Rhode Island’s High Point, Big Cities & Poe Landmarks

I planned to do this trip for about 3 years and I started to feel like it was a jinxed trip for me. I’ve never had more trouble planning or taking a trip in my history of road trips. In fact last year, I left the house to go on this trip. I was all packed up and I was to meet my good friend, Mel in Rhode Island. I think I got about 4 hours into my drive when I needed to stop and gas up. That’s when I realized that I left my card at the smoothie place back in my town of Akron! I freaked out, I had to beg the guy to give me gas and let me give him my card number while on the phone with my bank (he did not want to whatsoever), I called Mel, but she was busy already and could not respond to my freak out, and I ended up taking it as another sign that I was not meant to take this trip. Again. I did get gas to get myself home, so that was nice. What wasn’t nice was the long ride home feeling defeated while my friend was already having fun on a trip that I planned.

So, when I started planning on taking this trip, I was apprehensive. Not just because of the bad luck I’ve had with this trip, but I was concerned about gas prices rising again, I was worried about going to some big cities to see some things when crime is at an all time high, and I was worried that I should spend the money on other more important things. However, I decided that I needed this. I asked the guy I am seeing if he would like to join me. He said, “Yes.”, so I hesitantly started to plan the trip around how long Chris could be out of work and add some stuff he wanted to do as well. Like I said, this was a hard trip to plan. The NY Edgar Allan Poe house was by appointment only and only till 5pm, the Philly Poe house was only open on the weekends, The Mystic Seaport was only open till 5 and only on the weekends, my friend only had some free time to meet-up with me on the weekends to show me around Poe sites, I needed to find campsites not in the ghetto of the large cities, but still close enough to the sites I wanted to see, many campsites in this particular area were RV only, many campsites in the area only opened on Memorial Day weekend, and last but not least, I needed to find something to do far North of East Palestine to, you know, avoid driving right through where the train derailment happened and spilled tons of horrible chemicals all over that area. Sigh… this trip, man…

Lets get to how the trip went now…

May 3th:

Chris came over in the morning and made 6 hard boiled eggs for the trip while I worked on packing our stuff in the car. By 12:45 I said goodbye to my sweet kitty and we left the house. It was a bit later than planned, but I planned for that. Haha! So, to avoid driving right through East Palestine, that is still contaminated and will be for a very long time, I found an amazing place called Eternal Falls. When I saw that our path would go right through the contaminated town, I looked for something to see to take us at least an hour away from that toxic area. Ironically, someone sent me a video for Eternal Flame Falls when I was planning and Instantly looked up where it was. Turns out it is perfectly located right up by Lake Erie in NY. How perfect! It took us as far away as we could get from East Palestine without getting in a boat.

I spent hours driving along the coast of Lake Erie to my left. It was mostly peaceful views of expensive houses with Lake Erie in their backyard and grapevines growing for all the wineries up there. It made for a gorgeous drive. It was fun seeing that much of the giant lake in NY. Until then, I had driven lots of the coastline in Ohio only.

About an hour and 45 from the Eternal Flame Falls, we stopped to get some gross food at Arby’s. Chris and I decided that were were going to cheat a little bit on our detoxing diet while on the trip. I got 2 orders of jalapeno poppers because that’s the only thing that I eat there. We got gas, coffee and a bathroom break on that same stop.

The hike to the flamey falls was a bit confusing since there were many paths you could take and if you weren’t paying attention to the All Trails map, then you find yourself hiking a bit longer than planned…like us. I discovered that the right path is marked with cute flames, but we started from a weird point. The total trail is a little shy of 3 miles total (1.4 one way) if you start from the trailhead with the parking lot. To shave off some time (because of the long drive we had ahead of us) we drove past the parking lot area and parked of the side of the road with a few other cars and went into the woods there. More in that later…

The hike was covered with fallen over trees, lots and lots of roots that looked amazing, everything was wet because it was just raining before we got there, and the “trail” seemed to disappear at certain spots while hiking up the river to the falls. Many river crossings happened and Chris ended up with wet feet and my waterproof boots were just muddy. Waterproof shoes with non slip soles and a hiking pole for extra balance on the rock bridge river crossings would be good for this hike. My first view of the large waterfall with the little flame tucked in its own little cavern made me smile big. It looked so cool! I was in love at first sight! The waterfall is beautiful on its own, but then you have this flickering dancing orange fire peaking out from the spray. It I just thought it was the coolest and most beautiful site. The smell of the natural gas was powerful and the sound of the waterfall was loud. The slate rocks were very slippery, but I just love the look of slate. I wanted to stay there for hours and just stare into the flame and water both, but the long drive to our first camp was nearly 6 hours away.

Back to the route…on the way back to my car, we got off the path we took originally and ended up at the trailhead with the parking lot. Ha…so much for shaving much time off. We ended up doing 2.5 miles, so I guess it was a tiny bit less than the 2.8 total length. We had to walk along the street to get back to the car, but at least we avoided the worst of the river crossings. It was too cold for wet feet. Back at the car, Chris changed his socks and he took over driving because it was 7:30 and going to get dark soon. 6 hours more of driving to the campsite.

Around midnight Chris turned to me and said that we only had a quarter of a tank of gas when we were in the middle of nowhere with nothing but darkness all around. I know he was tired, but checking the gas on a long road trip is kind of important. The panic attack was averted several miles later when we found a gas station. We lucked out. That could have made for a much longer night and we were both very tired at that point. Ahhh!

For dinner, I sat next to him in the car, in the dark, and tried to cut up an apple with a pocket knife and eat it with almond butter, but the paper plate was not a stable cutting board. I managed to eat it, but it was rough going especially with all of the bumps in the road. I’m happy to say I did not cut off any digits. He ate some peanuts and more at camp. We just wanted to get to our campsite without any more stops. We were done with the day.

But the day was not done with us. It rained most of the way from the falls to the campground. We finally made it to Sunsetview Farm Camping Area at around 2:45AM, but I took my sleep aid at 2:24 on the way. That would have been great, but when I picked up the map and key entry card at the office, the card didn’t work! We couldn’t get through the gate. We reluctantly called the after hours number posted near the gate and they said that there was a power outage. Um…
They said that we could park outside the gate and walk in, but he didn’t realize that he had not even set-up yet. So. He then said that he would send someone down to manually open the gate. 10 minutes late an older man came out and cranked it open. We were so tired at this point.

Exhausted and cold, we finally got set up by 4:15 am. It was in the low 40’s and we knew that was going to be the low most nights until the last couple days. I’ve camped when it was low 30’s before, so this was not terrible, but when it’s also wet out…blaa.

We drove through 4 states in one day: Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and most of the way through Massachusetts.

May 4th:

I only got about 3 1/2 to 4 hours asleep again. That’s seven hours of sleep total in the past two days. My eyes were burning out of my head as I ran to the shower house to pee at 8 something.

My shower was a cramped, cold, button pushing hell with no shelves for your stuff. Campgrounds… please have hooks and/or shelves! On such a chilly morning, all I wanted was to boil myself in the shower, but noooooo I was frozen. Then I walked out to four guys working around me with Weedwhackers. So loud. So much for lovely, peace and quiet. I guess no one can sleep past 9 at this campground. I never found where toilets were and there was not a trash can in sight.

We found a place close by for breakfast called the Mug N Muffin. Once we were caffeinated, I drove us to Boston. We were only about two hours away from our first Edgar Allan Poe sighting in Boston. On 15th and Fayette Street is a plaque of Poe’s face that some Bostonian has installed. It’s a teacup-saucer-sized bronze medallion with a relief of Poe on a red-brick, black-shuttered building. Supposedly, there used to be a hand-made list of residents dubbing the building, “Poe Condominium”, but I did not see that anywhere. Poe’s face is easy to drive by without notice on a little side street. On a happy note, it was a side street so I was able to stop in the middle of the road, throw on my blinkers and run and take a selfie with Poe. Parking was non-existent and I got tired of circling. Literally both sides of the road were completely bumper to bumper parked with cars with hardly enough room to drive in the middle of them. Oh, Boston…how do you live like this?

