Where Time Stood Still in Worcester County

For our last trip before the Labor Day weekend, we ventured out to Moore State Park in Paxton, http://www.mass.gov/dcr/parks/central/more.htm which is a small town in Worcester County.  After parking our car in the lot, we headed out on the Healthy Heart Trail, which after about ten minutes, brought us out to the "Artist Overlook".  And an overlook it certainly was!  Looking up the stream was a series of waterfalls leading from an old sawmill.  In the 1800's, this was a mill village, complete with a swamill, gristmill, tavern, school house, blacksmith's house, and the mill owner's house.  The sawmill is the only house that is still standing, and it has the distinction of being one of the original sawmills in New England that is on the spot where it was originally built.   There are foundations of the other buildings scattered throughout the park.   Heading upstream of Turkey Hill Brook, there is a series of ponds and waterfalls that lead down from Eames Pond.  When we got to the pond, there was a beautiful structure, called Enchanta Bridge that had chairs for people to sit and look out over the beautiful pond.

There were many trails throughout this state park, but the 90 degree temperatures did not make it a day where you really wanted to keep walking.  According to the maphttp://www.mass.gov/dcr/parks/trails/print/Moore.pdf, there is also a bird sanctuary on the park property as well.  This was a wonderful way to spend our afternoon in Worcester County and I would highly recommend it if you would like to travel back in time.

"Fowl" Weather Abounds in Barnstable County

The weather in the summer of 2010 had simply been lovely leading up to our weekend to visit Barnstable County.  The emphasis in the past sentence is the word "had".   David and I were heading down to my aunt and uncle's home and were eager to get out on the boat onto the Sound.  While Falmouth is surrounded by water on the east and west sides, there are a series of finger "salt ponds" that are on the east side that lead out onto Nantucket Sound.  The salt ponds are a beautiful haven for birds, and on this rainy weekend, there were many of them in this pond.

We'll start off with the swan family.  Two parents  and four cygnets (or baby swans) were soon heading up the path from the salt pond to my aunt and uncle's home.  I never had seen a swan up so close and the protective nature of the parents were similar to all parents -- they didn't want anyone messing around with their young'uns.   Swans are herbivores and they enjoyed the crackers that we fed the family.  Swans also mate for life.  They make a hissing sound especially when they thought we would come close to their babies.  There was no way I was going to tangle with these very large birds!

The rain let up for a little bit, so I headed out on the shore of the salt pond to see if I could collect anything interesting to bring to school.  Out in the middle of the water, a cormorant was perched on a buoy, looking around for a fish to eat for dinner.  On the shore, three mallard ducks gracefully glided past the cormorant.   There is a group in Falmouth dedicated to preserving these ponds so they can continue to support the wildlife.  If you want more information, you can go to:
http://www.preservefalmouthbays-ponds.org/content2.php?p=1

The next morning, the weather was not any better :(.  On our way home, we decided to go to the Cape Cod Canal Visitor's Center in Sandwich.  I had never been to this end of the canal before.  The Visitor's Center offers a comprehensive displays about the history of the Cape Cod Canal and how the canal works.  There is as lot of hands-on displays which would make it a great stop for those with children.  There is no admission fee, and if the weather would have been better, we could have walked along the trail to the true end.

So, even though this was not a beach and boating weekend, there is lots to see and do in Barnstable County.

Motoring Along in Middlesex County

On the banks of the Sudbury River

Since we live in Middlesex County, we decided to do something that we had not done before in our home county.  Several years back, I had received a gift certificate for a river cruise from the South Bridge Boat House.  During last summer, I had booked a dinner cruise on four separate occasions, but they had all been rained out.  So, I picked a date on the weekend where we would be heading out to Tanglewood and hoped for the best.  And the best it certainly was.

After being stuck in some very sluggish traffic back on the Pike, I was questioning the wisdom of booking this dinner cruise for this particular Sunday evening.  We were rushed getting home and had little time to change and head to the South Bridge Boat House on Route 62 in Concord.  Peeking around the corner of the boathouse, we saw the pontoon boat that would be our dining facility for the evening.   There was another group of folks who were celebrating their Dad's 80th birthday.  This party of nine was seated up front and David and I had our own little table for two in the back of the boat.  We left promptly at 6:00 p.m. and headed up towards Lincoln on the Sudbury River.  Martha, the chef, boat-driver, and crew, was delightful, full of interesting stories about growing up in the area, about the wildlife, and about the rivers in general.  As we motored along past Emerson Hospital, we were served a delicious dip and pita chips, along with ice tea.  The bird life along the banks was spectacular.  We saw numerous Great Blue Herons, cormorants, hawks, geese, and ducks.  The ride was extremely relaxing and as it went on, I felt the hurried feeling slipping away.

