In Massachusetts, when we say “North Shore, ” we’re talking about locations on the coastline, North of Boston. The South Shore is locales South of Boston. While I live relatively close to the South Shore, I have not spent a lot of time exploring that area, so I chose a cold day in January to accomplish that objective.
I spent a couple of days in my typical research, creating the map shown above. This helps me to know which direction to head and in which order to visit my destinations while minimizing travel time and backtracking. The numbers correspond to a list not pictured here, with detail about what the item is, and the colors reflect a coding system. Red = eating locations, pink= hiking, etc.
When putting this day together, I expected Jay, my most frequent travelling companion, to be joining me, but when he was unavailable at the last minute, I put a text out to my Tribe of 6 friends to see if anyone had interest in my little adventure. Jeanne responded that she was available, so at about 9:30 on that Sunday morning, we departed in my car equipped with plenty of warm weather gear, snacks, and my map. Although very cold, we had a sunny, mostly wind free day.
While I usually like to start my day trips with a hike, we decided to forego that particular activity on this day, as the temperature at 9:30 in the morning was still in the single digits. We were heading from South to North, with our first stop being Gray’s Beach in Kingston. A beach on a New England January day you might ask? Yes! This turned out to be a nice surprise. A very clean beach with plenty of parking and just a few steps to get to the sand. Also gorgeous views. There wasn’t a soul in sight. I will come back in the summer to see this beach in its prime season. We took a moment to read a couple of signs regarding erosion and beach rules and after snapping a few pictures, got ourselves on the road again.
As we left Kingston, we wanted to take a scenic route that would bring us as close to the water as possible. This turned out to be Bay Road, to Washington Street, which brought us into Duxbury. We stopped once or twice to enjoy the views, marvel at some of the beautiful homes on the water, and take some pictures. When we arrived in Duxbury I set the GPS to Powder Point Bridge, which looked to be a relatively long bridge crossing the ocean. The bridge was very cool, looking more like a boardwalk for walking. I wasn’t sure what was on the other side but when we arrived there, it turned out to be Duxbury Beach, a narrow strip of land with beaches on either side. The majority of the parking was for Duxbury residents only, but there was a smaller parking lot for others. The beach area and parking lot were pretty well populated considering the time of year. We got out and walked briefly, enjoying the ice and snow on the beach and taking some more pictures before heading back to the car and back over the Powder Point Bridge.
At this point we were ready to take a break from the great outdoors and headed to Marshfield and the Marshfield Hills General Store for a little browsing. It had a small sign, and we almost passed it but I spotted it at the last minute and hit the brakes to turn into the dirt parking lot. It wasn’t busy, just one or two cars other than us in the lot. We entered and gave a quick look around to see what we were dealing with. I didn’t know it just then, but we could see basically all of the store with that glance. It was very cute, a quintessential country store, albeit small. As we started to browse, I was surprised at the variety of items they had managed to include: Toys, fresh coffee, cards and gift items, baby merchandise, and a small market complete with canned goods and wine and beer. Some customers were helping themselves to the self-serve coffee and chatting comfortably with the proprietor, I’m guessing the owner. They had obviously been in the store before. I spent some time checking out the wine selection, always on the lookout for a local label when I’m in a new place. I briefly checked out the market, keeping my eyes out for a red pepper jelly that my daughter had fallen in love with a couple of weeks ago and liked to include on her charcuterie board. The market selections were more on the everyday side. I continued to circle the space, reading a couple of greeting cards and admiring a bracelet in the jewelry section before finding myself back at the door. A cute place, worth the visit, but ultimately didn’t inspire any purchases.
Our next stop–#12 on the map–was Lawson Tower in Scituate. Lawson Tower was once a water tower, built in 1902 and later enclosed by a wooden structure, on the style of a European castle turret, by land owner Thomas Lawson who was upset by the view the tower offerred. Jeanne and I share a love of backstory, so once we located the Tower, and parked, we read about the history and current use. There are 10 bells at the top of the Tower ranging from 300 to 3000 pounds. The Scituate Water Company stopped using the tank in 1988. Further googling revealed that it is sometimes opened to the Public for small events including sunset viewing.
