First Post-ride Day

We repacked the car today in preparation for our drive back home. And instead of keeping the bicycle assembled and inside the car (i.e. ready for me to pull out and ride), I partially disassembled it and was able to get it into the Thule "rocket box" on top of the car. As you can imagine, that cleared up a great deal of room inside the car so that we could rearrange things in a better way for a more normal road trip.

We also did a couple other chores, but then we had a free afternoon to go to downtown Portland. The weather was very pleasant with a high near 82F and it was a nice afternoon to go walkabout. We tried following the Portland Freedom Trail, which documented the sites of Underground Railroad. Mostly what we found was that everything burned down in the Great Fire of 1866. So that was kind of dud. (Sorry, Portland.) The one thing we did find that was interesting was the Eastern Cemetery, where they just happened to have a graveyard tour every Saturday afternoon at 4pm. It was actually quite interesting and a worthwhile tour. After the graveyard tour, we popped into a brewery for a beer.

The skull with wings at the top of this gravestone was a common motif from the 18th century and continued into the 19th century. Over time, that motif eventually morphed into a more angelic face with wings. Also, before Noah Webster standardized American English words, spelling was sometimes quite creative.

The skull and crossbones on these gravestones was typical of a certain stone carver from Boston active in the late 18th century. The skull and crossbones was not a macabre design for the time; it was more indicative of death as the great equalizer.

In the early 19th century, willows and urns became the common design on gravestones and indicated sadness and grieving by the living for the deceased.

Of course, infant mortality rates were much higher in the 18th and 19th century. These siblings died within a few months of each other and were buried together with a shared gravestone.

In the early 20th centurn, public memorials and large sculptures became popular. This memorial statue was for the first Portland resident killed during the Civil War. The memorial was erected at the corner of the cemetery in 1908.