After failing to find my fall foliage up Mount Battie I continued my journey onward hoping to reach Acadia and go up Cadillac Mountain to see if their foliage was any better, but first I wanted to stop off in Bucksport for some local folklore. So how then did I end up at Fort Knox which wasn’t even on my list? Distraction. That’s how. I saw a sign on the way stating, “Fort Knox, three miles thattta way!” and well… I cancelled my GPS route and the rest is history.
I had been to Fort Knox when I was a tween, several life times ago, and I remember I liked going but not anything I had seen. I just had a vague memory of it being really dark. When I drove in the toll gate operator asked if I wanted to buy a ticket to the observatory for two extra dollars. I was unaware there was an observatory but for two bucks how can you go wrong? She was super excited I sprang for the extra two dollars, far more so than I would expect someone to be… but hey, if I can make someone that happy that easy it’s all good!
I realized when I got there that this was a strange destination for a single woman with no children or military background to go. There were plenty of other people here but most were families or couples and a few single old men who were clearly military buffs at the very least. They gave me a couple odd looks but the staff seemed thrilled to see me so I was content.
I walked around the fort and of course being me I found the dankest hole I could and started there. It was the entrance to the B Battery. I started descending the stairs into a dark brick pit going down, down, down. All of a sudden I felt intensely anxious. It wasn’t pitch black, I could still see, and there was nowhere to hide on the staircase so it’s not as if someone could jump out at me but that’s exactly how I felt. So I did what I always do in this situation. I started talking to the walls. “Heeeeeey, I can sense someone’s here… just wanted to let you know I am not here to disturb anything. Just walking through, taking a few photos, don’t want to bother you but I hope you can forgive my trespass..” Immediately the feeling lifted. You can blame this on psychology or ghosts, I don’t care, I just know it made me more at ease.
After that initial oddness the fort proved to be a fascinating and completely disorienting maze of brick archways and darkened chambers. I didn’t have a flashlight but I am assuming there was nothing in there, maybe a Halloween prop or two. The staff had clearly got their giggles earlier when they spread zombie baby dolls and alien corpses intermittently through out – either in honor of Halloween or to illustrate a forgotten conspiratorial history. Still haven’t figured out if the cockroaches and spiders painted onto a display bed’s canopy was for Halloween or some sort of trite commentary on the state of things back in the day.
Anyway, I was very much alone through most of this tour of lower buildings. Fort Knox is huuuuuuge, utterly enormous, probably the closest thing I can think of to a castle the states has to offer. However very little is marked. On these lower levels I was hard up to find any plaques or explanations, nothing. Occasionally you’ll see label. One such label was “hot furnace” for a strange outside structure. Later I learned that “hot furnaces” were implements of mass destruction. Apparently lobbing cannon balls at invading ships was not sufficient so they started throwing the cannon balls into the furnace, heating them up until they glowed red, and then lobbing them at the enemy. Wooden ships would not only suffer catastrophic holes but also would immediately start bursting into flames from the heat of these cannons. Terrifying thought. Brutal. Gruesome. Perfect for Haunted History…
Took me forever to figure out how to get back up. From what I could gather there seemed to be three, maybe four levels of fort to explore. I went through batteries, powder magazines, a crude kitchen, some barracks. I marveled at some cannons still on the property that were so enormous they took twelve men to maneuver. This fort wasn’t fucking around!
I was struck by the architecture. And the feel of the place… sometimes eerie, other times placid and calm. I thoroughly enjoyed my visit spending more than two hours scuttling around like a half-drown ship rat. I even took what I think is my best marble photo to date. I have no idea how I had forgotten so much of this place. I guess kids being kids they don’t remember a goddamn thing you do for them anyway… “Remember that time we went to Disney?” “I remember that damn mouse that made me cry.” “That’s ALL you remember? We spent thousands on that vacation!” I have heard that conversation so many times I wish I could collect change on it. Ah well, c’est la vie.
This was a great distraction – totally worth the detour. I would even go again if someone else wanted to see it.
If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!
Fort Popham is just a half a mile up the road from 
My Haunted New England Tour this month could do with a few more ruins and I do love a good fort. When I drove up the sun was starting the set and the place was besieged by other photographers. They all had fine equipment and severe introversion. This was the first time I found myself flung into a whole group of other photo hounds. I found the experience fascinating. Everyone was polite and weary of each other. The only conversation I could hear was something to the effect of, “Let me know if I am in your way!” “Likewise!” Also people don’t know how to respond when you say likewise or ditto. Lessons learned. Ah well, if they wanted to be left alone I was happy to do so. I wasn’t looking for coffee or conversation anyway.
