Woods

I'm not at all religious, but this is a place where I'd sit down and listen to a sermon. Located in Dover, MA, the Abigail Draper Mann Woodland Worship Center is operated by the Dover Church. The church is celebrating its 250th anniversary this year, which is remarkable. Miss Draper Mann died in 1875 and willed property in the town to the Second Congregational Society. The Society eventually built a parsonage for the minister.

I assume that in order to honor the fine woman for her large, posthumous donation, the church named this outdoor sanctuary after her.

I grew up running around the woods. My friends and I explored Russell Brook, which ran next to my parents' house and off into the woods behind the house. We'd hop from bank to bank, looking at the fish (mostly suckers), dodging the skunk cabbage, swinging from the vines, slipping into the water once in a while, exploring the stone walls and enjoying total freedom.

Don't worry: this isn't going to turn into one of those, "Back in the '70s, we ran around for hours and our parents had no idea where we were, we knew how to play outside, and we started forest fires but we had the wherewithal to call in helicopters to drop enormous buckets of water to put out the fires, then we'd plan a show, sell the tickets, put on a three-ring circus, clean up the mess and go back home and cook dinner for our parents, and we turned out fine. Oh yeah, and we fended off child molesters with one hand tied behind our backs" diatribes.

Parents today blather on about how their kids don't get outside enough, and they don't know how to make their own adventures, and even if they did go outside, we have to be so careful about weirdos and potential abductors that it's all so different than we were kids. But we have the power to shut off the kids' DSI's, GameBoys, Xboxes, etc. and shove them out the door. But we don't. It's nobody's fault but our own, so either force your kids' hands, or stop yapping about it.

I'm as guilty as the next parent, so I'm not trying to be holier-than-thou. Anyway, back to the woods.

I like walking in the woods, but I've experienced long stretches in my life when I don't hike, most of those in the years since my kids were born. But whenever I get back into the trees, it's like I never left. I've been recently inspired by Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods.

The book details Bryson's attempt, with a friend who's overweight and a recovering alcoholic, to hike the entire Appalachian Trail. I loved the book, and that's all I'm gonna say, except that I highly recommend it.

In recent weeks, I've gone to Snow Hill in Dover, MA, three times. This is odd because before January 19th, I'd never heard of the place.

On the 19th, I dropped Amelia off at school and decided, as I sometimes do, to cruise around the western suburbs looking for places to take pictures for my other blog, The Backside of America. Sometimes I have a destination in mind, but oftentimes I don't.

On that day, I drove aimlessly for quite some time, with no luck. I ended up on Pine Street in Dover. I'd never been on this street before, but it looked promising. And sure enough, within less than a mile, I drove right past a small parking lot that led up a dirt road. I noticed a sign: "Glidden Land Preserve."

The next sign told me that I'd found what I didn't even know I was looking for:

A fire tower! What a perfect addition to the Backside blog.

I hiked up to the tower, but there were a couple of guys working on it, and frankly, I wasn't sure I was supposed to be up there, so I chickened out and went back down to explore a small, vacant building I'd seen off the path on my way up.

The building turned out to be a scout camp of some sort (I'll detail more about these places, and include photos, in future Backside posts). I walked around a bit here and then headed back down to the car.

I wasn't satisfied with my visit, so the next week I went back, determined to get some better shots of the fire tower. I did that, and then explored some more. I wandered aimlessly down the other side of the hill (elev. 443 feet) and before too long I was just feet from the backyards of some impressive estates (Dover is one of the horsiest towns in the state).

I meandered up and down some more small (but steep) hills before arriving back on the main path. Before arriving back at my car, I spotted a path going between two boulders. About 50 feet deep into the woods there was a break in a stone wall, and a sign for the woodland worship center just above. I was tired, so I didn't push on.

But once again, after I left, I had a nagging feeling that I should've done more exploring. So I went back a week later, and that's when I discovered that the benches and lectern in the above photo.

I've done some other random hikes (very easy ones) this winter, and certainly plan to do more this season and beyond. In recent years, it's been difficult to get Owen to go on hikes, but in recent months he's been maturing in some ways, so my hope is that I can get him to join me on weekends to do some exploring in Greater Boston and maybe even hit some bigger hills like Mount Wachusett.

And while I'm no expert camper, I would love for the whole family to do some hiking and camping in the near future, too. Just gotta get rip those kids away from their screens.