After that, we drove a few minutes away to the Poe statue, “Poe Returning to Boston” by Stefanie Rocknaks. Poe was born in Boston and the sculpture was meant to represent…well, Poe’s return to Boston. It doesn’t get much deeper than that, folks. It was unveiled on October 5th, 2014, by the Edgar A. Poe Foundation of Boston, so It was not constructed the last time I was in Boston, ironically in that same area. So, I had to come to visit even though driving in a big city is the third plane of hell to me although I’m good at it. Chris would have panicked and freaked out, so I had to to do all the big city driving. Once again, so many people honking, so many people walking in front of your car without even looking, tourists not paying attention, people whipping in front of you cutting you off, people walking around alone wearing masks…still, wall-to-wall traffic, even on a Thursday afternoon. Ugh! But, Poe was worth it. Even though it did not look like him in the face, and I thought it was going to be more life-size, it was still cool to see him so prominently displayed. In my opinion, he should have been a bit taller to make it more life-sized or a lot taller to make him larger than life like he is! I wanted him to stand out more. Overall, it was a great idea and I love all the movement in the sculpture itself. Fun fact: Poe hated Boston too. Probably not as much as I do, but if he saw what craziness the city was today, I’m sure he’d agree. So the fact that they have any sculpture of him is a cool thing.

Oh, and in case you all were wondering where the, “Edgar Allan Poe Square” sign is…

Did I see the plaque marking where about he used to live (even though its not there anymore)? No. The building and even the street he lived on is non-existent anymore. It was replaced with a parking lot in the late 1950s, so that plaque didn’t mean much to me. Also, even though it was supposed to be close-by, I could not find it. Did I even see the sign where the city dubbed the courtyard at the intersection of Boylston and Charles, “Edgar Allan Poe Square” and permanently hoisted a street sign there? Was I right there visiting Poe and even looked for it? Yes. Am I blind? Probably. Does it matter? Not really. Did I see the sign later in my photos of the Poe sculpture? Yes, the back of it. I looked for the sign at the crosswalk, but then when I crossed the street and saw Poe, I guess I forgot all about the sign.

I did, however see The Boston Common Frog Pond at the heart of Boston Common. It is the oldest public park in the United States. The reason I cared about this, is because Poe often criticized the city’s transcendentalist writers, who he called the “Frog-Pondians,” after the Common’s Frog Pond. The Poe sculpture’s artist, Rocknak has suggested that her statue has turned its back on the park and on the authors Poe called “pretenders and sophists” and walks instead toward his birthplace, which once stood near Edgar Allan Poe Square, where the small plaque (that I didn’t see) now marks the spot. We didn’t walk around the frog pond itself, because it looked mostly for kids, but we did go across the street the The Boston Public Garden.

All the way back to 1839, the Boston Public Garden is the first public botanical garden in the United States. While it is next-door to Boston Commons, the style of the Boston Public Garden is much more inviting…at least to me. Lots of kids one one side and beautiful gardens on the other. The garden, surrounded by a Victorian cast-iron fence, has winding paths decorated by statues, fountains, various trees and plants, and a six-acre pond with swan boats for visitors to ride. It has changed little since Poe’s time in the mid-19th century, and gives visitors a much needed escape from the urban environment of today’s hectic Boston.

The original the reason we walked though the garden, was to get to Cheers across the way, but then I didn’t want to leave right away. This park was full of a wide variety gorgeous wide trunked old trees. I fell in love with one old willow whose trunk was at least 10 foot around. It was spectacular and the trunk grew at an angle in such a way that just invited me to lean back and nestle into it. I’ve would LOVE to have a tree like that in my yard. That was the most beautiful tree I’ve ever seen, but I’ve always loved willow trees. Those and Japanese maples. But this particular tree…man…perfection in every way. As soon as I saw it in the distance, I made a beeline for it. I laid there for awhile talking to Chris, posing for fun photos for memories, and laughing at the bold city squirrels.

The squirrels are so used to so many people that they run right up to you as fast as they can, even though they’re fat as hell from being clearly over fed. I’ve never seen fatter squirrels including the chunkers my dad feeds every night. One even ran up Chris’s leg to his thigh. Haha! They are fearless. Seriously, as much as I hate big cities, the Boston Garden is pretty zen. I mean, I still hate the city part. It had everything you’d expect to find in a city park; a dude busking with his music on the bridge, rabid obese squirrels, and lots of people. But dang…the trees were pretty sweet.

After that respite, we continued on to Cheers. While there, We got burgers and beer (he got a burger and I got a veggie burger). The beer was a local one called Harpoon Blueberry Ale. We both bought a Cheers mug with it. After eating, I showed him the upstairs bar, the gift shop, and the original bar used in the TV show. The outside of the bar downstairs was used in all of the outside shots in the show and people walking down the stairs into the bar was all shot there.

We had a small walk back to my car and I needed to drive us out of the city before Chris took over driving. It shouldn’t have taken all day to see the few things I wanted to see because they were all seriously minutes from each other, but..you know…Boston…After I escaped our first hellish big city, we drove about an hour and 40 minutes to our campsite called Hopeville Pond State Park. Before we got there, we stopped to pick up another local blueberry ale from Wachusett Brewing Co. I was looking for a Bar Harbor Blueberry Ale, but I found out that it’s a seasonal beer only, so that truly sucks because it’s my favorite beer ever. Why are all the other Blueberry beers available, but not the ONE I’m searching for??

In the pitch black, with just one camper’s fire glowing near us, we hung out drinking beer and listened to the antics of our neighbors down the path. It was a chilly night in Jewett City, CT. The beer made me colder.

Our state count went up to six states in two days: Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. This campsite was our home for the next three nights. I was tucked in my hammock early and playing on my phone until my sleep med kicked in…

May 5th:

I woke up around 7:30 AM to a chilly Connecticut morning. I was really cold, but I had to pee so I reluctantly left my hammock cocoon. I turned on the car a bit for some warmth and by 8:30 AM, I was back in my hammock relaxing and watching the birdies From the warmth of my burrito. I was waiting for Chris to get up.

I finally opened up my car door and yelled to see if he was awake. He was now…
He joined me in the car to eat a couple of hard-boiled eggs each and apples with almond butter while we both defrosted with the heat back on.
About that time, the park ranger came by and told us that the spot we picked was the wrong one in the darkness of the night, so Chris moved his tent over while I showered in another cold ass shower. I know it’s supposed to be invigorating, healthy and make your hair all shiny to take cold showers, but screw that! I was really craving a hot shower. I then waited in the car and drank my still yummy day old coffee while he showered.

Once we left the campground, we headed for the Lizzie Borden house for a tour. I’ve been there before, but Chris hasn’t, and it’s one of the best tours of ever been on. It was a little bit over an hour drive all the way out to dirty Fall River, Massachusetts, and the doors were locked. Ahhhh! I sat on the porch and called the number to find out why I couldn’t just walk in and take a tour like the last time I was there. Their hours of operation were till 5 PM and we were there long before five. The man on the phone asked me what city I was wanting to take the tour in and I was confused. I asked, “Is there another Lizzie Borden House that she murdered her parents in?” I know it’s under a new owner since I was there last and apparently they are only open by appointment only tours now and give different tours of various places all over. Meh…I wish I would’ve known that. I was able to just walk right in the last time I went. Long story short, I tried really hard to work out a tour, so Chris could see it and I wanted to do it again to see if they made any more changes since the new owners took over however, that wasn’t going to happen. The only tour he could offer us was a ghost tour at 7:30 pm for $35. but we still had to go to the high point before dark, so it was a no go. We drove all that way for nothing.

As we started leaving defeated, I remembered that I wanted to see where they were all buried only a few minutes from the house. So, I guess it was not for nothing! We turned around and found the cemetery pretty quickly. It was a large, old, beautiful place named Oak Grove Cemetery. At first I just started randomly driving around to see if I could find it but then I realized that was going to be impossible. There’s tons of people with the last name Borden in that cemetery. So we looked it up online and it turns out that so many people come to visit that grave site that, they put arrows pointing directly to the graves. Ha! Well, that’s helpful.

