These are cell phone pictures. Not bad, eh? So remember when I said I like to think of worst case scenarios? Well this area has no cell-phone reception, no power lines, etc, so I said to Lizzie "what if we came out of the gate, and it turned out that the apocalypse had happened and we were the only two people left?" We spent the walk strategizing how we'd survive, which stores we'd hit for what supplies, where we'd go, how we'd travel, etc, etc, as the thunder rumbled ominously in the distance. We were still on this topic when we got back to the car, and started on our way to Athol to get gas. In Athol. Athol is known for having gas, so we've heard. Athol. Heh heh. After we got gas (in Athol. heh heh) we looked around for post 6 mile walk refreshments, when all of a sudden this horrific beeping came out of no where. It sounded like a weather bulletin, but the radio wasn't on. We had a mystery on our hands! The beeps always went in a series of 6, with the first and fourth being of longer duration. At first we thought the radio was picking up some sort of (alien?) static, and then we thought it might be a police signal (we saw a bad car accident) and then we thought it might be a car problem, since it happened after we'd filled up the tank. We came up with different theories, stopped to tighten the gas cap, etc, but nothing made the beeping stop. There were no warning lights, and I checked the internet for instances of similar happenings, but nothing (except for one guy who thought a series of 6 beeps was coming from INSIDE THE HOUSE GARAGE) We stopped to get some diet coke, and after turning off the car, IT HAPPENED AGAIN. SPOOKY. Actually, it turns out that Lizzie has a new phone, and the phone was reporting National Weather Service bulletins via the loud beeps that overrode the phone's silent mode, so we were sort of right, and sort of horribly wrong. There's severe weather in Athol, everyone, so be aware. MYSTERY SOLVED LIKE A BOSS. We admired our intrepid investigative skills, and learned once again that causation does not necessarily mean correlation. We probably would've been less freaked out if we hadn't just been preparing for the post-apocalypse.
Happy last day of August! Lizzie and I were going to go to the beach today, but when we woke up, it was raining, and the weather was going to be showers off and on all day, so we decided to go on an adventure instead. Even though we've lived in MA our whole life, we'd never been to the Quabbin reservoir, so we decided to head down Route 2 and check it out.
The Quabbin reservoir is an impressive feat of engineering, especially so for Massachusetts which seems to be full of engineering disasters (*cough* big dig *cough*). In the 19th century, Boston and surrounding communities were booming, and the demand for water was easily outstripping the supply. Exercising foresight not common to our state, the government began to explore options for a large supply of clean water. They began to create reservoirs and aqueducts, the biggest project being the Quabbin. In the 1930s, after creating a series of tunnels and well placed dams and dikes, the Swift River valley was inundated, and the river diverted. The Swift River valley was not uninhabited, and the flooding called for the disincorporation of four towns, Dana, Prescott, Greenwich, and Enfield. (David Foster Wallace sets parts of Infinite Jest in a town named Enfield). The people who lived in these towns were not pleased, obviously, nor was the state of Connecticut which thought the diverted water belonged to them, but Massachusetts was like "Ha ha we do what we want" and Eminent Domained all over the place, forcing the land/homeowners to move and then dismantled the houses, hotels, CEMETERIES, etc. (If you scuba dived in the Quabbin, you could see old cellars and the like in the flooded towns).
Lizzie and I went to where Dana used to be, which is the only part of these four towns still above water. Unfortunately my camera died halfway through our walk, but the above video pretty much sums it up.
Dana was incorporated in 1801, and disincorporated in 1938. Now it's part of Petersham, so we drove out to Hardwick road to Gate 40, and walked the 3 miles to the old town commons. It was eerie, and there was a loud humming of bugs as we trundled down the choppily paved road. Halfway through the walk we realized we had to hit the bathroom, and were contemplating which tree to grace with our urine when we exited the thick woods to the commons, and found a delightful portajohn. Hooray for the department of conservation and recreation! (side note: I always think of worst case scenarios, and was like "What if you had to spend the rest of your life living in a portajohn which is under the hot beating sun?" Noooo....) After that excitement, we walked through a pretty meadow, down a treacherous hill to the edge of the reservoir. It was vast and beautiful, and I did not spit in the Boston and metro west water supply. We climbed back up the treacherous hill, panting, and then walked around the common, which had pictures of what the once vibrant town looked like before.
