The year’s last outing, a quick overnighter, sees us going westward to the rolling hill country of the Pioneer Valley. Ever since my day trip out here in October with Lindsey, I’ve wanted to show Jane the Quabbin, and to spend more time exploring its wooded shorelines. The western part of the state is something special, in that it feels quite identifiably Massachusetts (for the sphere of Boston’s hardscrabble, lobster-loving, history-worshipping influence is long), but also represents something entirely different as well. A touch more Appalachia, a pinch less recognizably New England. You have to get off the Pike to really see the place for its many forms of beauty: the shuttered mill towns with their hardware stores, bus depots, and job marts; the village greens surrounded by steepled churches, old colonial houses, and ancient headstones; the rivers and streams climbing ever and onward into the escarpment. The beautiful, forested landscape. It’s a sort of place one can imagine growing up and growing old in - perhaps without accomplishing much, and without seeing wider horizons, but dying happy, none the wiser.
We leave Boston in the early hours of the morning, cruising down the Pike as dawn colors begin to reflect across the ponds in the central part of the state. Pulling off in Ware, we reach the Enfield Lookout, on the southern shore of the Quabbin, just the sun begins to crest the hills to the east. Where a few months earlier the treeline here had been lined by bright-gold birches, tawny oaks, and fiery maples, the view on this winter morning is one of barren branches, punctuated by glowing, silver birch bark. As the sun rises, Jane and I pace around the lookout, looking for compositions. At the western end of the picnic area, I find a much cleaner shot of Mount Lizzie than I got in October, poking up out of the water to the east. Jane and I track our way across the heather and down a steep path through the trees, where we emerge at the water’s edge. We set up for a selfie here (the aluminum tripod legs nearly freeze my fingers off) before climbing back to the car.
Continuing our tour around the Quabbin, I take Jane to the hilltop observation tower and Winsor Dam before we head into Belchertown for coffee and breakfast. In the late morning, we drive up the western shore of the reservoir and stop in New Salem, a tiny New England village with a classic green ringed by a town hall, a little library, a cemetery, a firehouse, and a few churches. We take a little path past the firehouse to a picnic area, where we get a lovely view of the the islands at the Quabbin’s northwestern corner. In the afternoon, we drive down toward Deerfield in the Connecticut River Valley, first stopping just across the river in Sunderland to visit the Buttonball Tree, an unbelievably old and massive American sycamore - the largest east of the Mississippi. At Lindsey’s suggestion, we wind up checking out the liveliest thing happening in South Deerfield - the post-Christmas sale at the Yankee Candle Village, a gargantuan complex of home goods, holiday toys, and flammable material. Tired from a long day of driving and winter hiking, I find myself staring dazedly at a band of flannel-wearing animatronic rednecks singing Christmas carols while Jane careens giddily from store section to store section. She somehow winds up buying nothing before we check in and pass out at the motel next door. We spend the evening watching TV and relaxing; the most notable news of the night comes to my email shortly after 9 PM - I receive an invitation to schedule my first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine for New Year’s Day.
The next morning, we drive a short distance east to the river and climb to the top of nearby Mt. Sugarloaf. The switchback footpath to the summit is narrow and icy, but we make it up shortly after dawn, and are greeted by a commanding southward view across the valley - the Connecticut River curving away toward ridged peaks of the Mount Holyoke range. Jane and I take some photos together on the mountaintop before walking down along the access road; after breakfast in Greenfield, it’s a long drive back to the Boston via Route 2, completing a circuit of the state and our last little road trip of 2020.
