Since my brain hasn’t been working full capacity for A WHILE now I have been allowing other people to pick my travel destinations – which by the way keeps things interesting for sure! I end up places I wouldn’t have even thought of and that’s great! But this time around when the location was mentioned I was far less than enthusiastic about it. You see it was the tri-state marker in Douglas MA, a small town I used to live in, and the only town I can say I never wanted to step foot in again. It’s not the town, which is quaint and idealistic, but the fact I built my dream life there and then had to leave it quite suddenly and under extreme duress. You can’t really blame me for not wanting to re-traumatize myself.
But that got me to thinking that maybe avoiding psychological triggers wasn’t the healthiest way to move forward in life. And why should I? Just because someone else made my life miserable why should I let them continue to have any power over me now? I shouldn’t. Because I have every right in the world to take a peaceful hike through the woods. So I did and I am super happy with my decision because it was awesome!
Hell, if I knew when I lived there that there was a gorgeous HUGE state forest just a mile or two from my house I would have been there every day! Of the off season anyway. I guess it’s $9 per head for Mass residents and $30 a head for out-of-staters to get a day pass there during the on season. Little too rich for my blood but that’s only because I’m poor. Luckily for all of us we went during the off season when it’s free to everyone.
This place was whimsy central. The fall foliage was almost at it’s peak and everything was yellow with bursts of red and I can’t tell you how many mushrooms we found. Hundreds. All different kinds and colors – purple, red, pink, yellow, white, brown, and even some that looked like full sized pancakes on stalks! There were even mushrooms in every stage of life – a great deal of them having melted into gooey black puddles. I was just happy to be out with a party that seemed just as impressed with them as I was. And there was wildlife too. Before we even reached the proper trail I found a little red bellied snake just off the parking lot and there were salamanders and birds galore. And interestingly enough we also found a bunch of old foundations to what I am guessing were houses at one point. They were a delightful surprise. I have tried to look up information about them but no one’s been forthcoming and all I could really figure out was the forest was created in the 1930’s so the foundations had to have predated that.
We were all having a lot of fun but that’s not to say the journey wasn’t without it’s troubles. For one we didn’t have good directions at all and the 5.4 mile loop to the tri-state marker that we were promised was… how shall we say… not as straight forward as it seemed. It took several turns onto different trails and somewhere along the way we must have messed up because when we did find a marker it wasn’t the one we were looking for… it only marked the Massachusetts Rhode Island boundary. But we thought we found it and headed back to the car after many miles of hiking. By this point I decided I didn’t feel like dancing around the flooded parts of the path so I took off my shoes and went straight through the water. This was fine until I went through one puddle that went for quite a stretch and the water came almost up to my knees at points. Of course being a puddle and not clear water I couldn’t see where my feet were going and it was a rocky bottom making navigation challenging. Still, even though I was painfully slow, I didn’t regret my decision at all. That ice cold water cooled me down and indulged my inner child who found the splashing hilariously fun. By this time our party of four had whittled down to a party of three and I was struggling to keep up as my energy was going down to 3%. I’d pay for this dearly in the days afterwards but I still think it was worth it. My hiking companions were also not unfazed as the mosquitos were so thick on this day they nearly sucked us all dry. Little bizarre for mid October but OK! I don’t think my camera appreciated the trek very much unbeknownst to me it was throwing a fit the whole time and all my photos came out blurry. I apologize they are not as crisp and professional as other entries.
All and all this place was beautiful and I would happily return – maybe even finding the right marker this time! I highly suggest it to anyone who loves hiking, swimming, boating, or even horseback riding (as there was much evidence other horses had been through here.)
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.
