The Urban Pantheist

HEY LOOK.

It's one of my Dogtown photos, used on the front page of the Cape Ann Beacon. (with permission)

I hadn't been back to Dogtown since November. For Alexis the last time going there was last April. One of the reasons for that is that there's a shooting range nearby, and the sound of gunshots scares Maggie into immobility. She can't hike very far because of her leg surgery anyway, so we left her at home with Alex, and took Charlie and Jim.

( a dozen or so more )

Maybe I just don't really want to do a snapshot a day project. I'm not sure. They aren't as fun when you get them a week at a time. This week I'll try to go back to posting them daily. Pictured here is Ron's Gourmet Ice Cream in Dedham. Alexis and Alex loved their frappes, I hated the 'non-fat base frozen yogurt.' Apparently their other location has a bowling alley.

( Read more... )

Dogtown was a village in the town of Gloucester that was deserted after the Revolutionary War. Later, after the forest has swallowed the ruins of the village, stonecutters were commissioned by noted rich weirdo Roger Babson, to cut inspirational sayings in many of the huge boulders scattered across the landscape. It once was hard to find information about the place, but now Wikipedia has a pretty good entry on both Dogtown and Babson. There was also a good piece of historical fiction called The Last Days of Dogtown recently published.

We like to hike there with the dogs, exploring both the natural points of interest, and the stone relics. cottonmanifesto, belen1974, rockbalancer, and the two dogs who make up chaggie and I went there today. For some reason on this visit we encountered more of the inscribed boulders (16 out of 23) than ever before. They get to be a little redundant in a series of photos, but hopefully there is enough of interest here that you go look at the others' journal to see their pictures, too.

( 21 more pictures! (yes, I added one since yesterday!) )

My father left us with his car for two weeks, Alexis and I both had the day off, and it was insanely sunny, hot, and beautiful, so we took the dogs hiking in Dogtown (Click the link to get the full story of the name and the weird carved rocks. It's bona fide New England ghost town. Of course the forest swallows everything up in New England, if it isn't cut back, so it's hard to find the evidence of the village.)

Note to my brother, brush_rat (and anyone who wants to find the place and it's rocks), we used these directions to find the place, and at that entrance there are actual trail maps. Next time you come, we won't get lost.



( lots more pictures )

Cross-posted to cottonmanifesto and maybe found_objects