warnings and hoped to make it to the next exit. The car sputtered and slowed down to close to 20 miles an hour. We wouldn't make it to the gas station three miles down and decided to pull over. We contemplated Enterprise roadside assistance, but decided that our best roadside assistants would be our MITOC friends. Luckily, another car was a few minutes behind us and brought us the last canister of gas from the gas station. This was a les...