We took some photos by Lizzie and Emma’s graves and the large Borden monument that has the entire families names down the sides of it: father (Andrew Jackson Borden), mother (Sarah Anthony Borden), stepmother (Abby Durfee Borden), youngest daughter Alice Esther (died young), Lizbeth Andrew Borden and Lizzie’s sister (Emma Lenora). The murdered couple’s skulls are apparently still on display at the Lizzie Borden house. At least they were the last time I was there.

We spent about an hour at the cemetery taking photos and driving around the entire thing to check out old gravestones. We left around 3 pm and by 4:30pm we were standing at Rhode Island’s highest peak. That includes driving time, folks. Yeah, this is one of the small-you-would-never-know-its-the-high-point high points. This is not one of those all day climbs that you feel for days after. Standing at a sad 811 whole feet is Jerimoth Hill. It is a very easy hike with a wide trail that is .3 mile-out-and-back through pretty woods. The sign guides you on to the pine forest once you park on the sandy shoulder of the road. There are 2 benchmarks along the path to look out for. They are hard to miss. The area seems fairly rural. I’d love living in such a remote area with just a few homesteads scattered here and there.

Once you see a rock pile to your right, you see the ammo case with the sign-in book and some other things people left in there. Chris didn’t want to eat the questionably old Tootsie Rolls. We signed in then hopped up onto the rock to look at all of cairns. People come by and stack rocks on top of the rock that marks the highest point in RI. It was a secluded area in dense woods with some old beat up sheds with some old beat up stuff in them, trails to walk or mountain bike, and no view. I usually like to take a photo of the view from high points, but this view was nothing but mostly pine trees and a creepy shed. I didn’t bother with a photo of that.

But as a photographer, I like to not only do a unique pose at every high point, but for the easy ones, I like to go even further, at times, and dress up in garb that makes me think of the state. In order to explain what I wore for this high point, I need to go back 11 years ago was when I first went to Rhode Island. My visit was part of a 3 week solo road trip ironically that started off conquering the highest peak of Maine before I even knew what high pointing was. Full circle! When I did that road trip, it was in October, so I naturally had a bunch of spooky things planned to see. Duh. Yes, Salem was on the list. No, I don’t recommend it. Hokey and touristy. But I loved RI. One of the things I did there was visit Mercy, The Rhode Island Vampire’s grave. It’s a sad story that I did quite a bit of research on when I was planning that trip and it completely stuck with me. And now I get to share it with you.

Mercy Brown was a 19 year old girl that died January 1892. Consumption (tuberculosis as we now know it), was running rampant in her time. Her mother Mary Eliza was the first to contract it and die, then her oldest sister Mary Olive, and then In 1891, Mercy and her brother Edwin got the plague too. Neighbors and friends thought that surely someone in that family was turning the Brown family into vampires (although they didn’t use that term) and they were concerned for 24 year-old Edwin. The folklore of the time believed that multiple deaths in one family meant undead activity. In a hopeless attempt to save Edwin’s life, Mercy’s father, George Brown gave the OK to exhume his families graves, but could not bear to witness it. Some townspeople, a doctor, and a reporter dug up the graves of Mercy, her mom and her sister on March 17, 1892. They found nothing but bones in the graves of her mom and sis, but Mercy’s body showed little signs of decay in the 2 months since her death. That and the fact that she still had blood in her heart and liver, apparently, meant that she was undead and completely disregarded the fact that it was January in New England when she died! But poor George was desperate. So seeing how they thought she was the cause of Edwin’s condition, superstition said that they must cut out her heart and liver, burn it, put the ashes in water and give it to poor Edwin to drink. He did. He still died 2 months later, but no one else in the family got it after that. George out lived them and was one of the few that never contracted tuberculosis. Ironically however he did live long enough to see the cure for it. Dang…so heartbreaking for him.

So, seeing how Rhode Island was called the Vampire Capital of America between 1870 and 1900, I thought it would be fun do have a vampire type of style going on for my high point photo. I already had the dress, so it was easy and just made sense to me. I’ve been a pirate, a mermaid, but never a vampire. According to Findagrave.com, Rhode Island had the nickname of being the “Transylvania of the North America” and the people lived in real fear during the 75+ years of the “New England Vampire Hysteria”.

Back to the present day, while on the rock, I flipped off my sandals, slipped my black hood over my head and thought about poor Mercy the Rhode Island “vampire” while Chris took some photos. The position I was in was not very comfortable balanced on a rock barefoot on my tippy toes and with a recent foot injury. A couple of weeks before I had 5 splinters in my left foot and I took a full week to dig them all out. I thought I had them all out when it happened, but when it still killed me to put weight on it a week later, I knew there was some more wood still in there. When I cut it open a second time to indeed take more wood out, I also found that it was filled with pus as well. Long story short, it’s all better now, but was still healing during the high point. 2 of the splinters went very deep and they were big! Stupid old wood floors in my old house…

It was not until after we did this vampire photo shoot and after I got home that I found out that the person the high point was named after was from a family of witches! So, my photo is a bit vampire for Mercy and a bit witchy for all of the Brown family women. For some reason I became a bit obsessed with finding out more information about Jerimoth Brown (1783–1830), an early settler that the hill was named after. I was already obsessed with Mercy’s story. (Lena was her middle name that she actually went by). I hope I’m not losing you by flopping back and forth with these stories, but that’s what my brain has been doing since I got home from the trip.

My obsession with Jerimoth Brown goes back to when we were in the woods…right at Jerimoth Hill. I’m glad I knew beforehand then that Jerimoth Brown was buried on the hill with his family. Chris…probably not so much haha because I needed to find it. According to a YouTube video I watched before the trip, his grave was just “a few hundred yards from the summit”. With NO more information. I mean, a few hundred yards in which direction?? Where?! So, I saw a path in front of the high point rock and said, “It’s probably down here.” It wasn’t. But I needed to keep going just in case it was. “A few hundred yards” can be practically anything, so who knew? But without any signs or any sign that we were heading in the right direction, we decided to take a different approach after awhile. We both stood there in the middle of the woods on our phones searching for some more guidance, but found nothing. I even asked four people from the Facebook “50 States Highpointing” Group. Two didn’t know if it even existed and two were not my Facebook friends, so they didn’t see the message until after we were long gone. I even posted to the group itself. I said that I was currently at the High Point of Rhode Island and did anyone know where dude’s grave was. I had several people liking my photo at the high high point, but no comments…until after we had left. Of course…

I had already looked at Findagrave.com, but I gave up on it, but then Chis looked at it and found a way to pull it up on a map. Turns out, we were about 3 1/2 miles away from where we were at that time which was like a mile in the woods on a random path with me in sandals that kept falling off my feet. Seeing how the high point is only a half a mile from the Connecticut border, we more than likely crossed into Connecticut at some point in our hike. Adventures!!

So we went back the way we came, me with my sandals, still falling off of my feet (I realized later that I had them on wrong bahahahaha). We kept heading toward my car, but still periodically looked at the map on his phone to see if we were getting closer. Turns out randomly taking a path in the woods with no signs had us going the wrong direction, but then we were getting very close and I was getting excited to find it. I was on a mission all of a sudden. but it looked like the path was straight into the woods. Instead of dealing with potential poison ivy and getting shot, we went back to my car and drove down the street a tiny bit to where we saw another dirt Road. I assessed the situation and decided that I could in fact drive my car down this road. It was questionable. When we got about halfway down, Chris was startled and said that there was a guy sitting on the porch. Initially I stopped, but then I decided to keep going and talk to that person thinking they might know something. So I went over there and rolled down my window. Turns out it was a lady that was painting the porch. She walks over to us and I instantly ask her about the grave quickly so she did not shoot us for trespassing. She hadn’t heard of it. No surprise. Then a friendly man walks out of the house and asked me what I was looking for. He was legit trying to help us. I showed him the map on the phone. He said he recognized the name, but he had no idea where his grave was or that it was even around there at all. He gave his best guess as to what we should do next (according to the map) which was to go back out to the street and head down the paved road to a different dirt road a couple more “streets” away and try again. He wished us all the luck on our adventure, and said that he hoped that we found everything that we were looking for. So nice!!!! I teased Chris that he was worried for nothing, “but did we get shot?” Ironically, this state’s high point used to be one of the most difficult ones to do…hilarious because of it’s non-existent height. In the past you would have to cross though nearby private property and the owners were known for yelling, “Get off my lawn” with a gun. Yeeeah, but I didn’t let Chris know that until…oh now. But it’s all city owned now and fine.

