Welcome to America's Stonehenge

WELCOME FELLOW SNARKERS.  THIS HISTORICAL SITE IS FULL OF PRE-COLUMBIAN STRUCTURES MADE BY CELTIC MONKS (the CULDEES) OR OTHER NON-NATIVE OR POSSIBLY NATIVE SUPER OLD CULTURES AND NOT BY 18TH-19TH CENTURY FARMERS.  THESE ANCIENT STRUCTURES WERE NOT REARRANGED OR CREATED IN AN ATTEMPT TO SCAM TOURIST DOLLARS BY CREATING AN AIR OF "MYSTERY AND MYSTICISM."  THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION.

America's Stonehenge!  This little hill up in Salem, New Hampshire, was first referred to in the "History of Salem" as Jonathan Pattee's cave.  The site was "studied" by William Goodwin around 1937, Goodwin redubbing it "Mystery Hill." Goodwin was the first to suggest that "mystery hill" had been inhabited by Pre-Columbian peoples.  In fact, he was so convinced that he rearranged the rocks into what he considered to be their "original" positions, as laid out by these archaic folk, and many of the stones have drill marks from his quarrying.  I mean, from pre-Columbian quarrying.  While there is no doubt that native people have been living here for a very, very long time, unfortunately there is no connection between regular Stonehenge and "America's" Stonehenge, and the site's current name was implemented to try to distance it from all those fake roadside attractions, and give it weight as an active archeological site.  You know, by giving it a name with no historical or archeological base in fact.  While there is no doubt that native people have been here for quite some time, it seems like the Astronomical structures were more Goodwin's doing than anything else.  Still, the site has attracted interest and visits from the likes of HP Lovecraft (the site inspiring his "the Dunwich Horror"), Leonard Nimoy (on "In Search of"), William Shatner (on "Weird or What") and of course, most impressively, Lizzie and me.

Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)

After lunch/dinner, we made the fifty mile trek back to our car, pretty sure the whole time that we were going to die from frost bite.  Goodbye, Nantasket!  See you in a few months.  Goodbye and Godspeed, Bacon Bear.  I'll miss you...

Look Around Your World Pretty Baby

Blending in with the locals.  See what I mean by the 1990s outfit?

This ain't no disco; It ain't no country club either

After hours (20 minutes) of wandering, Lizzie and I stopped at the Paragon Grill (wonder where they got that name from) to eat delicious fried food, except Lizzie got a salad like a salad-eating jerk.  I, on the other hand, had a clam roll, which had a weird little fried thing in it I called "the Bacon Bear."  (See picture below.  Also, a macro lens is really good for seeing what winter dry skin looks like.  Enjoy!)  I obviously could not eat the bacon bear, so I made him a nice nest in the coleslaw. 

We ate in the lounge, and therefore enjoyed the finest of people watching. There was a creeper who was making the rounds ogling the ladies, and I saw him grab one of the female servers around the waist.  He went outside at one point, threw two stones into his truck bed and drove away, only to return 10 minutes later to continue his patrols.  His truck had a dead wreath on the front, and we were delighted to see he left his lights on, so hopefully when he returns from his creeping, his battery will be as dead as the wreath.  HOPE YOU LIKE BEING INCONVENIENCED, CREEP!
 
 We could see out to the ocean from our table, and kept a weary eye on two surfers who were braving the 38 degree water temperatures to catch the sad waves that Nantasket has to offer.  They were pretty far out (to sea, that is) and Lizzie and I were afraid they would drown while we were distracted by our food.  Also outside was scary smoking lady (TM) who would pass by in your direct field of vision when you least expected her, and bench staring guy (TM) who stared, not at the water, but at a bench in front of the water.  Bench, you looking good.  Oh!  There was a model of the old coaster at Paragon park in the grill's lobby, and several people went by and stared at it by pressing their face directly to the glass containing it.  Nantasket beach: where staring means caring.

Who Let the Dogs Out?*

 Can you think of a more unfortunately named restaurant than "Daddy's Dogs?"

Probably, but I still don't like it.

Hull's Kitchen, though...I see what you did there...


* Who Let the Dogs Out was originally recorded in 1998, so officially qualifies as a 90s song, despite the cover by the Baha Men coming out in 2000.  Yes, that was a cover.  Sorry.

Sorry About the Weather

 Despite the desolate looking pictures, it was actually pretty crowded here.  Also, people weren't dressed for the cold weather and biting wind (myself included) because to quote my friend Lizzie, "it's that time of the year where people dress like it's warm as if that will somehow force Spring to show up."

Plus the weather people said it was going to be in the 50s.  They also said our three-day snowstorm that brought some places two feet of snow was going to be all rain, though, soooo....

Everybody Rock Your Body

Rock your body right. (States of Snark is back, alright!)  Disclaimer:  I had a super 90s outfit on today, and we heard a lot of 90s music on our adventures.

Hiiiiiii!  So despite having "sprung ahead" (sprang ahead?) today into Daylight Savings' time, your pals at States of Snark decided to go back, to the future!  J/K, we decided to go back to the past aka Plimoth plantation, but when we got there, Lizzie parked in a less than "in the lines" sort of way, and an angry man came out of a hut and yelled at us because they don't open until next week. 

Never ones to be deterred by poor planning, we drove north until we found something interesting: Nantasket Beach.   Nantasket Beach is part of the town of Hull, which is a peninsula, and I like to say peninsula.  Peninsula.  During high tide, the beach completely disappears and people sit on their cars waiting for the tide to go back out.  Since it is freezing, this time people mostly sat in their cars and smoked.  The people watching here is always spectacular, no matter what the season.

Nantasket for a long time was home to Paragon park, an amusement park which closed in 1984.  Notable guests include my Dad, and my Aunt and their friends.  All that remains of the park are the carousel and the arcade, but you can see some great pictures and an old commercial here Paragon Park Memories. I am going to look through it later to see if I can find any pictures of my Dad scaring his sister on the "Kooky Kastle," a so called "horror-themed dark ride" (Thanks, Wikipedia!). 

With Paragon park being gone, and with it being 39 degrees out, the biggest attraction there today (other than people watching) was metal detecting.  We saw oodles of folks combing the beach for King Triton's nipple ring amongst the stones that were tossed up during last week's nor'easter.  Seriously there were rocks everywhere--anyone stupid enough to hang out on the boardwalk during the storm got stoned in the non "let's eat cheetos and listen to Pink Floyd" way.