For October’s second family weekend vacation, I bring Jane, Jordan, and my parents out to Hampshire County - a trip which we deferred last year (instead going to Grandma’s house in Plymouth) due to the threat of rainy weather. This time, it’s a gorgeous, sun-soaked weekend in mid-late October, and the foliage is peaking throughout the Pioneer Valley. It’s both Jordan’s and my dad’s first time visiting this part of Western Massachusetts, so we take the opportunity to tour them around the Quabbin Reservoir, through the college town of Amherst, and to the top of Mt. Sugarloaf for sweeping views of the Connecticut River below.
On our first day out (Saturday), we make the long drive westward on the Pike from Brookline to Ware, retracing a route that I’ve grown familiar with after visiting the Quabbin several times since my first trip out here in the fall of 2020. Jordan sleeps most of the ride, only waking at the end to eat some snacks and admire the country scenery. After a few more miles of driving, we reach the reservoir, and I take the family up to the Quabbin Observation Tower for their first overlook of the valley below. Jane and Jordan promptly sit on the grass to relax, while my parents circle the tower and admire the scenery. Back down the hill (Jordan having a difficult time deciding if he wants to walk by himself, or be carried), we continue onward to the Enfield Lookout, where we find beautiful views of the curved reservoir below. It’s a bluebird day with zero cloud cover, and the afternoon sunlight really does the foliage and the landscape no favors - but nevertheless, pretty. We stop Jordan from trying to pick and eat a bunch of oriental bittersweet berries (although, he apparently manages to eat a ladybug), then return down the hill to the area around Winsor Dam. Unfortunately, we find that that the hillside adjoining the spillway to the west (where Lindsey and I marvelled at the light almost exactly four years ago) has been completely clearcut; I can only assume that it was done with some environmental rationale in mind, but the result is devastating, and I am saddened to see that that scene, which I felt such personal connection to after multiple visits in varying light and seasons over the years, is now gone for the foreseeable future. The shaded drive between the entrance gate and the dam (which I walk after dropping everyone else off at the dam and parking the car) winds up producing some of my favorite images from the afternoon: I take some medium compositions of the backlit forest canopies, with the brilliant colored oaks, beeches, and maples lending their color to an otherwise high-contrast scene.
Back in the car (it’s now mid-afternoon), we continue westward into Belchertown, planning to stop for groceries at the nearby Stop ‘n Shop (“Stoppah shop! Stoppah shop!” Jordan proclaims, loudly announcing the name of his favorite grocery store). Since we’re only vacationing for two nights and have the town of Amherst just a few minutes away for takeout meals, we make only light grocery purchases - milk, bread, butter, eggs for breakfast, some snacks and apple cider, and some fruit for Jordan, including our first time trying goldenberries (verdict: disgusting!). Then, it’s a short drive northward to the “town” (if you can call it that) of Pelham, which borders Amherst, where we’ll be staying in a converted barnhouse overlooking the Harkness Conservation Area. We settle into our new digs, with Jane setting up Jordan’s travel crib in a little basement room downstairs, while the rest of us admire the westward view from the living room’s big picture window. In the evening, my mom and I head out to Amherst to fetch dinner for everyone, and we go to bed satiated and happy.
After a good night’s sleep, we awaken the next morning to a cloud inversion happening in the Pioneer Valley; the church steepletops and dorm room towers in Amherst rise above the clouds like beacons on an island amidst a sea of white. After breakfast, we head out northward to Sunderland and Deerfield, our first stop being the top of Mt. Sugarloaf - to see the valley view and photograph the last remnants of the morning clouds upon the Connecticut River. The rest of the family climbs the lookout tower on the mountain with Jordan, and after I get my shots, I join them and take a tripod portrait with the entire family.
Next, we head a few minutes west to South Deerfield on a whim, bringing Jordan to the massive Yankee Candle flagship village so that he can peruse the store. While Jane and I visited this monstrosity of a holiday-and-home-goods store during our New Year’s Eve trip in 2020, it’s a different experience altogether with little Jordan, who is endlessly fascinated by the model train tracks suspended above our heads, the rooms and rooms full of toy models and decorations, figurines and action figures, plushies, and so forth. His favorite attractions in the entire store are an animatronic reindeer that grunts and nods its head, with a smile (“Hi moose!” Jordan says excitedly) and a rotating Christmas tree over ten feet tall and bedecked with ornaments (“Tree! Haka-baka (helicopter)!” he exclaims). After touring the entire store, we head back out; my mom is the only one who successfully makes a purchase.
Our final stop of the morning is a few minutes back to the east, across the river in Sunderland. We bring Jordan and my parents to see the famous Buttonball Tree that Jane and I first visited in 2020 - perhaps the tallest American sycamore tree on this side of the Mississippi. This time, I set up a tripod shot including the entire family, capturing the tree’s incredible trunk and canopy much more vividly than I did when Jane posed against it all those years ago. Then, we pop by Amherst to pick up Vietnamese takeout (and a bag of boba drinks for everyone to share) before heading back up the hill to home.
In the afternoon, following Jordan’s obligatory nap, I peruse a bunch of different options for local exploration (New Salem? Buffam Falls?) and ultimately settle on the most straightforward one: a walk right out from our front door, down the road a bit to the Pemberton Memorial Forest; a quick car-less stroll in our adoptive neighborhood and local woodland. This proves to be a wonderful golden-hour walk, filled with beautiful foliage (mostly birch, beech, and sycamore leaves coating the ground in yellow) as well as some individual beautiful maples that I stop to photograph in detail. Our loop walk through the forest takes us past lines of native azalea shrubs growing by the path, beautiful golden forest scenes, and an empty vernal pool bounded by an old dam. I poke around the vernal pool and climb the dam, photographing off into the forest and down the dried-up streambed, which forms a lovely leading line through the trees. As the sun sets, we finish our loop and return to the road, each walking at our own pace (except for Jordan, who is resolutely carried by Mama for the majority of the hike and refuses the rest of us who offer to help her - poor Mama!).
All in all, it’s a fantastic way to end our trip, truly soaking in the intimate, beautiful autumn scenery that the Pioneer Valley has to offer. After another takeout Chinese dinner from Amherst (beef noodle soup and Sichuan specialty dishes - yum!), we head back to Boston the following morning, stopping by in Allston to eat lunch and pick up a cake for my mom’s birthday celebration - the last day that Jordan will spend with his grandparents until we head back to California at the end of the year.