The fort was bigger than I remembered and had gorgeous stone archways. You could crawl around almost the whole perimeter and see how grandly it was perched there on the rocks overlooking the ocean. I was struck by its majesty. And the beach next to it had some very interesting piles of driftwood. More whimsy photos! But I think the best part of all of this was when I stopped a few hundred feet up the road and found an old battery (?) which I could walk into. When I came out I decided I really should visit the out house before going home so I walked the beach back up towards the fort. That’s when I noticed the moon had come out early and was huge and looming in the sky as if it was just waiting to be plucked like a flower. It had caught the attention of a number of the other photographers and I revealed in this new opportunity. I love the moon but I’ve never taken serious photos of it, especially not wistfully floating above a drop dead gorgeous bay and a tiny New England town. It was a perfect end to a perfect day.
I had such a wonderful afternoon scrambling on the rocky coastline at 
I arrived just as the sun was starting it’s weary retreat but when I was still bright enough and warm enough to really enjoy a cool sea breeze. Having reached the beach at low tide there were shells aplenty to find buried in the sand and plenty of wide open spaces to walk as the sea retreated ever farther. And since it was off-season this place wasn’t packed with people sunbathing like beached sardines. Instead a few pedestrians ambled lazily from one place to another and five people on horseback enjoyed the tepid waves slipping to shore. Two horses caught my attention for their behavior. A white horse clearly loved the waves and kept running directly into them, getting as deep as his flanks before his rider kept dragging him begrudgingly out. His friend, a young black horse, trailed behind him acting like the water was perhaps made of lava. He kicked and fumbled and tried to avoid it at all costs. When the water finally swooshed by his hooves he revolted with high kicks and terrible grimaces. I could tell he though the white horse has lost his mind.
Once the horses rode off I was left with some sea gulls. I took a few really sweet snaps of them scoring dinner – a crab they had beaten the tar out of. However when they realized what I was up to they beat a huffy retreat leaving the emptied out crab shell and showing me nothing but their glorious feathery butt as they waddled into the ocean and got smaller and smaller. Such is the fickle nature of a sea gull but hey! At least they were foraging for nature food and not dive bombing tourists for French fries and doritos. So there is that.
Popham is quite large at low tide and I took quite a walk in the dusk light. Someone had taken driftwood and built fun little structures. I thought they made the perfect subject matter for some whimsical tinted shots. I didn’t really want to leave but it was getting dark and I wanted to go a half mile up the road where Fort Popham was still waiting for me.
I am feeling full of myself again. My energy is nearly back and I was delighted to go out today and spend the greatest time scampering along the Maine coastline. In honor of this month’s theme Haunted New England I decided to go in search of a castle ruin. I had found one article online boasting, “Take a hike and see a castle in Maine!” Sounded pleasant, though there were no photos or any real description just the cryptic remark that I could find it in Fort Williams Park. Okaaaay… I knew it was on the coast somewhere and figured it’d be in some quiet out of the way place, perhaps a nice nature trail through the woods to some burned out ruin like 
The park was busy! Wow! And the weather? Freakishly warm. I was wearing a T-shirt while staring at the frigid Maine seashore and I was sweating balls. My calendar says October but mother nature apparently thinks it’s June. I can go with that. I passed by some sort of abandoned building driving in and wondered if that was the castle or part of it. There were so many people but where were they coming from and where were they going? I couldn’t tell so I just started to walk, pretending I knew. I ended up at a beach, a really lovely little beach surrounded on all sides by rocky outcroppings and the remains of an old fort. Beyond the harbor there were two lighthouses. Bonus for me.
The first thing that really caught my curiosity was a decrepit ruin jutting from the rocks and looking very uninviting. Could I scramble over the rocks and get to it? Was I allowed? I decided to try it, all the meanwhile expecting someone to start hollering at me but alas no, this is Maine, where Darwinian population control is encouraged. It turns out it was the remains of an old mine, bolted shut with a metal door. Damn. There’d be no retrieving Lassie’s bones today.
After that I decided to see where some of the actual paths attached to the beach went. I was delighted to find myself outside an old battery. It looked rather castle-like but it was still obviously a fort. However not far away I could see something that looked far more castle like. Third time’s a charm. But first I wanted to go harass some funny looking sea birds so I scrabbled over some more pointy rocks to take a few snaps of them doing their birdy thing. I looked around me and on this jagged seaside cliff there were a few precarious benches. Yep, I’m in Maine.
