Hello again to our dear readers! Hope you're enjoying reading our articles so far. In this post I will be sharing about my summer in the countryside of New York and a neighboring town in the state of Connecticut as they are side by side.
This summer happened in 2007, my second summer in the US. We spent about a week in the country side, and we stayed in a little county called Ancramdale. The rest of the summer is spent in the island of Nantucket.
There is a distinct beauty in the countryside, as there are hiking trails, and lakes also abound. So days were spent either swimming, or hiking or lazing around.
This is the Bash Bish Falls in Berkshire County, Southern Massachusetts. This is the boundary of New York and the state of Massachusetts, and we went for a hike one day hoping to see this waterfall. We hiked for about 2 hours, but it was a gentle slope, so it was not difficult at all.
I had to take a picture at the marker saying I have reached the state of Massachusetts on foot from the state of New York! Ha ha ha!
After all that walking, we finally got to our destination. Bash Bish Falls is the highest waterfall in the state of Massachusetts. According to Wikipedia, Bash Bish Falls start at a spring in Mount Washington, and after the falls, continues on in a gentler course through the state of New York until it joins the Hudson River.
There were quite a number of people when we went there, some jumping from the rocks on top. It was a fall of at least 10 feet, but those youngsters were fearless. I was thinking, what if there are rocks at the bottom and they hit their heads on them? No such thing happened though, thank God! If you look at the picture above, there are people standing on top of the waterfalls, but the jumping point was somewhere in the middle.
Having hiked for two hours, there was no way I would miss going into the water, even if it was freezing cold! It was deep in the mountains, with hardly any sunshine, and even if it was summer, the weather was still cold, unlike here in the tropical Philippines.
Didn't stay there for too long though. The water was too cold for me. So after a few more splashes, we put our clothes back on, and hiked back to the state of new York! How about that? Covering two states in one day?
Another day we went strawberry picking, although I can no longer remember where exactly. It was fun doing it because the strawberries were very sweet, and they were big! Most of them were ripe, so I just had to choose the big ones, popping some fruits into my mouth from time to time. :-)
Look at those fruits! All red and very juicy. I am not a fan of strawberry, I mean it's not one of my favorite fruits, but these ones I ate a lot while picking them.
There were a lot of other people picking like us, so we just had to pick what we wanted, because you pay for what you pick, and if you pick too much, then of course you pay a lot.
This outer most box was our pick for the day, we paid for it, went back home, made strawberry short cakes, made strawberry preserves and ate a lot of them as well.
Fifteen minute drive from Ancramdale is another New York town called Millerton. We'd drive into town, and go to this bike and hiking trail as well. Back at that time I have not yet learned how to ride a bike so all I did was walk, and take pictures.
In the autumn these leaves would change colors into golden yellow, orange and red. Ah, I miss autumn already.
At the yard of the house where we stay are some fruit trees planted, some apple trees, some pear trees. These days the trees are already fully grown and they now bear a lot of fruit. When I went last 2016, I went in autumn so I did not see them in full bloom, but in this picture there were already fruits.
These are the huge pine trees in front of the house, and one time a woodpecker was making so much noise pecking at the wood! Since it's the country side and there is no traffic, all the noise you hear was that of the woodpecker! It was cool to hear it though, before I only saw it in cartoons.
All kinds of animals also abound, like this tiny squirrel on the roof. One morning there were a couple of deers just outside the house, but before I could take a picture of them, they already ran away. I grew up in the village as a child but I never got to see a live deer. Those were only seen in the deep forest. Here, they were a common sight.
These definitely are not deer. They might be yak and I do not remember where we went for me to take this picture. But nevertheless, it's another one of my pictures of animals in the countryside.
This is the kind of view you get to see everyday when you are in those parts of New York. The Adirondack mountains surround the state, and during the fall as you drive past them, you see a magnificent display of colorful foliage.
If we were not going anywhere, we had this pool to swim in, heated of course! The water is just too cold for us to swim in even if its summer. We were so used to the warm climate in Hong Kong where we lived the rest of the year.
Here is a corn field- I tell you, the corns were huge, and they were so sweet we sometimes ate them raw! But the best way of eating corn is eating them by the beach with lobsters and clams and garlic and butter dip! Drooling yet? Ha ha ha!
Another neighbor state to New York is the state of Connecticut. And we'd usually go visit the lake, to swim, to have a picnic or to just relax. The town of Salisbury is about 30 minutes drive from where we were so its pretty near. It was a variation to our summer schedule.
I loved seeing the green grass, the tall trees, and the water on the side. It's a peaceful environment where once can just sit down on a picnic blanket, read a book or listen to some music while everything else happens around you.
Beyond the lake are buildings, not sure if those are houses or schools. This lake was not as big as the one in New Hampshire.
Lakes are very common in the states of New Hampshire, New York, Connecticut as well as the other New England states, so people who live nearby can just choose where they want to go and relax, and all of these lakes would have nearby parks where there are playgrounds and restaurants where people can buy food if they did not pack any.
If I visit again, I would make sure to take more pictures, that way I will have more memories to treasure.
This has been another fun-filled adventure, one that was well-spent and relaxing as well.
Stay tuned for more travels and you can read other articles like this at this page.
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