Boston Trip: If This Is Wednesday, It Must Be Rockport

After breakfast with Dick and Linda, we programmed our GPS, Maggie, to lead the way to our hotel by the sea, The Seaward Inn in Rockport. It was a gorgeous day, with blue skies above and little traffic to contend with.

This photo is my feeble attempt at an artsy way to portray the feel of the road on our journey.
That is Maggie in the upper right portion of the car's windshield. 

Along the way we saw windmills right by the side of the road.  They seemed so incongruous there sandwiched in among the trees on flat terrain and so near the vehicles. Frank and I are used to seeing banks of windmills along the sweeping golden hills of California and not in a so densely built up region.

Can these windmills really be exposed to much wind in their flat, shielded location?

By way of contrast, these windmills are part of a wind farm situated in the sweeping hills of the Altamont Pass
near our home in California.

We arrived at the Seaward Inn and felt it would be a restful and calming stay, judging by the rocking chairs beckoning from the front porch and the beautiful ocean view shimmering in from all six of the windows in our two room suite.

Rockers on the front porch were a great place to relax and catch the sea breezes.

We watched the sailboats from the swivel rocker pair by the window
before setting out to explore the headlands and downtown.

The extra room gave a panoramic view of the grounds and Sandy Bay
and provided an out of the way place to stretch out our suitcases.

The Seaward Inn is the lower red star near the mid bottom of the map. We set out on foot to explore downtown, near the H on the map, by taking the garden path and headland path along the water's edge. We returned on an inland route along Main Street.

Seaward Inn is at the lower red star at the mid-bottom of the map.
Downtown is at the H, an enjoyable walking distance from the inn.

The path was well-marked.

Frank is on his way toward the headlands portion of the path.
At the headlands you are at a scenic outcropping overlooking the bay.

Once in town, we bought ice cream and ate it overlooking the boats that were moored and watching the folks that were coming and going.

We sat in the backyard of the ice cream store, enjoying our treat for both the taste buds the eyes.

We strolled throughout the seaside artists' community of Rockport, looking in the shops and boutiques at glassware, jewelry, pewter castings, pottery, hand crafted clothing, paintings, and sculptures. We ate a fish dinner at a bayside restaurant and decided to head back leisurely to the inn. We happened on a second downtown ice cream parlor. We did not eat there but we photographed its sign as a tribute to our daughter Robin.

I just love the whimsical sign for this ice cream parlor.

Frank and I played a game of Scrabble in the lobby before retiring for the night. He beat me but just by a few points. I claim that is because I was nice and let him try for another word and not forfeit his turn when he misspelled raisins,"raisens". He claims if I were really being nice, I would not have pointed that out. The next morning we had a window seat for breakfast in the dining portion of the first floor area. We also spent some time before leaving reading and relaxing in the bay window, soaking up the ambience and view. Although we were there less than 24 hours, we were so glad we'd made the effort to squeeze in the slow paced down time for ourselves here in Rockport.

Frank and I spent our last enjoyable hours at the Seaward Inn
by sitting here and reading before heading off to Gloucester and the airport.