Massachusetts, Again

After our brief trip to Vermont, we returned to Massachusetts, this time to the western part of the state to spend some time with Don’s niece Laura Kroll and her two sons Christian and J.J. We went to the boys’ football game one night, then went out for a Chinese dinner afterward. The first thing I noticed is that many of the players were wearing breast cancer awareness socks!

Christian is in the #61 jersey and J.J. is #8.

Laura helped with the food booth during the PeeWee’s game early in the evening. She wore the SPAM apron because it has the school’s colors. She also has family roots in Hawaii, which is the largest consumer of SPAM, although she’s from California.

Yesterday we went to a corn maze. I didn’t want to go into the maze because of my claustrophobia – I was afraid I would get lost and start panicking when I couldn’t find my way out! So Don stayed with me while Laura and the boys got their wrist bands and picked out a numbered flag. She waved to me and Don as we watched from the observation platform.

That’s the last we saw of them for over an hour. As they entered the maze, the corn was so tall we barely saw them as they disappeared among the stalks.

To pass the time, Don and I had some hot cider and wandered around the facility. For $5 you could ride a pony around a small fenced area 3 times.

You could buy food and feed it to the animals.

And if you didn’t offer food, some of them would get a little aggressive.

You could take a ride on a horse-drawn wagon.

There were lots of pumpkins, free to those who went through the maze.

J.J. tried to pick up a heavy one.

But he learned quickly just how heavy the big ones were! Then he easily picked up a smaller one.

Our final stop was the Potato Blaster.

People lined up to put potatoes into a chute on top of the gun, pulled a loader, then aimed and squeezed the trigger.

The goal was to hit a target with a prize like kettle corn or a donut, and the potato had to hit the target directly, without bouncing.

Christian and J.J. took turns shooting the gun and even Laura got a couple of shots.

J.J. hit both the kettle corn and donut targets, so he went to claim his prizes before we left. Earlier, I had spotted a tower on top of a cliff not far away (look at the upper left), and noticed so many beautiful autumn colors.

Later, we drove up to this lookout point on Mt. Sugarloaf, with elevation 652 ft.

What wonderful views! Too bad the sun wasn’t shining so you could see the brilliant autumn colors.

The Connecticut River flows below.

And the maze was visible, too.

It was fun spending time with this part of Don’s family!