After leaving the cute town square of Merrimac, I continued eastward on Route 110. I managed to have a phone call with a prospective client (I have a hands free phone system in my car, don’t worry!) and managed to follow the signs on Route 150 until I found myself in the “Town of Amesbury“. (I mention this as Amesbury is officially a city, but it is one of about 15 municipalities in the Commonwealth that have city government but wish to be officially called “The Town of”.
I’ve heard of Amesbury before, but have never had the occasion to visit, and was pleasantly surprised. It has a nice center with your standard New England style white churches, but it doesn’t have a common, but a downtown intersection. Upon walking around, I could see that Amesbury was also proud to be a carriage manufacturing town (which shouldn’t surprise me as Merrimac was a part of Amesbury before becoming its own town.) There were murals of some of its famous ciitzens (Abolitionist and author John Greenleaf Whittier and Cartoonist Al Capp), and they had a really cool reconstructed mill complex with an amphitheater next to the Powwow River. It wasn’t really busy, but not many towns were very busy on this Saturday of Memorial Day weekend.
I was getting hungry, and as a vegetarian celiac looking for food to buy, I’m a little leary of getting glutenized by contaminated food. I managed to find the Maggie Sundae Ice Cream Parlor next to Amesbury Town Hall, and got a really good blackberry chocolate chip frozen yogurt. Highly recommended.
It was a beautiful sunny day, and I just tried to take it all in. It was to be a big change from the calmness of Amesbury to my next destination of Salisbury.
So, what is it you’ve found special joy in lately?