Today we reluctantly said goodbye to our new friends at Congregation Beth Israel in Malden.  Over the lest few days we really started to feel like part of the community.

Our first stop was Saugus Iron Works National Historic Site, which interprets 17th century iron production in this area.  The visitor center included parts of one of the original water wheel systems, used in the mid-1600s:

The location of Saugus Iron Works was discovered by Roland Wells Robins, who, as I mentioned yesterday, also discovered the location of Thoreau’s cabin on Walden Pond:

We walked out to the reconstructed iron works:

The bridge leads to the top of the massive charcoal blast furnace, where charcoal, iron ore, and gabbro were poured into the furnace to extract iron from the iron ore:

Down below, the water wheel shaft drives the bellows which feed oxygen to the fire in the furnace:

From the bottom of the furnace, molten iron is poured out of the furnace into troughs in the sand and allowed to cool into a unit of pig iron called a “sow”:

We continued to the forge building:

This 500 pound hammer, lifted and dropped by a water wheel driven four-tooth cog, was used to convert the pig iron into a wrought iron bar ready for sale:

This six samples illustrate the progression from pig iron (top) to a wrought iron bar (bottom):

The kids completed their Junior Ranger workbooks and received their badges:

From Saugus, we drove east to Salem, Massachusetts, home of Salem Maritime National Historic Site.  The visitor center is downtown, and we couldn’t find a parking spot, so we settled for running in and picking up the Junior Ranger workbooks and badges.  When the kids complete their workbooks, they will receive their badges:

We continued north, transiting a few miles of New Hampshire before crossing into Maine:

Tonight we are overnighting at the Cabela’s of Scarborough.  The interior is similar to the Cabela’s at which we overnighted on Day 1.  While Trish made dinner, I took the kids in to look around.  Several locations in the store have big game on display:

You know your aquarium is big when cleaning it involves hip waders:

Where is the RV section?  Under the full-size airplane hanging from the ceiling, of course:

I told him to put them back:

See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.