July 5th 2015: Spending the Day with My Friend in Gloucester

After seeing my catch from blueberry picking in Cider Hill Farm yesterday, my friend wanted to go too, so we went first thing today. We were sent to another patch to pick them, and using what I learnt yesterday about picking sweet blueberries, we got a good bunch today, along with some cider donuts as well.

From here, we wanted to visit Crane Beach in Ipswich, but as it was filled with people, we decided to go to Gloucester instead, heading first to the Hammond Castle Museum. This home of the famous inventor John Hays Hammond Jr. was built to exactly resemble a castle in more ways than one. Pictures I took of the entire place during our guided tour, which mentioned the various tricks the inventor would play on his house guests in different parts of the place, follow.

The views of the ocean outside were awesome as well.

After leaving the museum, we decided it was time for some food, so we headed to Gloucester House for some seafood, for the third day in a row.

This time, we got a Baked Stuffed Clam (Clams, bacon, fresh breadcrumbs, peppers, and onion),

the Fishermen's Soup (Light, spicy tomato broth with onions, peppers, and chef’s daily seafood selection)

and the Grilled Swordfish Steak (blackened with pineapple salsa).

The clam was pretty good, while the soup was delicious, filled with the essence of fish. The swordfish was a little dry though.

After lunch, as we were in the area, we decided to visit Maritime Gloucester, a small museum

with a small aquarium with touch tanks.

Definitely not worth the 8 bucks admission per person we paid though.

The Whale Center of New England was free, but there was nothing much to see here.

Finally back at my car, we headed to the Eastern Point Wildlife Sanctuary,

Where people were out fishing today on the Dog Bar Breakwater.

After taking a short nap at the Dog Bar Breakwater Light, we headed back to shore and went to the Lone Gull Coffeehouse for a drink, with my friend getting an Island Time (coconut and mango) Lemonade, while I got a White Peach Lemonade

and a Lone Gull Classic Italian Panini (Salami, Mortadella, Ham, Provolone, Tomato, Herb Seasoned Olive Oil, Pickles).

Pretty good sandwich and drink, although nothing special.

At this point, we decided to head for home, stopping one last time for dinner at the new Flaming Grill and Supreme Buffet in Revere, which was filled with people today.

Thankfully, we were able to get a seat.

The food was just typical Chinese buffet food though, and a lot of it was not very fresh. Definitely not coming back again. With that, an extremely fun weekend in the Upper North Shore area finally came to an end. Back to work tomorrow.