Western Massachusetts Weekend
A few weeks ago my office hosted a day at Six Flags New England near Springfield, MA. My friend Bill happened to call earlier that week and mention that he and his girlfriend Sara and his kids Cole and Tatum had rented a house called the Serenity Stone Cottage in far northwestern MA that week, So we made a weekend of it, driving out to have dinner with Bill and family Saturday night and then Six Flags on Sunday.
On the way across the state we visited two state parks: Lake Dennison and Otter River, for future camping purposes. Lake Dennison looked perfect.
We had a GPS adventure finding the cottage in Heath, MA. Our GPS tried to take us over a mountain road that is actually a dead end. According to the woman at the house in the middle of nowhere the road used to go through and people are always getting lost there due to their GPS's.
We eventually found Bill and Sara. Carol got the kids busy building gnome homes while Sara made dinner. The cottage is beautiful and remote and quiet and seems like a wonderful place to spend a week. No cell phone coverage either.
After dinner we drove to a campground near Northampton, where I lived from 1991-95. We got there late and were leaving early so we were really just treating it like a cheap hotel. This particular KOA seemed to have a larger then usual population of seasonal "campers", and they apparently have a tradition of festooning their encampments with Christmas decorations. I felt like we were intruding as transients in a mobile home park.
Six Flags New England was formerly a privately owned amusement park named Riverside. I went there once when I lived in Northampton. My memory is of shoddy rides and lots of asphalt. It became a Six Flags park in 1999 and is completely different from how I remember it - much larger and cleaner and with a whole bunch more thrill rides. We spent most of our time in the kiddie section and in the water park. There are some very large roller coasters there - the largest ones I wouldn't go on even if the kids were game. Bizarro has a first drop of 221 feet! We did find a smaller coaster named Catwoman's Whip that Audrey enjoyed.
We will of course have to go again when the girls are a little older.
Close to Home
Our house has a large screened porch on the side. We don't use it as much as we should, but we've had a few pleasant dinners out there this summer.
We also live very close to the Middlesex Fells, a 2500 acre reservation with miles of trails. We often go geocaching there. One of the photos shows the girls exploring the cache closest to our house.
Family Visit
My parents came for a short visit on their way to a vacation in France and Germany. They kept the girls at their hotel for two nights and Carol and I had a real date night. On Thursday I took the day off and we took them to the Saugus Iron Works, then to the Bunker Hill Monument and the Charlestown Navy Yard - home of the USS Constitution.
It was warm and muggy, so the girls were a little crabby on the way. I told them I was going to climb the monument but they both claimed they weren't going - Audrey because she was too tired and Charlotte because she was afraid of heights. Of course when it came time to climb it Audrey couldn't resist and practically ran up the 294 steps. Then after we visited the museum across the street and had some ice cream, Audrey asked Carol if she would go so Audrey could go again. Then of course at the last second Charlotte decided she had to go, too. So both girls ended up climbing the monument. Yeah! The view was fantastic! Carol and I had just watched "The Town" the night before. Several scenes were filmed in the shadow of the monument so we were identifying them from the top.
Phew! I'm all caught up!
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