Life's Next Adventures: New England Day 7 & 8

Our last day and a half in New England was certainly a memorable one! We started off the day in Boston and drove through Salem to get to Gloucester for a whale seeing excursion! While in Salem, who wouldn't stop at the Salem Witch Museum. If you learn one thing ever from my blog, this should be it...are you listening?

DO NOT STOP AT THE SALEM WITCH MUSEUM! Biggest waste of money ever! It was like $11, and all that gets you is pass into two rooms (one for this like history lesson where it shines a light on statues that you can barely see and then the other is for a room where an employee talks). #notworthit

Then it was off to Gloucester for our whale watching excursion. This was my birthday present for me from CJ so I was especially excited that I did not have to pay for it :) Our boat ride out took about an hour and we passed boats....

more boats....

old factories....

colorful houses....

and lighthouses!

Here we are ready to see some whales:

Our first spotting was a Mola Mola (also called an ocean sunfish), this little guy has recently made headlines if you have seen this video, excuse the language in that one. But this Boston guy thinks he is seeing a baby whale but actually he is just seeing a Sunfish like this little guy below:

Then we kept going and came upon this little one:

It is a leatherback turtle, and apparently a very rare sitting (we did not get good pictures so I borrowed these from the company that took us out). The specialist actually said this trip was her favorite in as long as she can remember because we saw so many whales and got to see the turtle!

Next it was onto the whales! We saw fin whales, minke whales and humpback whales!

This was another much smaller boat in the distance, I loved how close the whales got to this boat!

Happy Customers! If you are in the Massachusetts area and are looking for a whale watching excursion, definitely check out Cape Ann Whale Watch!

On the way back in, it got real chilly so we spent some time inside the boat, but here are some other sittings on the way back.... more lighthouses:

More boats:

Same old factory:

And even more boats:

We had a great time aboard the Hurricane II!!!

Then after a great suggestion from Kathryn, CJ and I headed to Rockport, a cute little sea-side town of less than 7,000 that is right near the Cape Ann peninsula!

This is really the quintessential sea-port town:

Oh hello there little seagull:

Lobster (or should I say Lobstah) Traps:

Motif #1, apparently this is one of the most often painted buildings in America. Interesting tidbit. This one is actually a replica of the original which was destroyed during the blizzard of 1978. I love that it was such a symbolic piece to the artists and locals alike that even after it was destroyed it was rebuilt so people could have it to continue painting!