Martha pointed out many historic sites along the way.  Native American sites as well as Henry David Thoreau's boat house were some of the things that we saw along the way to Fairhaven  Bay.   You can read some of Thoreau's writing about this peaceful bay here.   There were no other boats here on this quiet, cloudy Sunday evening, so we felt as if this was our own private bay.  Martha cut the motors and started the main course.   When you call to book your reservations, there are several options in which to chose from.  David had Shrimp Scampi, while I had the Salmon.  Both were delicious.  After this very filling dinner, we then had our choice of wonderful pastries for desert.   We slowly started to make our way northward back towards the South Bridge Boat House as the sun was beginning to set.  Both of us were extremely relaxed and happy as Martha pulled the boat up to the dock.  We wondered why we had never done this before.  In addition to dinner cruises (90 minutes in length), Martha offers breakfast, lunch, and high tea cruises.  When I arrived home, I told my son that this would be a wonderful way to spend our 25th anniversary in a few years.

Funky Southern Berkshire County

Great Barrington

Giant Jaw-Breakers

Having been in northern Berkshire County at Mass MOCA and Williams College, we decided to go to southern Berkshire County.  The main goal of our trip was to go to Movies Night at Tanglewood, but the other sites that we found were equally as captivating.  We continued west on Route 57, down huge hills in Sandisfield before heading more northwest on Route 57 into Great Barrington.  Great Barrington was another really funky WMass town.  There was lots of unique shops, great restaurants, and friendly folks.  We decided to do dinner before going to Tanglewood and headed to BabaLouie's that had wood-fired, all-natural sourdough pizza.  There was a large crowd waiting to get in, and we were fortunate to get a seat for two.   We shared Phoebe's Greek Salad, a delicious salad consisting of Romaine lettuce, organic mixed greens, feta, calamata olives, roasted red peppers, roasted pumpkin seeds and our lemon herb dressing and a Pomodoro Bianco
Fresh mozzarella, roasted portabellas, roasted garlic, tomatoes, red onions, chêvre, pesto and parmesan Pizza.  This was a delicious meal and we poked around in a few shops, where I saw the world's largest jaw-breaker.  We headed north to Tanglewood, on a "short-cut" given to us by the Front Desk Clerk.  We successfully avoided the usual traffic found going to Tanglewood.  Sitting under the stars on a coolish summer's evening, we listened to classic Hollywood scores and music from Steven Spielberg. The next morning, we went to the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge.  This is a wonderful museum that was quite crowded.  His actual studio was moved to the grounds and that was very interesting to visit.  He had an eclectic assortment of objects on his fireplace!  

We decided to hit the road, but first wanted to eat lunch.  Somehow, we ended up going west instead of east towards the Pike and ended up in West Stockbridge.  Parking the car, it was quickly evident that we stumbled onto something pretty special.   I loved the feel of this town, there was something really special here.  There was a unique selection of shops and restaurants.  As we walked down the road, there was a collection of green, white, and red flags with a big zucchini in the middle of them.  Turns out we had just missed the Zucchini Festival that was held the day before.  However, there were still "left-overs" from the day before.   There was a shelf display of huge zukes and a dress up your zuke contest.  It was really cute and I could see my own students loving to do something like this.    We were quite hungry by this time and were lucky to get a seat at Caffe Pomo d'Oro, the old West Stockbridge Train Station.  This is an European-style cafe and the sandwiches were delicious.  After lunch, we wandered over to the Charles H. Baldwin & Sons store, another really cool general store.   We finally needed to get started as we had Middlesex County awaiting us later that day.

As we sat in a massive traffic jam on the Pike, I was sad that we were done with our Western Massachusetts counties.   Each one of them offered something unique and enchanting....

