Salem, MA Halloween Pictures (10/31/2012)

As promised I'm providing a link to some more of my Halloween pictures.  You may wonder what all of this Halloween stuff has to do with my blog title: "Health, Fitness, and the Great Outdoors."  The answer is, "not much."  However what normally happens on Halloween in Salem (at least with us) is that we spend all day walking around town.  I actually showed over 23,000 steps on my BodyBugg that day.  So we are getting some exercise while we are having a good time. 
I didn't caption too many pictures in this flickr set.  I think they are pretty self-explanatory.  My dog, Cooper, is dressed as Super Dog.  I'm dressed as Wilfred, of FX networks fame.  My wife, Rosanna, and her friend, Kim, are Oompa Loompas.  Kim's husband, James, is a convict.  We walked around with them, their two dogs and our friend, Nate most of the day.  It was a really fun time.  I promise to get back on focus with this blog in the upcoming days.  In fact, I'm heading to Nantucket tomorrow to look for a rare bird so I hope to have exciting pictures and a story to go with it.  For now, enjoy the Halloween pictures.  I welcome your comments and questions.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dcelyphotos/sets/72157631913161438/

This is a link to my entire site and not just the Halloween set.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dcelyphotos/

Halloween in Salem, MA

As a resident, I would be remiss if I didn't post something about Halloween in Salem, MA.  This year has been a little bit different than most.  I would say that the biggest difference is that beginning Sunday morning (10/28) everyone was fleeing and prepping for the worst hurricane to ever hit north of North Carolina.  Hurricane Sandy was a huge storm.  They called it "Frankenstorm."  It was compared often to "The Perfect Storm", which struck on Halloween weekend 30 years before, almost to the day.  While Sandy came ashore near Cape May, NJ over 500 miles south of Salem, it's impact was far-reaching and hurricane force winds were recorded hundreds of miles from the center of circulation.  The barometric pressure recorded by the Air Force Hurricane Hunter was just slightly over 940 mb, making Sandy the most intense storm ever to hit the Northeast.  Snow fell in West Virginia due to the entrained cool air.  An explosive jet stream and intense high pressure not only steered Sandy inland, but actually sparked it to intensify the night before landfall.  Despite the cold water Sandy was over, she grew by hundreds of miles and the winds increased from 75MPH to over 90MPH in just a few hours.  This was truly a remarkable and damaging storm.  Salem was lucky to escape most of it's ire, but the empty streets just 2 days prior to Halloween (unprecedented) will likely have a far-reaching economic impact. 

 

 

 

Having said all of this, Salem was still pretty crazy on Saturday, 10/27.  Below is a link to some of my photos.  I hope to post photos from tonight (10/31), Halloween tomorrow.  Enjoy!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dcelyphotos/sets/72157631883719525/