What Lies Beneath

After leaving my folks' house and before heading back to New Jersey, Mommy, Daddy, Kenji and I all went to visit the southern side of the Quabbin Reservoir.

Quabbin Reservoir is a large man-made body of water in central Massachusetts that was created in the early part of the 20th century to provide a source of clean drinking water for the city of Boston and various other communities. In order to build the reservoir, four Swift River Valley towns had to be dismantled, with the residents, buildings trees and everything moved elsewhere or dismantled. This meant moving the cemeteries too. Most of the deceased that had been buried in those four towns were moved to Quabbin Park Cemetery, which is just across the street from the three main entrances for visiting the Windsor Dam and Goodnough Dike. The cemetery is also the site of the letterbox we found today, entitled What Lies Beneath. Dig that creepy hand reaching up from the grave!

Windsor Dam

After finding our letterbox, we all drove over to the visitor's center on the west side of the Windsor Dam. It used to be that you could enter any of the three main entrances that lead to the Windsor Dam and Goodnough Dike, and you would be able to drive through to any of the other entrances by way of driving over the dams. But since 9/11, driving over the dams is no longer allowed.Above is looking across the half-mile long Windsor Dam.

And Kenji and me sitting on the side of the dam, with just a tiny bit of the reservoir in the background.

Quabbin Summit

After visiting the Windsor Dam and the visitors center, we all headed over to the Quabbin Summit, where there is a tower and a lookout that offers a 360° view of the area. In the distant background of this photo, you can see Mt. Monadnock all the way in New Hampshire.

This little bench is a nice place to sit to take in the scenery.

It was from that little bench that I spotted these little wildflowers:

After taking pictures of the wildflowers, I took a picture of Mommy, Daddy and Kenji sitting on the bench, with the Quabbin Summit tower in the background.

Enfield Overlook

Our final stop in our visit to the Quabbin Reservoir was the Enfield Lookout. From here you have a view of what used to be the town of Enfield. The sign next to Kenji illustrates this very well, with the top picturing Enfield prior to 1939 when it was dismantled, and the bottom picturing what used to be the town after it was dismantled, but before the floodwaters rose to create the view you see in the background today.

The Country Store

I've been wanting to add a photo of this picture on our wall to my blog for a few weeks. Because the print is under glass, I couldn't take the picture in the evening because the flash would cause a reflection, so I had to wait until a bright, sunny day. And when it was bright and sunny out, I kept forgetting to take the picture, until today. This was about the best angle I could get, to avoid reflections from windows and such.

My mommy and daddy sent this to me for my birthday. It's a print of a painting by Frank Bly of the Country Store in Petersham, Massachusetts. Petersham is pronounced "Peters-ham" and Frank Bly doesn't seem to have a web site, which I find annoying, because I like his paintings. My Uncle Jack is a painter, and he has a web site; Frank Bly should get one too!

Anyway, I like the Country Store in Petersham because it's a great place to go have lunch or ice cream. For a while it was owned by real nice guy named Chuck. I think it took him a long time to sell the place because he wanted to make sure the next owners would respect the building and business and keep it small-town quaint, the way it should be. My dad and I used to come here for sandwiches when we would go for little hikes and stuff at the Quabbin Reservoir or Harvard Forest.