I came upon the castle from the back and through the little snippet of woods. It made a coy entrance into my life using the trees like a shy bride uses a veil. OK so maybe it was just a burned out stone mansion and not a castle but still I couldn’t help but adore it. Today was awesome. People were awesome. I got asked if I had been here before by an old man. Nope! We sat and chatted for a good fifteen minutes. Poor dear lives in Los Vegas. Pity that. Had a lot of people smile, laugh, and compliment the hair. Apparently orange hair makes me more approachable? Well that’s a relief. Scientific studies seem to think wearing orange makes people more hostile towards you…
I stuck my tongue out at the drone and snapped it’s photo instead. GOTCHYA you buzzing little spy bastard! (Yes, I know, wedding photography, public place, it had a right to be there but still. Drones. UGH.)
Most days when I set out on an adventure I end up in Narnia, somewhere hidden and unexpected, somewhere full of whimsy and joy. I was expecting nothing short of this on Friday when I found myself once again crawling out of my own skin to get out. It’d been a week of bad insomnia and health issues so I didn’t get out until way later than I should have but I still had great hopes when I set off. I was going to go to Vermont, for what reason I wasn’t sure, and coming home from Vermont I was going to stop at a fabric store or two so I could purchase some cloth with which to start designing my own clothes. Little was I to know that day’s adventure would be more of a misadventure.
Somehow I came across Gifford Woods State Park as a destination. Another blogger had been around Kent Pond and took some lovely snaps when there was still snow on the ground. I figured this was a good starting place so ignoring the faintest pain behind my eye, a sure sign of a migraine to come, I hopped in the car, programmed the GPS, and set out on the two hour drive.
As usual the drive was gorgeous. I ended up winding down all sorts of country roads, through the mountains which where all starting to become flush with red, orange, and yellow. It made my heart beat just a little faster. I passed many places I wanted to check out but I knew I had to get to the trails soon because it gets dark in the woods several hours before it gets dark everywhere else and I was already trying to beat the clock.
I started entering the Killington area to find this was a community that seemed to be based on skiing. The mountains were striped with deforestation, the result of creating many ski paths down them, and the little businesses all seemed swanky and cute. I even passed a place called Cyco Bikes. Vermont has always been super fond of punderful business names.
I think the answer was no but I was soon inundated with about eighty different things at once. This super friendly woman handed me not one but two maps and proceeded to point out about fifty different trails and why each was great as well as directions to them because none of the ones she was pointing out attached to the parking lot (I think that was the one trail she didn’t mention!) Some had old hardwood trees which I am sure are nice but if I remember right most of the trees that turn color are soft wood. Some had waterfalls. Some were a three hour hike and attached to other trails, some were fifteen minutes. Eventually she got to the pond. I asked politely about that one. Again she gave me two different answers. I could go out of the parking lot, take a left, and take it from there for a two to three hour trail or I could go some other farther away destination down several roads and have a fifteen minute hike and some waterfalls. I did the first as her second set of directions completely baffled me.
I found a spot near where I parked the car that looked like it could be a trail, be it a horribly overgrown one. So I entered and found myself about five inches deep in mud. Whatever this was had all sorts of shoe prints going in two directions at a tiny fork. I went towards the lake and slogged through the muck about twenty feet before the foot prints dried up and I was hit with even deeper mud and a wall of forest. I tried the other side and came across the same issue. I left. Maybe it was on the other side of this little beach? There did seem to be some sort of path through the reeds behind the bulletin board… I was able to walk maybe thirty feet on that “path” where I could see a beaver lodge but unless I wanted to swim the rest of the way around the lake there was no way around that. Clearly based on the footprints I wasn’t the only one having this problem.
Annoyed I left. I figured I could find a trail, any trail, and find something good on it, so back to the car I went. The problem is I am still driving the borrowed Prius and this was not the area to be driving a Prius. It was a fifty mile an hour road where all the locals were going seventy and they were pissed if you wanted to stop at one of these trail heads or slow down in any way. I didn’t even have a chance because upon leaving the parking lot I was greeted with a steep hill and the Prius refused to pick up speed. I got to fourty, maybe forty five, and a pick up behind me was up my tail pipe from out of nowhere. He was driving so fast and aggressively I thought I’d be nice, pull over, and let him pass. That didn’t make him happy either as he blared his horn as he whooshed by. I don’t know what he expected me to do… I can only press the gas pedal so far. If the car refuses to go the car refuses to go and we are on a fucking mountain after all. This happened a couple times until I finally found another trailhead, the Sherbourne Trail. This time there was a huge sign aside the road and a very obvious parking lot. Granted I could not find this particular path on the map.