I had read about Dana, and it said this particular part of the walk was poignant, and I'm super cynical, but moving around the field and looking at the big, beautiful houses, hotels, churches, schools and stores which were torn down to leave this ghost town was really sad. I understand that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, but all those lives, all that history...so many feels, especially since the land is still there to memorialize its former glory. Dammit I felt so poignantized. We would have explored more, but thunder was rumbling, and we had to walk back to the car, so we said goodbye to the ghosts and left it to the pinging grasshoppers and crickets.
Fact: Slides are a lot scarier when you're 5'7" and looking down, rather than, say, 2'- 3' and looking down. Luckily I am a bad ass when it comes to using children's playground equipment. DON'T STOP ME NOW.
So Spaulding Highway is under serious construction, and after following some detours, we ended up finding Hilton Park, by accident, like it's a fucking zen koan. We learned about mistakes you can make with your car, and that the tides here are serious. There are no swimming signs everywhere, but you can fish, and boat, and play on the awesome playground, and disrupt the uncomfortable mating ritual of two older folks who are just trying to hang out on the swings, and aren't interested in hearing you yammer ceaseless at your friend as you yell defiantly "that's right, cry, rusty chains!" as the swing protests at bearing your non child weight. Anyway, luckily for them (and probably for poor Lizzie, too) the swings make me motion sick after four minutes, so we left the older folks to their mating rituals. Awww yeah.
After lunch, we wanted to go for a walk, and Lizzie had found this fun sounding place called Hilton Park on the interwebs, so we decided to go there. However, even with the help of our gps, we couldn't find it, and ended up in this creepy place called Fox Point in Newington, where only Newington residents were allowed, and the road turned to gravel and the squirrels and birds were looking at us like "YOU'RE NOT ONE OF US" so we had to turn around and flee before they ate us. We wandered around until we found this, the Great Bay National Wildlife refuge, and we went for a nice walk around the wooded area, were we saw wild life such as Daddy Long Legs. (FUN FACT-Did you know those creepy bastards are also known as harvestman? If you never want to sleep again, click here.) There are apparently lots of birds there, but we didn't see any, except for one strange bird who was actually a person waiting to take pictures of birds. He laughed at my funny loch ness monster joke, so it's all good. Lizzie and I plan to start a logging firm based out of the Great Bay National Wildlife refuge. Can't wait to get that started.
We decided not to use the GPS to get us back to 95, and we got lost again and meandered through New Hampshire for about an hour, and guess what we magically came across?
After lunch, we cut through the Strawberry Banke museum shop to get back to our car. I bought this horrible looking peanut candy for 10 cents, because it had been a while (maybe since Idaho?) that we had done a local food experiment. It tasted like someone had frosted a fiberglass nutter butter with licorice. I made this face and then spat it out, elegantly, into a bush. Lizzie commented on how the lovely mashed up orange color contrasted nicely with the green rhododendron leaves it dribbled on to. I bet the bees will love it. Also, check out this terrifying ornament that was in the store. I wasn't sure what to make of it, but Lizzie investigated, and it is actually a Gingerbread Santa combo. If you put Santa Ginge on your tree, he will haunt your sugar plum dreams.
We decided to take a break from history for lunch, and walked through Prescott Park, which is on the edge of the port. Part of the park was roped off, because there was a theater performance, which was a combination of Shakespeare and Hair. The play used Shakespeare's words, but the actors were dressed like dirty hipster hippies, and danced like it was a 1960s rave. We were embarrassed for them, but they seemed not to be. Ecstasy is a helluva drug, I guess. The park, much like Mrs. Gibson's garden was full of bees, and at the very entrance was the "liberty pole" which you see below.
The liberty pole (heh) was erected (heh heh) in 1833, and was replaced twice, once in 1872 and again in 1899, and commemorates the first "No Stamps" flag which was flown here back in 1766. Anyway, it advocates emancipation from tyranny, and we wished to be emancipated from the hippies butchering Shakespeare, so we walked over to the Common Man restaurant, and had lunch, concluding with the best bread pudding anyone has ever had in their life. If you are there, go bathe in a tub of their caramel sauce. You will not regret it. Unless you drown, but then you will be dead, and regret will be the least of your problems. Hell is probably a non-stop hippie performance of Shakespeare where everyone around you is yammering on about how it's a bold interpretation when it really just sucks. The emperor like, has no clothes, man.
One of the houses had a war time display with a victory garden outside. Here is a map with the European theater. They also had instructions on what you could and could not write to your folks back home when you were deployed, and basically you could not write about anything. At all.
Also, I find propaganda posters fascinating, and WWII was rife with them. This one (sorry about the crap picture) amused me because my brain turned "waste fats" into "waste farts" and I was like "Damn, way to support the war effort." Anyway, loose lips sink ships, and you can't fight the axis if you don't use prophylactics.
