One of the places that I wanted to visit during my week of vacation was Castle Hill on the Crane Estate in Ipswich.

Though we had previously been to nearby Crane Beach (one of the best/most expensive beaches to visit in MA, if you have a chance), none of us had been to Castle Hill. I had seen photos of its beauty, and was quite excited to visit. It didn’t disappoint me.

We hiked up a steep hill, and explored the remains of a once-grand vegetable garden.

Gorgeous

We continued hiking, up to the main house. It looked like something out of Downton Abbey, and indeed was designed after an English country house, its interior was one of the best ones I have ever seen, it had great vintage furniture, amazing wool rugs and the rest of the decoration was just out of this world.

Front of the house

After admiring the front, we hiked through the woods to the back of the house, where we came to my favorite part of the visit. While the entire grounds of Castle Hill are beautiful, the centerpiece in my opinion is the Grand Allee, a beautifully landscaped hill rolling down toward the ocean. It blows my mind. Just think: at one time, this was somebody’s backyard. I walk out onto my back deck and see a swingset, some trees, some grass. These people could take a morning stroll out to their back porch and see THIS.

Esme stands on the Grand Allée

Nice. Here’s a Photosynth embedded Panorama I created, showing the view from the top (let me know if it doesn’t work for you):

I highly recommend a visit to Castle Hill if you can make it there. You can see all of our photos from this beautiful place here.

Our outing of choice for today was a hike to Wright’s Tower in Medford, MA. This tower is in the southern part of the Middlesex Fells Reservation. The Fells were one of my go-to places for hikes when I lived in Woburn, as it was pretty easy to get to. I’d never hiked to Wright’s Tower, however.

I picked this hike for today because it is a fairly short hike, and the view from the top is pretty rewarding. The hike starts next to Bellvue Pond, where we saw some ducks and geese.

Bellvue Pond

We walked along a fire road for a bit before turning off onto the Skyline Trail. This makes a fairly steep cut up Pine Hill towards Wright’s Tower.

Esme points the way up the hill

Once at the top, you’re treated to some amazing views – both from the top of the hill itself, and from the top of Wright’s Tower.

View of Boston from the top of the hill

View of Boston from Wright's Tower

As an added bonus, at the top of the hill, we also met another family with two kids who were relatively close to Catherine and Esme’s age. Catherine was her usual outgoing self, walked right up and introduced herself to the kids, and before long they were all playing together and building a fairy house up at the top of the tower. I stayed up at the top of the tower while Rebecca was at the bottom with the kids’ mom, and the kids showed enormous resolve in trudging up and down the stairs carrying sticks, stones, grass, and other things to build the house.

Catherine, Esme and friends building their fairy house

Catherine got some scraped knees when she tripped on the way back down (later tonight, she took off the band-aid and declared: “It’s healed!”), which soured her mood, but other than that, everyone had a terrific time!

I’d highly recommend this easy hike for anybody who lives near Boston and wants some great views of the Boston skyline!

You can see all of my photos here.

We are fortunate to have such a great variety of natural beauty here in our area, most of it just a short drive away.

Yesterday, we took a walk at Strawberry Hill in Ipswich. This is a great country walk that takes you up and down a hill, across a causeway, and up onto an island. The island has some great rocky beaches and a big grassy clearing. Our girls love the rocks, sticks, and straw that you can find all over the place.

The girls at Strawberry Hill

More photos from Strawberry Hill.

Today we spent the afternoon at Wingaersheek Beach in Ipswich. It’s one of our favorite  beaches – when we can get to it! During the summer we only go after 5pm, when they stop collecting a parking fee, but off-season they don’t charge for parking. The parking lots were understandably full today, given that it’s Patriot’s Day and the start of the local school vacation week. Many people were out enjoying the vast expanses of shallow water and sandy beaches, and terrific collections of rocks for climbing and hopping. Our girls love digging in the sand, climbing the rocks, and splashing in the tidal pools. I love it for the wide open space in which we can walk around, relax, and enjoy the outdoors.

Rocks at Wingaersheek

See more photos from Wingaersheek.

By Lantern Light

I have a small dream. I dream that our little family will fall in love with camping. And that we become skilled and efficient campers who breeze into a campsite and effortlessly set up camp. Then we go off to frolic in the waves or hike a mountain or ride our bikes to the camp store to buy bubblegum.

My family camped when I was young, but not so much from kindergarten on. I did a couple weekish long backpacking trips in college and Peter and I have spent a handful of nights under the stars, but I wouldn’t say that we are avid campers, yet. This summer we spent a few days camping in the Finger Lakes and we have just returned home from a long weekend at Salisbury Beach State Reservation.

Watching at the Boat Ramp

It seems the only way to get to ‘easy living camping’ is to just get out there and practice. We’re in a funny place somewhere in between having all sorts of great camping gear and knowledge and not having either at all. We’ve cobbled together some new gear, some hand-me-down stuff and a bunch of memories of camping. Add to that some tips from the internet and advice from Mom and Dad and you have a couple of ambitious, but somewhat clueless tent pitchers. We’re learning quickly, though, and had a good time spying on the other campers to see what gear they had and how they were doing things.

Driftwood Girls

Despite our novice camper status we had a fantastic weekend. The weather was cooperative, we cooked some meals on the grill, did some swimming, beach walking and lots of digging in the sand. We brought a crate of books, art supplies and notebooks and they were much loved during our stay at 24 Y Street. We also set our tent up atop a medium size rock (which, luckily, didn’t end up disturbing our sleep), fumbled with the charcoal grill (making the wait for meals far too long) and, yet again, found ourselves without a working flashlight.

In the waves

Each experience was a lesson. A lesson in exploring the world, being a family, being observant, learning to buy quality, and enjoying life. We had wonderful conversations with Catherine that were sparked by the many new things and people she was seeing. She learned what a ‘striper’ is. She made new friends. She dug a ‘car’ in the sand, complete with shifter, and drove herself and her Papa to the ice cream stand. Esme was thrilled to the core each time a sea gull flew over head or dove close to the ground. She happily followed her sister around camp desperately trying to learn the ways of the ‘big girl’. Both girls sat fascinated on the dock watching the fishing boats being towed out of the water on their trailers. Everyone fell fast asleep quickly at night.

Home Away From Home

As with so many things in life, this journey has its own allure separate from the destination. As we hone our camping skills (in pursuit of the ‘expert camper’ title) we’ll enjoy the togetherness that comes with the territory. We’ll make each new site our own, starting here with site Y24.

[all our photos from the weekend can be found here in our gallery]