This Is Me Not Getting My Masters: Playing Hookie

When I was about thirteen or so my Dad started taking me out of school on St. Patrick's Day to go skiing. This little act of playing hookie is one of my fondest memories. The slopes would be empty because everyone was either in school or otherwise occupied by the holiday, and we would ski to our hearts content then come home with snow-glare sunburns. This was how I learned that playing hookie every now and then is good for your soul.

As the years went on it became harder and harder to take a day off, but this year I revisited that wonderful tradition of playing hookie (thank you, Susan!) and headed up to Western Mass. As MontAnia mentioned in her post she was unable to make it, and her stoke was sorely missed. We'll have to plan something big to make up for it, because a hike without MontAnia is just not the same.

I did, however, bring along a new friend-the wonderful free spirit known to us as Meg.

Meet Meg!

Note: I'm trying out page breaks so hit "read more" to, well, read more.
Meg and I hit the road after breakfast and arrived at the Mount Toby Trail head just before noon. We

followed the Robert Frost Trail into the forest, and I found the woods were lovely, bright and deep and we had no promises to keep. We couldn't even keep to the trail, as the moment we found some snowshoe tracks leading into an interesting part of the forest we happily diverged from Robert Frost into a shaded glen in the heart of the woods. A small pack of woodpeckers announced our arrival by cawing out like so many chickens, but once they settled down the only sound was the soft bubbling of the stream and our footsteps crunching through the ice.

Oh, the ice! It was an icy day for sure. Spring has been it's usual indecisive self, melting and re-freezing the top layer of snow for a few weeks now, so that anywhere anyone has stepped in that time is a slick path of ice. We did a lot of intense but-sliding on the descent, and I have the bruises to prove it.

Once we found our way to the path again we hit the summit of Mount Toby. It is the highest point in the reservation and home to the Sunderland Fire Tower, from the top of which you can see miles and miles of Western Mass. I took in the Connecticut River, the Holyoke Range that MontAnia and I recently tackled, and perfectly clear skies for as long as I could stand before 20 degrees + wind drove us down the mountain. All in all we did a fairly short hike, but the day's adventure wasn't even close to over.

Meg went to college up this way and knows all the secret spots, and as it happened the trail head was not far from a wonderful place called the Book Mill. I have a bit of a weakness when it comes to used books-I am currently working part-time at a used book store-and the Book Mill was quite the fix. "Books you don't need in a place you can't find," is their slogan, so once we found it I had to reward myself with five great books*. Attached to the store is a cafe, and they had a cheese plate, my other weakness, and pretty fantastic cider that Meg and I enjoyed while looking out over the waterfall the old Mill is built over. Oh MontAnia, where were you?? We'll have to do this again, soon. Tomorrow?

Secret Spot #2 was the New England Peace Pagoda. If you had asked me for a list of things you are unlikely to find in Western Mass, a Peace Pagoda would be on that list, but there it was.

Built after World War II to inspire peace and establish a Buddhist community presence in Massachusetts, the pagoda is an ever-evolving sprawl of temple, gardens, and prayer flags. On this cold day in March the Pagoda was our alone, and we wandered around it's icy paths, admiring the oddity of a pure white pagoda in a New England hardwood forest.

It wasn't until we came to the pond that the beauty of the place really hit me, and suddenly the juxtaposition of this culture so far from home was no longer strange. Prayer flags wind back and forth across the pond, which was completely frozen over. A few strands had fallen into the pond before it froze earlier this winter, and now they emerge from the ice, partially frozen themselves, caught in a breeze that has long since passed. The colorful flags reflected off the surface of the pond in the evening light, doubling their effect. We really were caught between two worlds. Meg and I skated around the ice, weaving between the flags, using up those last bits of daylight. If you haven't played hookie lately, go do so, bring a friend, and have an adventure. You never know where a day might take you.