So back at the car we drove 2 more dirt “roads” down and parked the car again. We could not drive down this path. Someone had put a tree barricade in the way. Hmm…That didn’t deter me. I took the keys out of the car, put on my boots instead of the sandals and we marched into the woods again. I realized we were on the right path pretty quickly. We were watching his phone as we were getting closer and closer to the dot on the map. Then all of a sudden the small woodsy path opened up to an old foundation of a house and an actual dirt road. So we took that further into the woods. A few minutes later, to the left of us was the cute little cemetery! It was only maybe a half a mile from the paved road that we parked on. To the right of us was a tiny Homestead with a couple of sheep, goats, and 2 cows, one of which of was huge. It was soooooo cool to find it! I felt like we solved some great mystery. lol It felt so good. Thanks Chris for having your phone fully charged when my own was dying…again. I know he was a little aggravated because he was a lot hungry and a bit thirsty, but I’m glad I kept pushing to not give up until we found it. I just couldn’t give up. I was totally starving too, but we were so close. I’m just glad we found it. It was a really cool thing to see this tiny old dilapidated cemetery in the middle of nowhere, in the woods with mooing and baaaa as your soundtrack and all their faces staring at you. I’m sure they don’t see many strangers.
I can’t make this stuff up. It was pretty surreal.

At one point when we were walking back, Chris said that he thought he saw a short cut. So we went that way for about 10 minutes and was amazed to see another, even smaller, “cemetery”. I’m talking 10×10, if that. There was some equipment around that led me to believe that this was under renovations, however I couldn’t find one grave marker in site. After checking that amazing find out, we headed further down that path. It led us to head right past some guy’s house with all sorts of shit laying everywhere to rust. I guess when you don’t have neighbors, you don’t have to keep your yard up. It was literally in the middle of the woods. It wasn’t like a normal street, so I stopped and turned to Chris and said that that looked like a bad decision and I was not going that way. I said this is the point where we could actually get shot. Not before; now. We immediately turned around and went back to the car the way we originally came.

If you are interested to hear how obsessed I got…then the next four paragraphs are for you. Brown is the second most popular surname in RI, second to Smith. Having said that, I heard that Jerimoth Brown was not related to The Brown University and I could not find any connections to Mercy Brown’s family or her family to the university as well. It’s just a weird coincidence that the 2 non Poe stories that I’m enthralled with share the same last name and a supernatural past. What got me in a rabbit hole was the fact that in my initial research I found that Mercy’s mom’s name was Mary and Jerimoth, according to one site, had a daughter named Mary. Mercy’s mom, Mary was born in 1847 and Jerimoth died at the age of 46 years old in 1830. Could he be the father of Mercy’s mom Mary? It’s totally possible because she was born in 1810 and that would have made Jerimoth 20 years old. BUT, the one site I researched said that Jerimoth had 3 daughters named Mary, Hazael, and Matilda. I think it’s wrong. According to findagrave.com, Jerimoth had 5 children. Hazael and Matilda were accounted for as well as 3 boys, but no mention of a Mary, so I could not confirm her full name or date of birth to Mercy’s mom and it was a dead end. No pun intended.

So, then I contacted the Foster Rhode Island Preservation Society to see what information they could give me to fill in the blanks. According to them, and the PDF they sent me of all the graves on the hill, they marked Jerimoth having 4 graves of children buried there of his and one was a daughter named Mary E, but his Mary died Oct. 25, 1843 at 21 years of age and Mercy’s mom (Mary Eliza) was not born until 1847. So, yeah still a dead end there, but the preservation society was awesome and I will add what they sent me below for those as caught up into this as I got. I just figure the discrepancies of the kids he had between Findagrave.com and the preservation society was due to the graves being in poor shape.

According to my research, I did discover that locals referred to Jerimoth Brown’s mother as “a witch from the wild bogs of Ireland”. She was well known for her spells, charms, and herbal remedies. Supposedly, all women in the Brown family, especially Jerimoth’s oldest sister Olive, were witches. Did you recognize that name, Olive? That’s because Mercy’s oldest sister was named, Mary Olive. No connection, but still interesting…to me, at least.

The Salem witch trials took place between February 1692-May 1693, so Jerimoth’s mom would have just missed the “Witchcraft craze”. Because after that no one else was tried for witchcraft…not that they stopped believing in them, they just stopped prosecuting them. All I know is it’s pretty ironic that I dressed the way I did for this high point then later found out that Strange New England said that the Brown witches (cousins of Jerimoth’s) were known locally as the “the witches of Jerimoth Hill”. Cue the Twilight Zone theme song…

The sun was just starting to set once we were back on the road and we were starving. It was Cinco de Mayo, so La Cantina Bar and Grill was the perfect (and only) choice for Mexican food in a small town on our route. It was only 20 minutes away, but we had to wait a bit because apparently the entire town was there. Chris tried a local beer called Kona Waves Ale (really good) and I got a double shot of Cabo Wabo on ice with our food. It was a fairly large place and the wait staff seemed to know everyone there. They closed at 10, but they were so busy that we didn’t leave until a bit after. It was a good thing it was only 12 minutes away from the campsite because we were ready to set-up and relax.

We got set up and pretty much went our separate ways. He was asleep pretty quickly, and I, like normal, was awake for hours after. My sleep aid started kicking around 12:44…finally…

May 6th:

Last night had a bright gorgeous full moon. I tried to fall asleep around 1:30am, but was really cold. It had been in the low 40’s at night the entire trip. When I finally got comfy and warm, it took me some time to fall asleep. I woke up around 8:30am and stayed awake waiting for Chris to wake up. I enjoyed looking at the birdies and river out of my car window while swinging in my hammock. It was peaceful and quiet. I really like my alone time when I fall asleep after him and awake before him.

Once he was up and moving, we ate eggs, apples with almond butter (my favorite), pumpkin seeds and dates dipped in almond butter as well. Then, I took my first hot shower of the trip…yay! It was glorious. Seriously, I needed that. I reveled in it for a really long time even with the stupid button pushing thingy.

After our healthy breakfast and hot shower, we left to meet up with some on-line Edgar Allan Poe friends of mine that I’ve never met in person. We planned on meeting up at North Burial Ground at 1 and even with Providence traffic, we got there about 10 minutes early. I spotted Tommy right away upon passing the cemetery gates. Dressed in a cool purple shirt and a black beret, I recognized him right away. I talked with Tommy for a few minutes at my car, but I started to wonder where Levi was because we never specified where exactly we would meet in the cemetery. When I finally looked at my phone, I saw that he was already at Sarah Helen Whitman’s (one of Edgar Allan Poe’s finance’s) grave and he said he would come and get us. I looked up and saw him walking towards us with his pretty long curly locks, but I looked at Tommy and said that we should probably just drive to him, so he didn’t have to walk all that way.

I planned Saturday to be all about Rhode Island Poe history with the 2 around the area. Levi is Rhode Island’s independent Poe scholar and the creator of Edgar Allan Poe RI which is an extensive history of all things Poe-related in his hometown. He has succeeded in plucking every single Poe reference out of the smallest state in the US and enjoys giving ‘A Walking Tour of Poe’s Providence.’ If you would like to learn more or sign up for a tour, please click the link above.

Our first stop was at Poe’s ex finance’s grave, Sarah Helen Whitman. It was a lovely warm (finally) day at North Burial Ground and the sun was beaming as we stood around her grave listening to Levi talk awhile about her life and death there and about Poe courting her about the town. We walked a couple of miles around the very large cemetery after seeing her grave. Its very possible that they walked the North Burial Ground, but there is no evidence of it. They certainly would of had lots of space to walk in the expansive 110-acres.

A little after 2, we were heading to Swan Point Cemetery where Poe and Sarah had cemetery dates. It was really exciting to walk in their footsteps in the same place they got to know each other so long ago. The visual of them together was in my head the entire time there. Also, I love the idea of dates in a cemetery! It might even be the place they got engaged at, but it’s hard to know exactly which cemetery because the name was not mentioned. All we know is that Poe proposed to Sarah in a cemetery the first time, but Levi’s deduction on it being Swan Point is convincingly written here. It was a awe-inspiring garden cemetery with ponds, a variety of stunning trees everywhere, and lots of hilly winding roads that display great views of the Seekonk River.