I got out. There were numerous people, all accompanied by mountain bikes. One look at the path and I knew that’s what it was for, not for hikers, even though it wasn’t marked as such with any signage. Fuck it. It was a little over a mile long, claiming to be a “mountain pass.” I thought why not, mountain passes have summits, and that would be perfect for some foliage photos. Up I went zigzagging and stepping aside whenever I heard a bike coming up behind me. The cyclists were all super sweet and some were even laughing, all of them thanked me for stepping aside.
There wasn’t much to see here… a number of mossy rocks but not much else. A few times I came across a smell that was wonderful and sweet and brought me right back to my childhood but I couldn’t tell you what it was. Since the trail zigzagged and branched a few times I was trying to keep focused on the orange trail markers…. but I think whoever was putting them up was colorblind because they’d inadvertently turn pink from time to time for no reason. Usually when this happens it means two trails are converging. I saw no evidence of this.
I ended up where there was some sort of construction. Two twenty something year old men were putting down a bridge. I hadn’t passed that before… did I? How the hell did I get here? And more importantly did I have the courage to fess up and admit I was lost? Not at first. I passed them, knowing immediately that was the wrong decision when my poor little converses sank in the mud. I hadn’t passed mud…. this was the wrong way… but I still had my pride. I walked a little ways but this time the sound of cars was so distant I could barely hear them at all. My back up plan was to find a road and hitchhike back to the car if, God forbid, I ended up truly and utterly lost. I headed back, sheepishly, and asked where the fuck I was. I had a nice little chat with these two very friendly guys, and one of them said, “Go out to the intersection and take a left. Keep taking lefts. You’ll end up back at the parking lot.” Thank God I knew which trail head I had come or they wouldn’t have known where to send me either. They sheepishly admitted this trail was brand new and as of yet poorly marked. I didn’t even see the intersection coming up… but I saw it going back and kept going, and going, and going, until as promised, about a mile and a half away, sat the Prius, also looking sheepish, it somehow found itself cuddled up to another Prius (with a bike rack??) and a horse trailer. The horse trailer made me laugh. Clearly someone else didn’t know this was a bike path so I’m not that numb after all.
By now I was overheated, dehydrated, exhausted, and my migraine was starting to kick in full force. That’s never a good thing when you’ve got nausea and have to navigate down curving mountain roads and psychotic 180 degree loop-de-loop styled New England exits. By now it was five in the evening. I’d been on that trail for more than two hours. There’d be no extra foliage shots on the way home for me and I wouldn’t be stopping at any fabric stores either with my head pounding like this. About fifty minutes from home I started getting super sick and started to look for places to pull off the road and take a nap but by then all the picnic areas and rest stops seemed to have disappeared. As I entered Keene, thirty five minutes from home, I debated stopping in the city somewhere but by then it was only thirty five minutes. I could handle it, couldn’t I? Driving by was a decision I soon regretted as I stared at the clock every five minutes, watching it tick down, desperately wanting to be home. By the time I pulled in the driveway it took all my strength not to open the car door and just barf all over the ground. I was crazy dizzy as I tottled back to the house and collapsed immediately into bed. Better luck next time? I sure hope so!
Today I needed to drive – desperately. So I made an excuse to go out and somehow ended up three hours away in Montepelier Vermont just as the sun was starting to go down. My aim was to find a castle in the woods. Instead I found a sweet little dog park, a lot of aging hippies, and a gorgeous cemetery. Green Mount Cemetery is actually famous. The stones there are clearly for rich people and are exquisite. Nestled between the green mountains the view from the cemetery is breathtaking. It’s a popular fall destination spot because it’s even more beautiful when the trees turn color. I was a couple weeks early for that but this didn’t stop me from ambling in and checking the place out. The sign at the gate said it closes at dusk but in true Vermont fashion the only thing making sure this happened was those tiny forgettable little signs. This place didn’t even have a gate anymore, just five separate open entrances. Suffice to say I took my time.
I may not have found the castle I was looking for but I did find a castle-like structure at the entrance of the cemetery! That was close enough and besides the drive up there was all I needed to settle my frazzled mind. I find I am needing more and more intellectual stimulation these days and it’s driven me in some odd directions. Driving for three hours into the mountains seemed to ease this need. Just between you and me I caterwauled a great deal of the way until I nearly lost my voice. That’s what the open road is all about – freedom. Freedom of movement, freedom of intellectual curiosity, freedom to butcher your favorite classic rock songs as loudly as you can muster.
