I've been wanting to get a Massachusetts state park senior pass, so we finally got that chore done when we went to Hopkinton State Park recently. Now we have more convenient access to that and other sites such as Ashland State Park. This is where I spent many summer days with Ben and Julia and sometimes friends, as they splashed in the water and I sat in the shade reading or chatting. Today's trip brought back memories, although the park facilities have been upgraded somewhat with an expanded building and patio area.
Paul and I have visited Ashland Reservoir in the years since the kids were small. Ben and Julia both attended a camp in Elementary School that is situated on the lake, and Paul let Julia's Girl Scout troop on a nature walk one time. In the past few years we've taken our canoe to the other side of this lake and paddled to some islands where we swam.
Another connection to Ashland State Park is that when we were first married, Paul and I lived in Ashland near the reservoir. We could walk down the side street from the corner where our apartment was (top floor of a house) and get to the long dam which is partially shown in this photo. The photo was taken from our canoe.
We had decided to paddle first, then picnic and swim. As you can see, Paul fished also. But when we returned to the beach, it was filled to overflowing with kids attending an Ashland day camp program.
There was almost no room on the beach or in the swimming area. We moved our things to a less-congested spot in the woods for our picnic and then swam off the wheelchair ramp, which was probably not a sanctioned spot for swimming but it was a lot less croweded.
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