After snapping some selfies, we checked the map and discovered we were pretty close to a “must-see” on the agenda, Scituate Lighthouse. Jeanne had been here before and agreed it was a sight we couldn’t miss. It was only a few minutes away and we found it with no difficulty. The sight has a large parking lot and although it was nowhere near filled, there were definitely other visitors present on this day. The Lighthouse is very accessible and was right at the edge of the the parking lot. A rock jetty sat behind the lighthouse and was easy walking, offering us gorgeous views of the ocean. We wandered for 15 minutes or so, snapping pictures, reading informative signs and chatting. Jeanne’s last visit to the Lighthouse, which was built in 1811, was in the evening and so she was able to see the lights in action. The lights had been out of commission for 134 years, finally being relit in 1994. The Lightkeepers cottage is right on sight.
We finally made our way back to the car, relieved that it had held some heat while we were exploring, and we were surprised to see that it was 1:30. Time for one of my favorite parts of any day trip: Lunch and a drink! We reviewed, and discarded, several eating options, based on either a lack of variety with the menu, or being a little more upscale than what we were looking for. We finally settled on The Fours, a restaurant in nearby Norwell that seemed to have a substantial menu and looked to be more pub-like than some other smaller venues.
The Fours turned out to be very popular and had a full parking lot, even at 2 o’clock in the afternoon when we arrived. Some of that mystery was solved as we entered the restaurant and discovered multiple tv’s displaying an NFL playoff game. The place was hopping and when we requested a table for 2 we were happy to accept the offer of a hightop and we were then seated immediately.
Our waitress came over quickly and gave us our menus and a friendly greeting. We both began to review our drink and dining options, which were considerable. I love a good IPA so I ordered the local Mayflower IPA and Jeanne selected a more light Blue Moon Belgian White. The food selections were more difficult as they had a great variety of appetizers, burgers and sandwiches. Everything sounded so good! We finally settled on sharing an order of buffalo chicken nachos and some chicken quesadillas. In addition, we each ordered a cup of clam chowder.
Our beers came quickly and we chatted while we sipped our drinks and enjoyed the atmosphere and each others company. The place was packed and it took a while to get our food but we honestly didn’t notice as we were having such a good time. Once our food arrived we dived right in and were not disappointed with any of our selections. We made a good choice in the restaurant and were almost reluctant to leave at about 330. But our adventure was not over yet and we were running up against limited daylight.
We began to make our way to our next Town destination, Cohasset. There was a drive I was looking forward to on Jerusalem Road that ran along the water and boasted of some beautiful mansions. On the way, there was an antique store we decided to stop at called Patina’s Antique Mall. We located Patina’s in a small shopping Plaza and were surprised from the outside at the apparent small size and also concerned as to whether or not it was open. A sign on the door pointed us to an entrance at the back of the building and when we drove around, we could see that it was a much bigger operation than it appeared from the front. It was close to their closing time and so we quickly headed into the store to check things out. It was a very typical antique location; very crowded with a wide variety of different objects mixed in together. We wanted to be respectful of the looming closing time so we moved quickly through the aisles, pausing to look at a vinyl record collection, in addition to numerous unique items. Recently I have been on the search for some colored glass items to add to my hutch, which lacks a little color. I ended up purchasing a small cranberry glass dish, which I knew would fit well with the rest of my glassware.
As dusk was starting to set in, we headed for our drive along Jerusalem Road, just a few minutes away from Patina’s. This experience was just as we had hoped, with each gorgeous residence and water view more impressive than the last. We marvelled at the size of some of the structures and wondered what size families lived there and what they did for a living. There was minimal traffic so we took our time, stopping once or twice to take some photos, before finally deciding to begin the trip home.
The day was a great success. We had beautiful blue skies and bright sun all day. Although the temperatures were chilly–between 20 and 30 degrees–we had very little wind and with our warm winter outergarments, we were actually quite comfortable out in the elements. We saw some amazing sights, got some fresh air and exercise, had a great meal, and thoroughly enjoyed one another’s company for about 8 hours. There were a few things we didn’t get to on my list of potential stops so who knows, we may try for round two of the South Shore Day Trip. Then again, there are just so many other interesting places to see!
F Words that are not 4 Letters 