We visit a Cranberry Festival in Tihonet Village, Wareham, which celebrates the cranberry industry and the A.D. Makepeace Companies, one of the world's largest cranberry growers who in 2011 harvested 382,000 barrels of berries - 38 million pounds of cranberries!
The Festival was a large affair. We were taken from the (free) carpark by shuttle buses to the Festival grounds. Entry was$3.00 each. There was entertainment; live music, cooking demonstrations, children's activities, helicopter rides over the bogs, food vendors, craft and produce stalls, a display of owls! and of course displays of the various stages of the cranberry harvest. I didn't know that they are grown in bogs which are flooded when the berries are ripe and then they are wet harvested.
We also drove down Hwy 3A and 6A- the coastal road - to Hyannis and Hyannis Port. We visited the JFK Museum and the memorial erected in the town of Hyannis in his honour. The Museum was simple yet moving with photographs and displays of President Kennedy's life as a child, a young boy and man and his love of the summer home of the Kennedy clan - the compound. Bought by Joseph Kennedy in 1926 it was expanded into a sprawling holiday retreat. It is said that the Kennedys continue to gather here on family occasions.
We both felt quite emotional; here we are almost 50 years after his death at the place where President Kennedy spent so much of his life. We had lunch in town and then drove as close as we could to the compound. We walked along the beach around the perimeter - quite a lovely place to be!
And now we are planning the next stage of our travels. We want to go south; the weather is a bit dreary - grey skies and some rain. I had wanted to go to Martha's Vineyard or Nantucket Island. Should we stay in the area and hope that the weather improves? Should we continue down the coast to Rhode Island or travel inland? It is all a bit too difficult - so to bed!
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