Towel exchange day

May 11,2011

The weather has been quite nice until today and this morning is grey and windy. I can’t complain after the good weather we’ve had, however. Especially since we missed the bulk of the rain and floods when we drove through Memphis and the surrounding area!

We started late because today was “towel exchange day” at the timeshare and they don’t bother to do the towel exchange until 10am. Bummer. I still have a few complaints about this timeshare, but all in all it’s pretty nice.

The blue lawyer's house---or is it the lawyer's blue house?

Nevertheless, despite the greyness we decided to drive to Deerfield MA to visit Historic Deerfield. I may soon get my fill of historic old New England towns, but I haven’t yet. And driving around this part of Massachusetts is so beautiful. The flowering trees are at their peak of flowering—and dispersing pollen everywhere. Luckily neither Randy nor I is allergic to anything here so we can just enjoy the beauty of the trees laden with flowers.

Aside from trees there are tons of daffodils and jonquils—although I’m not really sure I know the difference—along the roads, in front of houses, almost everywhere.

Historic Deerfield is such a beautiful old town. It stretches along one street in the town of Deerfield and the houses that are included in the historic park are interspersed among houses that look equally old and beautiful but are occupied by contemporary families. The park houses (which you have to pay to see) are of three types:

·         Self guided homes, where you are allowed to wander through any time the park itself is open

·         Special presentation homes where a guide talks about specifics of that home; we was the one where there was an extensive silver collection including, of course, some from Paul Revere and his father. I did not realize that his father was a silversmith, too.

·         Guided tour homes where a guide walks you through the home and describes the interior. We toured a house dating from the 17^th century. Each room was furnished according to a different time, up to about the mid-19^th century.

One of the weird little things I learned is that there were venetian blinds in the middle of the 19^th century. Who knew? And that people in the 18th and 19th centuries showed off their wealth by putting their beds in the "public" rooms, the rooms where they would entertain their guests. One Deerfield resident painted his house blue to show his wealth; paint was expensive and blue houses, especially, had to be repainted every few years. Very expensive! The guy who owned the blue house was a lawyer. 

Showing off your wealth

The street is about a mile long so we got our exercise walking up and down that street. I forgot my camera so the only pictures I got were using my iPod Touch. It made me realize how much I missed having my camera with me!

Anyway, Historic Deerfield was lots of fun and the sun even came out toward the end of the day. The town was also promoting the 3/50 project a neat way to support your community, three local stores at a time.