We were also there to see H.P. Lovecraft’s grave. This makes 5 American authors graves that I’ve visited now. Poe in Baltimore, Maryland (dying words, “Lord help my poor soul”. Married his cousin), H.P. Lovecraft in Providence, Rhode Island (unknown final words. Married his cousin), Robert Frost in Bennington, Vermont (last recorded words, “I am not going to die, Doc, I’m going home to my family.”), Emily Dickenson in Amherst, Massachusetts (final words, “I must go in, the fog is rising.”), and Walt Whitman in Camden, New Jersey (last said, “Warry, shift” meaning for his attendant, Warren Fritzinger, to turn him over.)

We spent about an hour at Swan Point, and then got back in our cars and followed Tommy again to another cemetery named Cathedral of Saint John. Tommy was obviously used to driving in that city because he was just weaving and whipping his little car around. The Cathedral of Saint John was the planned location for Edgar’s and Sarah’s Christmas wedding that sadly never took place. It was a tiny, although well kept cemetery that was creepy cool and very ancient looking. It was on a hill overlooking some of the city. Poe and Sarah also courted there no doubt because of the proximity to her home. Her large red house could be seen from St. John’s, but that meant that they would have been under the watchful eye of Sarah‘s mother, who hated Poe. The Whitman family had money and she was worried Poe wanted her for that reason only. We walked all around her house…the very house that inspired Poe to write, his second, “To Helen” poem. It describes the first time Poe caught a glimpse of her in her rose garden tending to her beauties under a midnight moon in 1845. He was instantly captivated. I would have loved to see her rose garden in full bloom, but they don’t bloom there until July.

We then stood in front of Sarah Helen Whitman’s red house at 88 Benefit Street chatting for some time. I kept glancing up at the house in disbelief that Sarah detested the color. Blasphemy! What? How? It’s such a gorgeous color! I mean, who doesn’t love red?? 🙂 It wasn’t long before Levi had to run. Before he left us, he reached into his pocket and pulled out some Poe stickers and some of his Poe’s Providence walking tour business cards. Very sweet. I was bummed that he had to leave since that was the last day we were going to be there, but he said that he was leaving us in the good hands of Tommy to show us The Providence, Athenaeum. We hugged and he ran off.

On the trek to the Athenaeum, Tommy quickly pointed out an old bright sunburst yellow large house to us. He said that it is known locally as the Shunned House. This house was built around 1763 and is the very house that H.P. Lovecraft wrote about in his short story called….wait for it…”The Shunned House”. Man, I’d love to peek inside that and the Whitman house. I love old houses! I now have to re-familiarize myself with this short horror story and I have it cued up in my YouTube to ‘watch later’.

Unfortunately, I already knew that we were unable to get inside of the library to see their Poe artifacts because they were closing starting that day for a month to replace their heating system. I called them the day before to ask if there were some way I could just come in really quickly to see the Poe goodies, but the lady said that it was too hectic with them getting ready to close the next day that they could not accommodate. But, she said that she would email me photos of some things. I thought that was very nice, but then when we walked up just to check out the outside of the place, we saw that they were hosting a wedding! Hmm.

In the email, they sent me a few things. A link to a video talking about much of the things I just heard again from Levi (which I do not mind hearing over and over again), a link to their exhibits to check for the next Poe-themed exhibit, and a photo of a book Poe signed in pencil. The video was great and I loved that they gave a shout out to Levi at the end, mentioned his tours and talked about a Poe bust that he has. He loaned his bust to the Athenaeum so that they could commission their own copy which now sits near the entrance way. Very cool. As far as the faded signature in the book, you can read a shortened story about that here on the Athenaeum’s page. This blog is already long enough, so I thought links would be better than telling the story myself.

We didn’t hang out in front of the Athenaeum long because…wedding, but at least I got to see how pretty it is from the outside…and a tiny bit of the entrance way with the door opened. It was worth the long walk to see where Sarah and Poe spent much time together during their courtship. Sadly, it was also the place where Sarah called off their very short engagement. Poor Poe. We did a total of 4.8 miles of walking for the day… All of it was in sandals for me. LOL I don’t know why I didn’t plan that better. The yoga mat sandals I wore were very comfortable, but I probably would’ve preferred normal walking shoes.

On the way back to our cars, we invited Tommy to come to eat with us. We were all starving. He recommended an Asian place called Gourmet House. The time was already 4:45. I noticed I was a bit red from all of the sun my pasty white skin finally got.

When walking to our cars, Tommy said, “Hold on I have something for you.” He walked across the parking lot to my car and gave me a sweet Providence Poe magnet. Awww! I wished I would have brought the guys something from Ohio, but we don’t have cool Poe history in Ohio. We have corn. Haha! After several hugs goodbye, we parted ways and once again, Chris and I were back on the road.

It was a one hour drive back to Hopeville Pond State Park. We decided that we wanted to have a fire at the campsite that night and even invited Levi and Tommy. Seeing how it was an hour drive, I didn’t think they would come by, so I was not surprised when they didn’t. Regardless, we stopped at one of the many places selling firewood on the way the the park. It was a personal home with bundles to grab near the street for $4. for a huge bundle. That’s pretty darn good. The rest of the places we saw were five dollars or more for much less wood. There was a nice older man working in his yard with a sweet orange kitty watching us from afar. I tired to call him over, but he just sat there creepily staring instead.

One final stop before camp was to get Chris beer. I didn’t want to drink because it makes me colder at night and I don’t drink much at all anymore due to a detox we are doing. We are not supposed to consume any processed sugar and limit processed carbs to about 20g. I cheated a little on the trip, but not much.

By 9:15, we were sitting by the fire. I sipped lemon water and he drank blueberry beer. Mmm…

“The agonies which I have lately endured – seems to have passed my soul through fire.” Poe’s heartbreaking words after the engagement rejections of Sarah Helen Whitman.

May 7th:

I woke up at 7:30 AM to another chilly Connecticut morning. The sun was already up and I couldn’t pee by the car, so I reluctantly walked to the bathhouse. On the walk back, the sun was starting to warm me and the lake looked so beautiful, so I sat on a large boulder and listened to 2 fisherman talk to each other loudly from their different boats. Chris was still asleep.

By 11 we had eaten, showered and were pirating up at the campsite with strange looks all around. When our neighbor was driving away, he stopped and said, “Whoa” when he saw how differently we looked from the night before. That’s always fun. Sunday was all about pirating around at The Mystic Seaport in Connecticut.

Check out was at Noon, but we got out a bit after. Oops. It takes Chris more time to turn into Jack Sparrow than it does for me to become Lady RED. I knew I should have woken him up sooner. Hind sight…

It was 40 minutes until we got there and I stopped to gas up and pee on the way. I drank so much water in the morning because I was completely dehydrated and I wanted to empty the bladder before I walked around in that outfit all day. It’s not the easiest to go to the bathroom with all that going on. Too many belts and all.

When we got to the front desk we paid the general admission fee of $28. but we totally should have gotten a discount seeing how people enjoyed seeing us dressed as pirates and got photos with us, but whatever. Haha They pointed to a monitor that showed the list of scheduled tours & demonstrations. I took a photo of it and we were off!

Because we didn’t get there till about 1:45pm because of stupid traffic, we ran like freaks to get ALL the way towards the end to make it to the 2pm Shipyard Tour. Their shipyard is the largest wooden boat preservation shipyard in the US. It is the first shipyard built specifically for preservation in the US. It was pretty interesting learning how they are restoring old ships. Seeing and smelling all of the aged wood used in the process was neat as well as seeing all of the huge scary machinery. Mystic’s Syncrolift can raise vessels that weight up to 580 tons out of the water. Whoa! A few people asked for photos with us afterwards which we love doing!