Hampden County: Off the Beaten Path

Granville -- a quaint town off the beaten trail

Granville Country Store

Hampden County:  home to larger cities like Springfield and hilly towns like Granville and Sandisfield.  Per the advice of The Berkshire Hills and Pioneer Valley book, we got off the Pike in Westfield, traveled south down Route 10/202 to Southwick and then banged a right onto Route 57 west.  In the above book, this route is called "one of the most obscure and backroaded of the state's historic east-west highways.  It's the most southerly and one of the highest, obviously the reason that the railroad chose to follow the Westfield River instead."  This route did not disappoint.  After the busyness of the Pike, it was so relaxing to be driving amongst the emerald green hills and winding roads, where there was barely any one else on the road.  Having packed a picnic lunch, we stopped on the Granville Town Green, right across from the Granville Country Store.  The store is home to many eclectic items.  There was a small restaurant inside the store, and rows of unique canned fruits and vegetables, fun crafty items, and their very famous cheese.  We didn't buy the cheese as we weren't sure if our accommodation in Great Barrington had a refrigerator.   The sign on the front of the store listed all the owners from the time the store opened in 1851 until now (only four owners - pretty good stability).  We sat across from the store at a picnic table and watched a steady stream of customers.  The cars came from both Massachusetts and Connecticut and there were also a lot of bicyclists coming through (a friend of mine said this is the stop to make while bicycling to get ice cream).  Across the town green was a library that had really neat architecture.  There was also an old Blacksmith's shop.

After our lunch, we headed back west on Route 57 and before long, we were heading up and down some really high hills with beautiful views.   We went through Tolland before heading into Berkshire County.

If you want a ride where you will be the only one on the road, this is the route to take.  It is indeed a hidden gem.

Historic Hampshire County

Winsor Dam at the Quabbin Park

List of wildlife seen recently

We've spent a fair amount of time in Amherst and Northampton, both in Hampshire County, so I wanted to  explore something else in Hampshire County.  We did need to go to Amherst (Am -erst, the "h" is silent) to pick up our son, so I looked for a spot where we hadn't been before.  In my newest book, Off the Beaten Path:  A Guide to Unique Places in Massaschusetts,  I came across the Quabbin Reservoir.  The visitor's center was located in Belchertown, which is indeed in Hampshire County.  So we continued south on Route 202 after our Hamilton Orchards lunch to Route 9 East in Belchertown.  Down a bit was a sign for the Quabbin Reservoir Visitor's Center and Winsor Dam.  Heading down a tree-lined driveway, it opened up to a beautiful expanse of water on our left and a visitor's center on the right.  It was another beautiful July day as we overlooked the Quabbin Reservoir.  The history of the Quabbin, which supplies the water to the metropolitan Boston area, is quite fascinating.  Four towns were taken to build the reservoir by damming up Swift River in the 1930's.  The visitor's center had a lot of displays of both the history and the natural history of the area.  A very friendly employee answered my husband's questions about the history of the dam and how it effected the townspeople who were forced to move.  Unfortunately for our visit, we did need to hurry to Amherst, but we bought a hiking map and would like to come back in the fall and explore the cemetery that was moved from the towns as well as some foundations that exist.  Looking at the pictures of what the towns looked like before was really interesting to try and imagine the beautiful town common that was now under water.

Fantastic Franklin County

Deerfield River from the Buckland side.

Once we decided to undertake this quest, I needed to find out how many actual counties there were in Massachusetts.  A quick Google search led me to the answer -- 14.  The surprising fact was that Western Massachusetts has four counties -- Hampshire, Hampden, Berkshire, and Franklin.  I had never heard of Franklin, but little did I know by the end of the next two weeks, I would travel to Franklin County twice and love each visit.  For our first trip, we decided to head west on Route 2 out to Shelburne Falls.  We had passed the signs for "The Bridge of Flowers" while on trips out to Williams College, but had never stopped there before.  So on yet another hot July Saturday, we started our trek in the late afternoon, arriving in Shelburne Falls around 4:30 p.m.  Driving off of Route 2 down into the town, I was quickly mesmerized by the funkiness of Shelburne Falls.  Shelburne Falls is basically the town green area of Shelburne and Buckland.The business section of town consisted of flowers and brightly colored shops.  I was eager to explore this area.  We parked our car on the other side of the bridge, which is technically Buckland (the river splits the two towns) and walked back across the bridge into Shelburne.    My husband, searching out a cup of coffee, pointed out the Fox Town Coffee Shoppe.  Entering the restaurant, there was an old fashioned counter, that we sat at.  We decided to try a piece of pie and it was delicious.  After our snack, we ventured out to the bookshop, which had great outdoor seating, and then looked at the other stores in town.  We stopped in front of a small bistro, when the owner came out and announced that she had no seats left tonight, a sign to me that the area was surviving the recession okay.

