Salem and Cape Cod

Ok so the Green Mommy this past weekend went to Salem Massachusetts and Cape Cod Massachusetts. Now I know you probably think that this doesn't tie into being green since the gas alone was ridiculous. That being said you have to recall that part of what drives my passion for being green and gives me a unique perspective is my background in Biology, Ecology and Conservation. I am 1 semester away from my bachelors  of science in biology with a focus on conservation and ecology and limnology. So this trip was actually for a class. Our Invertebrate Zoology class was required to head to the Cape and study specimens in their natural habitat. Salem was a purely fun excursion on the way.
So Thursday night me and my best friend Nikki packed up her car and left for the Cape at 4:30 AM. We got to the ferry and the VT border by 6 AM. Here is us on the ferry.

Then we headed into the rolling green mountains of Vermont. There was fog rolling off the mountains which we drove right into. It was gorgeous!

There was also massive flooding due to the flooding of Lake Champlain and that was terrifying.

Ok so I will skip NH entirely so that this post won't be too huge. NH really doesn't have much in it anyhow. So we arrived in Massachusetts around 10 AM Friday morning. We got to Salem around 11 AM. This was Salem Mass. I was in love at first sight.

We went to the Salem Witch Trial Memorial. You kind of have to if you go. It is really sad to think that all those people were killed for nothing.

 This is the actual memorial. Each of the stone seats is for one of the victims. It has their names, date of birth and death and how they died. This next picture is the adjoining cemetery which has some of the oldest graves in America in it.

And of course we did the obligatory tourist things.

Ok so now onto Cape Cod. This was, like I said above, first and foremost a lesson in zoology, ecology and conservation so I will focus on that.
 We went to several beaches to look at specimens and found lots. I won't name them all but I will try to include most of them in pictures. Sometimes seeing ecosystems far from home reminds us how precious this big green and blue ball really is and how much we should protect it. I should also point out that we camped in Cape Cod for 2 days and took only pictures and left only footprints AS IT SHOULD BE!
Ok the whole rest of this post will be pictures so enjoy. The last ones will be from our whale watch Sunday morning. I spent Mother's Day watching a mother humpback whale frolic with her new born calf. It was miraculous! Enjoy!

Ok So this last bit is going to be the whale watching pics and the plankton tow that the naturalist did for our class. He made a point to say that his alma mater was SUNY Potsdam. :)

So that was my weekend. It was a very GREEN MOTHER'S DAY! :)