I had meant to go to two covered bridges today but being as I got out of the house rather late and kept finding happy detours it was getting dark… still, I had time for one more little excursion. I hadn’t visited Ashuelot before and I was delighted to find it’s this adorable little historic town with one of the most charming covered bridges I have ever come across. I parked aside the road and marveled at the fact it had not one but TWO pedestrian pathways over the bridge. The river below gurgled and churned and blocked out all noise from the traffic surrounding it. There was something so unbelievably peaceful and fun about this particular bridge even though it seemed to be situated near a lot of activity. A sign on the front even advertised “Dinner on the Covered Bridge!” some sort of quaint annual event.
Sunday evening Katherine and I chilled for a while after our adventures earlier that day and said hello to my brother and his girlfriend before eating what was left of our deep fried s’mores and attempting an early bedtime so we could get up and head into Boston, a little more than three hours away, in the morning.
I can’t say my history with Boston has been the best… I mean it’s a tough city, big, full of rude people and aggressive drivers, statistically the worst in the country, but maybe it’s not their fault. As my brother said, “Those roads aren’t meant for cars.” He’s right. Boston is filled with impossibly narrow roads and streets, many of which sport one sharp curve after another, and none of which make any logical sense. To add insult to injury half the roads are underground where the GPS no longer works and when you finally get where you’re 
going there’s no parking anywhere. And if that’s not bad enough the drivers… wow. They’re called Mass-Holes by the rest of New England. They’re real peaches. I felt like I was playing Russian Roulette at every intersection. But here too is proof of my personal growth in the past year. I only started driving myself to unfamiliar places less than a year ago and Boston was on my “uh-ah, not going to do it” list. But this time around I barely took notice, volunteered to head into the bowels of Hell without a second thought, I think shocking my brother and everyone whom I told. I used to spend my life constantly engulfed by panic and anxiety. These days I wake up and have to check my pulse because I wonder if my heart is still beating when I can’t feel it slam against my chest walls. It’s really odd but so peaceful and wonderful. Even babies don’t thwart me anymore. They used to make me super nervous but just recently I realized they’re not really made of glass. Now instead of being like, “Shit don’t get that thing near me, I may break it.” I actually find them kinda cute. Except infants. They’ll always look like raisins to me.
Back to the story… Katherine asked if we could take an adventure on the way and I said sure, why not. She chose Walden Pond because she wanted to see where Thoreau wrote 
Katherine put it. It was $15 admission and seemed to be… A swimming hole for Bostoners. There were paths around the lake, none marked very well but it didn’t much matter as there were roads and civilization everywhere. No one was going to die out here. A replica of Thoreau’s cabin stood near the visitor center where there was both information and oddly, a gift shop. We discussed how morally strange it was to have a gift shop honoring a man who was all about simplifying one’s life and cutting out materialism… Though this spirit did seem present when we found the sight of his original cabin. Here was a large pile of rocks (just like the rest of New England…) where people had made some sort of weird piled rock memorial to the man. Some used Sharpies to doodle messages and pictures on the stones they left behind.
It seems as if almost the entirety of the lake had been made into one big sandy beach. The one at the front had the shallow bits cordoned off like keeping a mass of people in a big fish net! Further out there was more nature-friendly bits, kayakers seemed to be enjoying the day on the water, and other people had found more isolated spots to swim. Katherine and I were not dressed for this, having no idea there might be swimming involved, but we decided it was a nice hot day and the water did seem rather nice. I pulled off my trusty Chuck Taylors and knee high nerd socks, rolled up my pants, and waded in. Katherine followed suit. OH! The water was so shallow it was warm and clear as the day is bright. Fish immediately came to my shockingly white calves and tried to nibble on them. These fish were weird though…. as they appeared to be a school of African Cichlids. Perhaps this lake was the “farm up North” fish disappear to when they’re no longer wanted. All I knew is these things did not look natural with their bulky silver bodies and fluorescent blue tails.
We stayed in the lake enjoying the day for quite a while, neither one of us really wanting to leave. We had found the site of the original cabin and stared at it’s sad foundation earlier on and now we were watching people stare up at the sky to witness today’s solar eclipse. A little girl near by reminded us about this and although it was slightly darker than usual neither one of us really noticed what was going on behind a large swath of fluffy clouds. Ah well, no eclipse for us, we wandered back to the car and continued on to Malden where a friend was waiting for us.