Lizzie and I decided that the key to living in any time period was/is to be rich. Even so, I'd still choose my current attic situation over this rich room because CHAMBER POT. NO THANKS. Also, look at that decrepit wall paper. Like sands through the hour glass, so is the decay of our wall paper.
They had Victorian games to play with, so Lizzie and I shot some hoops. You basically cross your dowels, like Lizzie is doing here, and then separate them rapidly, tossing the hoop at your partner, who catches, and then tosses it back. As you can tell from Lizzie's refined face, and my super intense game face, we were really good at this. So good, that we would have, as Lizzie noted, been recruited for the NHA, but unfortunately, since shit was sexist then, too, we would've been forced to joint the WNHA instead, which everyone would have derided as "not real sports." Then we would've stabbed our detractors with a dowel, Buffy style, and our careers would've been over.
HI! Today was a banner day, because I had been separated from Lizzie for over two weeks, as she had been on vacation with her husband in Alaska, and today we were reunited, and decided to celebrate this reunion, as well as her birthday, up in New Hampshire! Our first stop was the Strawberry Banke Museum, which, as the website will tell you, is a 10-acre outdoor history museum with tons of gorgeous gardens and "role players" to talk to and bug with your annoying questions. This here is the Gibson mansion, and that dear lady below is Mrs. Gibson. I asked her about her gardens to be polite, and because I love gardens, and I remarked upon the GIANT SWARM OF BEES that her flowers attracted. She told me that she petted the bees O_o and that they were fuzzy. She said if you pet them in the direction of their wings, that they don't mind it.
Wut?
Okay, probably people who haven't been stung a kajillion times by all varieties of bees/wasps might not have found this to be(e), as the kids say, whack, but once you've been stung six times on the knee because a hornet decided the best possible place it could chill in all the world was in the leg of the ugliest pair of green sweat pants that you own and dried on the line outside because running a dryer is expensive and you are a poor 12-year old, you start to find the little bastards suspicious. I was stung by so many honey bees when I was over Lizzie's house the first year we met (kindergarten) that her mother thought there was something wrong with me. I mean, there is, but I don't know what it has to do with bees. Any how, even though I thought that anyone who petted bees was a weirdo, I remarked upon how she must have a lot of honey, and she gave me such a side eye and said "Oh No, I do not KEEP bees." MY BAD, BEE WHISPERER.
Anyway, the house was gorgeous, and they let you touch stuff (see Lizzie iron!) which made me super happy. They also pretty much left you alone to explore on your own, which also made me happy. They gave you a little spiel at the beginning of whatever house you entered, and then were like "go to it." Many of the houses (which smelled of emphysema) held displays on carpentry, and in one, we climbed into the attic to see how the joists et al went together, and I thought we were going to drop through the ceiling. That's not great for one's self-esteem. We also toured a little herb garden, and I pointed out all the stuff that could kill you or make you go crazy (Foxglove, Tansy, Castor Beans). Then I got invited to join the northeast herb society (probably because of my knowledge of deadly herbs) but I live in an attic (with a pretty solid floor and awesome joists) so unfortunately that is a dream which will have to wait...
These are cell phone pictures. Not bad, eh? So remember when I said I like to think of worst case scenarios? Well this area has no cell-phone reception, no power lines, etc, so I said to Lizzie "what if we came out of the gate, and it turned out that the apocalypse had happened and we were the only two people left?" We spent the walk strategizing how we'd survive, which stores we'd hit for what supplies, where we'd go, how we'd travel, etc, etc, as the thunder rumbled ominously in the distance. We were still on this topic when we got back to the car, and started on our way to Athol to get gas. In Athol. Athol is known for having gas, so we've heard. Athol. Heh heh. After we got gas (in Athol. heh heh) we looked around for post 6 mile walk refreshments, when all of a sudden this horrific beeping came out of no where. It sounded like a weather bulletin, but the radio wasn't on. We had a mystery on our hands! The beeps always went in a series of 6, with the first and fourth being of longer duration. At first we thought the radio was picking up some sort of (alien?) static, and then we thought it might be a police signal (we saw a bad car accident) and then we thought it might be a car problem, since it happened after we'd filled up the tank. We came up with different theories, stopped to tighten the gas cap, etc, but nothing made the beeping stop. There were no warning lights, and I checked the internet for instances of similar happenings, but nothing (except for one guy who thought a series of 6 beeps was coming from INSIDE THE 
