Boston Harbor Walk-Deer Island

I wrote about a walk in Salem, Mass. 

Now, in Boston. Even closer to my place. 

Continuous attempt to walk and explore in the relatively close places. We often go to New Hampshire or Western Mass, but those are mostly forest and I wanted to do some different types of walk. 

This time we tried Deer Island in Boston Harbor. It is called Deer Island park, but actually it is a part of the peninsula, so it is connected to the mainland. It was only 25 minute drive from our place. Since we were there early morning, parking was not an issue, and it is free. 

This park has a nice trail (paved) for 3 miles. It is all along the Boston Harbor. Inside the loop of the 3 mile is a water waste treatment plant. It is a huge plant with interesting objects like immense egg-shaped tanks. It reminded me of my 3rd-grade trip to waste water treatment plant in Japan as a part of learning trip. In Japan, once a year from 2nd grade to 6th grade there is learning trip. In addition to waste water treatment facility, I remember the trips to fisherman's plant near the harbor of Pacific Ocean, a facility of TOYOTA. Toyota facility was especially interesting and everyone got miniature TOYOTA car as a souvenir! You can learn their way of production in the book "TOYOTA way".

From the trail, you see Boston skyscrapers and Boston airport. I love nature, but as I spent significant times in big cities (Osaka/Nagoya/Tokyo), I like to see skyscrapers as well.

Boston

Another interesting activity about this walk is to see airplanes. The Deer Island is across the Boston International Airport. The airport is other side of peninsula. I love to see airplane taking off and landing. As a very busy airport, you see every few minutes airplane landing and taking off. When planes are landing they fly down over the see and land on the run-way in Boston. Seeing that reminded me of San Francisco airport. San Francisco is the same way, when they land, planes come over the sea. There are good trails in South San Francisco and Foster city to see those landing. It is very similar to this Deer Island walk. 

Somehow I love to see planes landing and taking off. Back in Japan, I would see planes at Haneda airport. This is again by the Tokyo bay of Pacific Ocean. Planes and oceans are really exciting combination to see. 

Plane landing

If it had not been cold and windy at Deer Island, I would have been there watching airplanes longer. 

Nice walk!

Salem Woods and Salem Downtown

One Sunday we explored the Salem area.

I guess many Americans know a town of Salem related to witch trials. There are some museums for the witch trials including National Park Service one's. It is only 30 minute drive from Boston area, so we decided to check the area out. 

When I look up a trail in the area I found Salem Woods Highland Park. We like hiking, so we started the exploring Salem to walk on the trail there. 

At the trailhead there was a trail map sign. Then a paper was put up: Tortie cat is missing. She escaped from a cat cage in the parking lot of vet. I guess she was angry after vet visit and ran away or she was scared of going there and ran away. Next to that notice, there was another paper put up about coyote. It is a warning of cyote.

Hmm, an escaped cat and coyote? An idea came to my mind: a coyote caught the cat? 

Anyway we had a nice small brisk walk. Nobody was there and it was quiet and peaceful. First half was in the woods as the park's name indicates. Then at the half way there was big marsh area. The word "marsh" always reminds me of marsh area in Palo Alto, CA, because that is the first time I learned the word, and I hiked, biked, and ran there many times. It is not a great idea to hike IN marsh, but nice to hike around marsh area. 

Forest

Marsh area

Then we went to the Salem downtown area. I know a lot of normal (non-hiker) people visit Salem for weekend fun. I saw many people walking on the main street. There are many restaurants, coffee places, book stores, souvenir shops. In addition to those, there are some attraction spots, including witch house and witch museum. To be honest, I was a little disappointed to see even National Park Service visitor center had witch cartoon's T-shirts, mugs, key chains, etc. Now Salem looks a quite touristic place to me, rather than historic landmark.

Witch House

Salem Witch Musum

I think that it is important to remember, learn about witch trials. How human fear gets crazy and spread in a wrong way (hysteria). Also it is a good example to think what the right judging system is. Based on this dark, tragic, but important history, I felt bit weird by seeing a lot of "cute"or "scary" witch cartoons. 

Despite of that, cappuccino I got in Salem was great.