The day started out with big rain, which meant that JR's fun-filled birthday adventure plans had to be postponed. Instead of a long outdoor romp in the woods we decided a cold, rainy Saturday afternoon was a perfect opportunity to explore a new town and brewery our friends Stewart and Ryan recommended last night: s Haverhill, MA.
Haverhill (founded 1640) was once the gem of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Well, maybe that's an exaggeration, but it did have a big-time shoe-making industry, and was known for a while as Queen Slipper City, which is a pretty sweet, if weird, nickname. Another fun wiki-fact is that Haverhill was the site of the Haverhill Fever, also known as Rat Bite fever, in 1926-- something the Haverhill history museum failed to tell us, believe it or not!
Our primary interest in Haverhill, besides being told it was a very cool historical town on a river, was the Haverhill Brewery, which came highly recommended (and was in fact fantastic). Before making it there, we stopped at the historical society/Haverhill Museum to see if we might hear some interesting history or get some good local tips on places to explore.
We ended up talking to Wilbur (name changed to protect his privacy) for about an hour-- because Wilbur it turns out is a one-man New England travel agency and he had all sorts of great ideas about where to go in MA, NH, VT and ME. My personal favorite was Adventure Suites in New Hampshire which has exotic and enticing rooms one can stay in such as "The Cave", "Love Shack", "The Tree House", "Motorcycle Madness" and "Dragon's Lair". According to the Boston Globe "it's like sleeping in a theme park". We love it.
After looking through Wilbur's historic New England travel book collection and with armfuls of travel brochures, we ventured out into the rain. We headed to the nearest riverside trail, which turned out to be a walk along what we christened "trash trail". It was very romantic. We were below the level of the road beside the river, mostly walking on wet branches and trash. But we saw some birds, and there was a nice river, and, you know, it was only raining lightly.... We were glad that we didn't have anyone visiting us this weekend.
After our nice nature hike, we decided it was time for the brewery. It was interesting walking through the old shoe factory district - we found cool murals in some alley-ways, which seemed a bit of an odd place for historical murals, but whatever.
The Haverhill Brewery, which is located in a pub called The Tap is fantastic-- and we had several pints and some great homemade chilli. The place itself was old and cosy, and we flipped through some of our new travel brochures. After two pints for Grumpus and one for Mumpus, we decided that it was time to call it a day, so we went back to the car. When we got back to the car we couldn't find the keys. Anywhere. Not on the ground, not in our bags, not in The Tap -- nowhere. It was terrible.
We called AAA, and 20 minutes later the dude who uses a balloon-link tool to unlock car doors showed up. He was able to open the door but, alas, the keys were not in the car. Even more terrible!
We then learned about the most wonderful person in the world: the cut-a-new-car-key-in-a-van-so-idiots-like-grumpus-can-drive-home-man. After waiting for 45 more minutes, the key-man showed up, drilled a hole in the side of our door, read the key code on the inside and went back to a machine in the van that cut two new keys in about 5 minutes. He gave us the keys, we paid him, and then we were gotta there.
Our planned adventure was a lot more fun than the unplanned one, and we were happy to make it home with our car tonight.
Haverhill (founded 1640) was once the gem of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Well, maybe that's an exaggeration, but it did have a big-time shoe-making industry, and was known for a while as Queen Slipper City, which is a pretty sweet, if weird, nickname. Another fun wiki-fact is that Haverhill was the site of the Haverhill Fever, also known as Rat Bite fever, in 1926-- something the Haverhill history museum failed to tell us, believe it or not!Our primary interest in Haverhill, besides being told it was a very cool historical town on a river, was the Haverhill Brewery, which came highly recommended (and was in fact fantastic). Before making it there, we stopped at the historical society/Haverhill Museum to see if we might hear some interesting history or get some good local tips on places to explore.
We ended up talking to Wilbur (name changed to protect his privacy) for about an hour-- because Wilbur it turns out is a one-man New England travel agency and he had all sorts of great ideas about where to go in MA, NH, VT and ME. My personal favorite was Adventure Suites in New Hampshire which has exotic and enticing rooms one can stay in such as "The Cave", "Love Shack", "The Tree House", "Motorcycle Madness" and "Dragon's Lair". According to the Boston Globe "it's like sleeping in a theme park". We love it.
After our nice nature hike, we decided it was time for the brewery. It was interesting walking through the old shoe factory district - we found cool murals in some alley-ways, which seemed a bit of an odd place for historical murals, but whatever. The Haverhill Brewery, which is located in a pub called The Tap is fantastic-- and we had several pints and some great homemade chilli. The place itself was old and cosy, and we flipped through some of our new travel brochures. After two pints for Grumpus and one for Mumpus, we decided that it was time to call it a day, so we went back to the car. When we got back to the car we couldn't find the keys. Anywhere. Not on the ground, not in our bags, not in The Tap -- nowhere. It was terrible.
We called AAA, and 20 minutes later the dude who uses a balloon-link tool to unlock car doors showed up. He was able to open the door but, alas, the keys were not in the car. Even more terrible!
We then learned about the most wonderful person in the world: the cut-a-new-car-key-in-a-van-so-idiots-like-grumpus-can-drive-home-man. After waiting for 45 more minutes, the key-man showed up, drilled a hole in the side of our door, read the key code on the inside and went back to a machine in the van that cut two new keys in about 5 minutes. He gave us the keys, we paid him, and then we were gotta there.
Our planned adventure was a lot more fun than the unplanned one, and we were happy to make it home with our car tonight.
The hole is very small and covered by a plastic plug. If you took off the plug, I bet that you could put your thumb in it!
ReplyDelete