After that first tour, we went aboard and played around on The Charles W. Morgan. The 1841 whale ship is the world’s oldest commercial ship still afloat. Her working career ended in 1920, but then she was fully restored and sailed again in 2014! She went to ports all around New England nearly 100 years after her retirement. That’s pretty exciting. We had the run of the ship all to ourselves except the dude put in place to answer questions. The stairwell and sleeping quarters were far to claustrophobic for me to ever consider a real life at sea. I kept hitting my head on the ceiling. Also, the thought of being confined in a fire trap in the middle of sea sounds awful. Nope, I be a landlubber pirate that sells the wares of me crew.

Then, seeing how we are prates, we found our way into the Schaefer’s Spouter Tavern and got a drink for the road. It’s really cool that you can walk around with the drinks while checking things out. I asked the barmaid what we do with the glasses and she said that we could just leave them anywhere and they will find them. Ha! I liked that! The drink I got was called, “Cool As A Cucumber”. It had tequila, St. Germaine, lime, pineapple, and cucumber and it was SOOOOOO GOOOOD! Like holy crap good! I really like cucumber with tequila drinks. I like getting cucumber margarita’s at Mexican places when they have it. I never used to like cucumbers much as a kid, so that’s a fun change. Chris got a beer called, Kittens & Canoes. Cute and also very good. Score!

While sipping our yummy drinks, we walked on. I found a bench and was going to just park it and look at the pretty view while enjoying my drink. But before my butt even touched the bench, Chris said that there was a barrel making place right behind us and he wanted to check that out. Once I turned around and saw what he was referring to, I was excited to go in there myself. Upon entering the Cooperage, I know that’s what its called that, I said, “Oooooh”. I just looked cool. It looked like us pirates fit perfectly in that setting. It was in an old barn and everything was wooden with different sized barrels, casts and other wooden containers. I just looked around an imaged how cool it would be to grow my plants out of everyone of them. There was a lady there to talk to us about coopering and answer any questions. At first it was just us in there, but several more came in after us. They had lots of questions and I was happy to just stand back and listen to her responses. Very interesting. These wooden containers were called different names by the gallons they held. For instance, a cask was used for spirits (cue Cask of Amontillado reference here), whale oil, molasses, and other liquids and held 31.5 gallons of fluids.

The word, “coup” is a Latin word that means “contain”. They were originally made using only staves and metal hoops. No calking. So, for the casks that held liquids, the cooper had to be a specialized, “tight cooper”, so no fluid escaped. Amazing. We saw some of the various crude tools used in the process. I gotta say, I never thought about how wine barrels were made, but I truly loved learning a bit about it. They heat up the timbers with fire and wet them to bend them into their characteristic shape. The bilge was the widest part of the containers. This shape makes the barrels able to be easily moved by one person by rolling and turning in any direction with little effort. The design is really something.

To learn more about what Mystic Seaport has to say about coopering, please check out the information and video here or head to YouTube if you want to go through that wormhole like I did.

I was so caught up with the Cooperage, that I almost forgot that I wanted to go to the 3:30pm “From Whale Ho! To Fin-Out” talk on the wharf right out front. We were only a couple of minutes late. We noticed right away that it was the same lady giving that talk that did the Shipyard tour. I sat on the dock with my legs dangling over the side listening to her talk to us from a little skiff. Built in 1841, the Morgan held 24 people and we learned gross details about how they killed whales. They first would spear them with one spear, but that one would not kill the whale. The whale would naturally freak out and start swimming in circles to try to get the offending object out of it and the crew would just let it go until it tired itself out. Sometimes that would be hours!! then they would take a different long spear and one lucky guy would jam it into the whales lungs over and over until it slowly did the job. That sounds absolutely horrible. Then they would drag it back to shore, but they would have to get it back before it started getting eaten and before the whale went rancid. All the whale oil (what they were going for) was converted from the blubber and that is at the surface, so they had to get it back in good time or the whale would have died in vein. Ick. I just like the pretty old wooden ships.

We took some photos on the dock after the talk, then walked over to the Joseph Conrad to walk around on it and check it out. It defiantly was not as cool as the Morgan and some of it was roped off. We could not go down below and I don’t remember why. The guy said that they were doing something to that area, but I can’t remember. So, it was a quick look around.

We walked on and wandered into a model ship maker’s shop. Whoa! So many tiny details in these models! It was super amazing to see. Seriously the people that do that have major patience and an eye for intricate details. I was in awe. Of course, I see with my hands often and I touched some of the details, but then I saw a “Do not touch” sign and crossed my hands in my arms to not make that mistake again. Chris and I spent some time there chatting with the nice older dude. He was interesting. We talked about everything from my tour of the Bounty when it was still afloat in Florida before it SADLY sunk during hurricane Sandy on October, 29, 2012 (off the coast of NC) to which ones of the models were exact replicas in comparison to the ones that were a bit embellished. It was a nice conversation, but we had to move on.

We walked back to the tavern to see if we could get another yummy-way-too-expensive-drink, but they were closed! Ahhhh! I guess that was the universe’s way of saying I didn’t need another anyway. So, then we just wandered around until the final tour at 4:30pm.

At 4:30 we had a choice between the History of the Joseph Conrad talk or a talk on Women at Sea on the Charles Morgan. I found it weird that they have final tours at 4:30 when they supposedly close at 4, but I was happy we got to see another one of their talks. I would have LOVED to have heard both, but I let Chris decide which one for us to do and at first he picked the Women at Sea one, but no one else was there for the tour, so at the very last minute he changed his mind and said, “Lets go to the other one”. So, once again 2 pirates go running by the water like freaks to get to this old ship. The guy that did the talk was just walking back from what looked like a snack break and met us on the ship. Guess what? We were the only ones there for that tour too. He said it was because it was a Sunday, but I think it’s because they say they close at 4. I could be wrong, but everyone seemed to be clearing out of the area by 4. He said Saturday was much busier and they typically are busier on Saturdays. That’s what we figured and it probably would been fun with a larger crowd, however, then I’d have to wait longer to take photos without a ton of people in the way. Also, Saturday was the free time Levi had to do the Poe / Whitman tour. Now, I’m thinking meeting him after work sometime during the week would have been a better fit, so we could have gone to Mystic on Sat. But, I had no idea how long Levi’s tour would go on for and I wanted to allow time to hang out with the guys after, but that didn’t happen either… other than dinner with Tommy. Multi-day road trips are very hard to plan especially when you are juggling with limited times to do things. Mystic should totally stay open till sunset. How spectacular would it be too see the sunset from The Morgan?! Just a thought…

Honestly, the only thing I remember of that talk was that it was a training ship that is still used to train kids nowadays on how to sail which I thought was pretty cool. It was interesting enough, but I left kinda wishing that we would have stuck with his first choice of the Women at Sea on the Charles Morgan. Because more time spent on that ship wouldn’t have been a bad thing regardless of how many poor whales were murdered horribly there for their oily blubber. 🙁

There was one final thing of note about our lovely day at Mystic. While we were one the dock listening to the “From Whale Ho! To Fin-Out” talk I turned to Chris and said, “Those 2 ladies over there are staring at us and talking about us.” Haha! No, I’m not paranoid. I am very observant. So, We went on and I didn’t think much about it after that because we were dressed as pirates and I just brushed it off as the one pointing us out to her friend as a funny thing to see. However, while walking to the Joseph Conrad, the one lady jumped in front of me with a big smile on her face and said that she saw me on the dock and recognized my dread headband as possibly one of her own designs! She asked where I ordered it from and I told her Etsy and when she said the name of her company I knew right away she was the one I ordered it from! Whaaaaaat!? How cool is that!? Even cooler, it turns out that she lives in Rhode Island and here we are full circle again. Haha! Cue the It’s a Small World song. So, I ordered these dreads so long ago, that she does not even make them much anymore, but instead makes more clothing now. It’s amazing that she recognized the piece from a good distance away especially since I made some slight alterations to it over the years. So, if you are a lady looking to get Victorian, Steampunk, or Gothic wear, check out Auralynne.