Glacier Pot Hole

Next up was a stroll down to the Glacier Potholes.  What you may ask is a glacier pothole?  Well, a glacier pothole is formed by the action of water swirling rocks along the ground during the glacier age.  These potholes were extremely unique.  I guess in the past, they let people swim in these, but today, there was a large fence prohibiting anyone from going down there.  Beautiful waterfalls were also present at this site adding to the natural beauty.  On Deerfield Avenue, where the potholes were located was the Mole Hollow Candle Factory, a great art gallery store with lots of great items, and a yoga studio, complete with Buddha gracing the outdoor grounds.  There was certainly a mystic feel to this town.

Deerfield River

Entrance to the Bridge of Flowers

We then made our way to the Bridge of Flowers, the most interesting flower garden I have ever seen.  Instead of tearing down an old bridge, instead, what started as a war memorial is now a bridge of the most beautiful flowers.  It is only open to foot traffic and on this hot summer's afternoon, there were many people admiring the beautiful flowers.  Looking northward up the Deerfield River was also quite scenic.  After admiring the 300 plus types of flowers, we stopped at the general store to pick up some water.  The town had a very friendly feel to it as we left and headed more into Buckland.  We decided to "wing it" without our GPS Lucy and see where the road would lead us.  Beautiful lush green rolling hills surrounded us as we entered the small town of Ashfield.  I believe this area is sometimes called "Hilltowns" or "The Hidden Hills." We traveled route 112 into Route 116, where we landed in the town of Conway.  Another beautiful little town, complete with a really unique library structure which I later found out was called the Marshall Field Memorial Library after Marshall Field, who grew up in Conway and later founded Marshall Field's department store in Chicago.  We finally came to Route 91 and headed back north towards Route 2 East.  However, we were hungry and from our guide book The Berkshire Hills and Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts,  we decided to stop in Turner's Falls to find a bite to eat.  Turner's Falls is the home to the "Great Falls" which are one of the first waterfalls in the country that was circumvented by a transportation canal in the early 1800's.  This town had a lot of interesting architecture, and I could tell that it must have been quite the place at one time.  We found Shady Glen, another old-fashioned diner where you could order a variety of foods. On our way out, we saw an old picture of the owner and the late Senator Ted Kennedy.  We asked the gentleman behind the counter if that was him, and he nodded proudly that it was.  Heading back eastward on Route 2, we stopped at an ice cream stand and then headed over to Barton's Cove in Gill.  The sun was starting to set as boaters pulled their boats out of the water.  It had been a really fun time discovering all that Franklin County had to offer on this hot Saturday.

The view from Hamilton Orchards

The following Saturday, we were heading towards Hampshire County from Route 2 west to Route 202 South.  As we have a son who attends Amherst College, we had traveled this road many times.  The towns go from Shutesbury to New Salem back to Shutesbury to New Salem again.  Checking my website on what towns are in what counties, I found out that these towns were also in Franklin County.  We've always passed signs for pies, sandwiches, cider, but never ventured up the road to check it out.  Since again, we needed to eat, we decided to take that right and head up to Hamilton Orchards in New Salem.  We were not disappointed at all,  The Apple Barn was on the left and had a magnificent view of the rolling hills.  In the barn, there was a section where you could buy fresh fruit and baked goods, and then there was a small restaurant.  We each ordered a delicious pulled pork sandwich, and we also each ate a wonderful cider donut.  You could eat inside and also have a wonderful view, but we elected to head outside to enjoy the scenery.  Some apples were already starting to turn red, and the orchard does offer pick your own apples in the fall.  We will definitely stop there again on our many treks to Amherst in the fall.


Franklin County -- friendly people, lots of beautiful scenery and unique things to see and do.  A hidden treasure in Massachusetts for sure!