Once our last talk was over, we found our way out of the Mystic Seaport. It was time to eat! We had picked out S&P Oyster House and bar before the trip to eat at because Chris needed to get some New England clam chowder. I checked out the menu beforehand and saw that they had yummy looking vegetarian friendly options too, so it was the place! It is a gorgeous upscale place right by the water and we walked in dressed as pirates. LOL! Ahh priceless. On their website it states: “Walk-ins welcome! No highchairs or booster seats are available as we prioritize guest safety and comfort. Thank you for understanding.” Translation: We don’t what your screaming, snot nose kids at our upscale restaurant, But pirates are fine. Bahahahaha!

But, in all seriousness, it had a great view of the Mystic River. We chose to have a longer wait time for a table just to sit outside near the water. It was worth the wait. Our servers complimented us on our pirate garb as did guests. The food was yummy and there were gorgeous flowers all around us. It was pretty magical actually.

Chris chose not to have even one boozy drink because he was going to take over driving upon leaving and we had a 3.5 hour drive to Wildwood State Park. I, on the other hand, wanted to try another New England beer from Porland, ME called, Allagash White. Yum! I asked for a local pale ale and what was suggested was perfect. Chris ordered smoked squid and clam chowder. He said that the squid was ok, but way too smokey and the portion was tiny, but the chowder was awesome. He left feeling hungry still. Aww.

I, on the other hand, loved what I got! I got a trio of Vegetable Tacos that, according to thisismystic.com, is “packed with eggplant, yellow squash, red pepper, onion, black beans, and corn.  Mild spices accent rather than overwhelm the beautiful ingredients. Smokey flavor is detected from slices of grilled avocado topping each flour tortilla. “

After dinner we de-pirated right at the car in the parking lot lol! Classy. We just had a long drive ahead of us and we were both more comfortable changing into the comfy clothes we would be sleeping in later. I was happy with that decision because once it got dark, I had a hard time keeping my eyes open. I guess a day of pirating will do that to ya! I knew I wanted to go to my hammock shortly after getting to camp, so I took a sleep aid about 20 before arrival. My app said that we ran around for only 3 miles, but I was tired from not much sleep, so it felt like more.

It was a chilly and drizzly night, but I stood there in a field in the pitch darkness and held the light for Chris as he set-up his tent. I tried to stand under the raised trunk to keep me from getting colder than I already was with the light rain. The only glow of light was from the bathhouse not too far away. At first I thought we were the only people there, but later saw and heard people going to the bathroom. As soon as he was all set, I put up my hammock really quickly and jumped in it after we had a snack. I didn’t do much of anything else before I fell asleep…

May 8th:

I woke up at 7:15 AM. I tried to force myself to go back to sleep for a little bit and I did get a little more. I ungracefully flopped out of my hammock at 9:30 and told Chris we had to get moving because RoadTrippers kind of screwed us over. The New York Edgar Allan Poe house in the Bronx was the plan for the day. The app assumed that we would take the ferry to and from Long Island where we camped and we were not planning that nor did we know about any ferry until the directions took us there. So instead of an hour and a half to the Poe house, it was a 2 1/2 hour drive. We were planning on coming back and camping at the same spot afterwards because the campground was a two night minimum, but it didn’t make sense anymore to do that. It was cheap enough, even for NY standards, so I found a place to camp in New Jersey for the night instead while he drove. I knew I would have to drive in the city, so Chris took the first shift of driving.

I had a nice hot shower again… almost too hot. Of course you can’t adjust the temperature. That’s fun. It had a draw string instead of a button like the others on the trip which was cool because I was able wrap the long cord around the faucet tightly to keep the hot water flowing non-stop. This was the first real shower on the trip. No rushing because it was freezing, no non stop button pushing to get water…just normal…except it nearly burned my flesh off. My pet peeve was that there were no hooks to hang anything or shelves. I hate that.

We left the campsite a little bit before noon and our scheduled tour was at 2pm. Apparently, you used to be able to go anytime during their hours of operation for a tour before Covid and now you have to make an appointment. I quickly realized that we were not gonna make it especially with New York traffic factored in. Where does the time go?! I quickly emailed the guy and told him that we would be late and I’d love it if we could move it to 3 PM. He got right back to me and said that was fine. For a while there I was a bit concerned that we would even make the 3 PM appointment, but we rolled in about 2:30PM. I don’t even know how that happened.

We pulled into a parking lot across the street, but did not get out of the car right away. We heard loud screaming coming from a woman and a man diagonal to us in the street and that was with the window up. They were fighting for a good several minutes. She was trying to walk and he was driving…all I kept hearing was the women screaming that she told the man he could go. Really?! That’s how on edge people in in NY are man. I took that time to message my EverWalk walking group friend, Ann Marie Rakovic, to see if she was up for and available to meet for dinner in a few hours, but she had other plans already. I understand that it was last minute, but we had no idea how long things would take and we were only passing through and seeing a few things before running away from the hustle and bustle. It was a long shot, but I had to try. She has a walking group that walks in Central Park every week and I didn’t realize how close we would be to Central Park. Turns out that we were so close that I literally drove right past it while fleeing the area after we did everything. I snapped a terrible photo while driving for proof. Haha!

So, once the mean guy drove away from the screaming woman and we felt safe enough to get out of the car, we headed into the cute cottage that does not fit into the environment whatsoever anymore. It was finally a warm day. We had to wait until our tour guide finished up with another small group, so we heard the last part of the tour twice. I didn’t mind. I knew most everything that was said on the tour anyway, but I loved seeing the cute little cottage. That was the house where Poe’s young wife, Virginia died at the age 24 of tuberculosis. According to what I read on-line beforehand, her very death bed was in this house, but our guide told us that they couldn’t be certain of that fact. He paid $100/ year to live there with his wife and mother-in-law and they seemed to like it. Maria Clemm (mother-in-law) wrote, “It was the sweetest little cottage imaginable. Oh, how supremely happy we were in our dear cottage home!”

Poe wrote Annabel Lee”, “Eureka”, “The Bells”, and one of my all-time favorites, “Ulalume” there while his cat, Caterina sat on his shoulder. It is thought that, “Landor’s Cottage” was inspired by this home. It was very cute. I wanted to take video of the entire tour and the guide said that that was ok, but I forgot to actually hit, “record” again at one point, so I did not get some of it. Grrr…

After the cottage tour, we headed for The High Bridge to walk in the steps of Poe once again. His walking The High Bridge was depicted in the lithograph, “Poe Walking on the High Bridge” and I wanted to do my own version of that scene although it was not snowing and cold as it was in the original. It was very warm, in fact and I was happy about that.

So my thoughts upon looking at the bridge were: 1. Whoa that is really high up. 2. How did I not think to factor in the fact that we would have to climb 1 million stairs to get up to the high bridge to walk it. And 3. Oh my god this is really high up and I hate being on bridges because I don’t trust them! In that order. I eventually got comfortable being up there, but I didn’t want to look directly over the edge.

On the way up and down, there were a couple of groups of kids milling about. one group was smoking while others were sitting enjoying the view with their significant others. On the bridge itself there were people running, moms walking babies in carriages, bike riders, couples and one older lady sitting alone on of the many benches up there and staring out at the view. I gotta say it was much more populated than I thought it would be. It’s a whole community up there.

I have to admit that I was worried about the structural integrity of that old ass bridge, but we didn’t die, so that was cool. It was much more amazing than I thought it would be, honestly. It was pretty exhilarating and I was very happy to have walked it. If you can find the beauty in a cityscape, if you want a cheap thrill, or if you are just a Poe fan, then you have to check it out. City scenes are not my favorite thing, and even I thought it was a pretty cool view. The bridge goes over the Harlem River into Manhattan, so if you look past all the concrete, you can see that too. Also, something to note, it looked much, much different in Poe’s time.

“During Mr. Poe’s residence at Fordham a walk to the High Bridge was one of his favorite and habitual recreations,” wrote Sarah Helen Whitman in a memoir “In the last melancholy years of his life—’the lonesome latter years’—Poe was accustomed to walk there at all times of the day and night; often pacing the then solitary pathways for hours without meeting a human being,”

After cooking in the bright sun up there while walking back and forth a few times myself to get my photo, I noticed my skin was a bit red afterwards. The redness started on Saturday with Levi & Tommy, got redder walking around Mystic Seaport and even redder on The High Bridge. “I didn’t even take a tropical vacation, yet I’ll be returning looking like I did”, I thought.

Once we left The High Bridge, it was time to head to Edgar’s Cafe for dinner. We were hungry and ready! Of course, the traffic was awful again, but I was happy to find a place to park not a million miles away…just under one. Score! We scurried like the rest of the city ants to our destination. I instantly saw how cool the decor was. It was full of antiques from Poe’s time and Poe paintings. Upon sitting Chris pointed out to the waitress that I had an Ohio Poe fans shirt (My buddy Mel started this group on Facebook with my help) on which has a print of Poe’s face. When she looked at it, her face lit up and she went and instantly grabbed the other waiter and then he, in turn, grabbed the owner. They were all foreign and had very thick accents, so it was hard to make out everything that they were saying, but they were definitely excited that I had a Poe shirt on. The owner pointed to the face on my shirt and pointed to a large painting of Poe behind Chris. “Yep, that’s the same guy!” I felt very weirdly like a celebrity…but a nerdy one. The owner proceeded to point to all the Poe things that I already saw around the small restaurant/ bar. It was cute. He told us that his place used to be on 84th and Broadway for 24 years before the lease was up. They then moved down the street where they remain now.

He also told me that his original place is where Poe wrote “The Raven” even though he had an illustration on the wall 4 feet from him that said differently (not photographed). It was an illustration of the Poe cottage that we just had a tour at with a caption that said that Poe wrote The Raven there. Our guide said that he wrote it while living on a farm on the upper West side (on 84th and Broadway). But, more accurately, Poe wrote, “The Raven” over a 10 year span and, in my research, possibly finished it at the boarding house in NY, but not the cottage more than likely. Could he have finished it and published it at the cottage? Sure, it’s possible, but different websites said that he finished it and published it at the farm boarding house, but that was destroyed in 1888 with the “Raven’s mantel” being saved and presented to Columbia University in 1908. I guess what we know for certain is that he finished it sometime while in NY whether it was the cottage or the boarding house, but do I believe dude’s story that his restaurant used to be there or did he embellish for the sake of advertising? I am not sure.

So, I just assumed that the owner would be a huge fan of Poe and that’s why his place is all decked out like that however, when I asked him if he was a Poe fan himself, he said flat out, “No” without hesitation and laughed. Both Chris and I were really confused why he would name his place, Edgar’s Cafe, and have Poe stuff everywhere if he was not a fan. Advertising purposes only is my guess. That aside, I will say the place had excellent food and they were very attentive and seemingly friendly. I had potato gnocchi with pesto sauce and he had ravioli. The prices were a bit high to us Ohioans, but that’s Manhattan for you. They were fine for Manhattan prices.

Everyone that knows me, knows my disdain for big cities, however I will say that I love how dog friendly NY is. I still feel bad for city dogs just like I feel bad for city people having to live in that concrete hell, but at least they wont go thirsty. Edgar’s Cafe, like many other places, had a watering spot for dogs out front and a patio for dining with your furry buddy as we saw many do along our walk.

After we were fat and happy, I drove Chris around Times Square and up and down Broadway and said to enjoy it because I was never driving in that city ever again if I had any say about it. He enjoyed the city lights from out the car window while I navigated the crazy ass traffic and then we were off. I couldn’t wait to get out of that congested and horrible place. How do people live like that?!

I couldn’t wait to leave the city. I was happy to see and do the things we did, but I was ready to leave, for sure. We had a 2 hour drive to our campsite for the night. I drove until we were most of the way there, but it got so dark in the forest and I had to pull over and let Chris take over the last few minutes to camp. It was so dark, that I had my awesome bright camp light hanging out of the car window to read signs and camp numbers like I have many times before.

We saw 2 waddling beavers on the side of the road, a deer and a raccoon that ran in front of my car on the way to the campground deep into the woods of New Jersey. I was so happy to be far away from cities. It took us a lot longer to get to the campsite then originally planned. So much confusion. The campground is in the national forest, but that forest is HUGE and GPS did not make a lot of sense at all depending on which side you come in from. We came in from the side that did not have the sign up front. Thanks GPS. We drove for many many miles before we realized that we were going nowhere. We only saw trees and animals trying to die. So, Chris looked up the map on his phone and I looked up the park and found written directions on the site which helped out a lot! Don’t go by GPS if trying to camp here. Just saying.

Anyway, we finally got to the campsite around 11. After he set up, he drank the warm beers that sat in the water remaining from the ice that melted days ago. I drank my lemon water. We, then went our separate ways to play our games, write notes for this blog or whatever we do to wind down. The entire place smelled like pine. It was lovely…

May 9th:

I woke up a bunch of times in the night and fell asleep later than I had been. It was probably 2am or later. I kept trying to go back to sleep until around 10 and then I just gave up. My eyes were really tired the day before and I still managed do all of that crazy big city driving…but this insomniac had to do it again. We were headed to Philly for the last big city stop. Originally, the plan was to tour the Philadelphia Edgar Allan Poe house, however I found out when planning that they were only open on the weekends and there was no way to make the trip work with this day falling on a weekend. It just was not meant to be, but I still wanted to see the house since we were passing through the area on the way home. Also, there is a huge mural of Poe on a brick building facing the Poe house.

We were both sluggish, but eventually we dragged ourselves into the showers. On the way to the bathhouse, I saw a sign that mentioned spraying for gypsy moths by airplane. Ummm… that would’ve been nice for them to tell us when we booked the campsite that we were going to be sprayed by chemicals. I did notice a couple of planes flying by the night before, but didn’t think anything of it. That is until I saw the sign. That’s some bullshit. I was not happy with that surprise discovery.

The shower was nice and warm and had one thing the other showers did not… water pressure. Except the water pressure was so high, I thought It was gonna rip my nipple off. Also, the shower was built for a person 5 foot or less. Also, not enough hooks or shelves to place things again. I was literally holding my stuff while trying to brush my teeth and brush my hair. I eventually just went back to the car to drop stuff off and finish getting ready there. Man, I’ve stayed at sooooo many campsite that if I ever own a campsite, I definitely know what to do and what not to do…

I wanted him to take the wheel first and see how he would handle driving in Philly since it was a smaller big city and I thought he could handle it and also I was tired as hell. Our first goal was to find food, though. We were in a small town and finding food was difficult. We finally found a Mexican place on the map, but when we got there the area looked shady as hell and we didn’t want to even get out of the car. Moving on, we finally came across a Golden Corral in Bensalem, PA and I knew that they had a salad bar, so that was it! It was not a great choice, but we were starving, and it looked to be the only choice in that area other than fast food. 10 minutes after watching 11 vultures devour a deer carcass, we were getting our own noms. Appetizing…

From there, we were 30 minutes away from the Philly Poe House and Chris was still driving. I did so much big city driving the other days that I just needed a break. When we got there, I knew it was closed, but we walked around and got photos in front of the Poe Mural and I peaked in the door. We were there mere minutes then he drove us out of there.

Our very last stop before heading home was to see The World’s Largest Clothespin. It took us a bit of circling to actually find the thing, even though it was large, so were all the downtown buildings. We didn’t even stop because the traffic got thick and he was not doing well with the driving in that situation. So, I snapped a photo out of the car while he was freaking out, but then was trying to find a spot for him to safely pull over. His driving was scaring me, so I finally just told him to pull off on a shoulder, I threw on my blinkers and we did a Chinese fire drill to let me take over driving through the rest of the city. Whew…

A couple hours later, I needed a driving smoothie. I had him searching on-line, but we didn’t find any good ones until Jamba Juice around 6:30. I don’t like the ones that add sherbet, sugary juices, etc to their smoothies, but most places do that and I end up making my own concoction up on the spot anyway. Up until then we were snacking on peanuts. He was sweet enough to keep handing me them while driving like I was a good little circus elephant.

After I got us safely past Philly and Baltimore, he took back over driving at a gas fill up around 7:45 and by 11:15 we we were back in Ohio with one more final fill-up before home. By 2:15 am we were back at my house with all the contents of the car sitting on my living room floor and his stuff back in his truck. He drove home and I was left cuddling my happy kitty, Gingi in my own bed again…until next time.

1 billion cars, 1,963 miles, 9 states, 6 days…and one now happy kitty…until the next trip.