Nobody knows Warwick, MA. Warwick, RI, sure. But Warwick, MA? Nope, never heard of it. Even “locals” like my brother-in-law Ray who lives seasonally in New Salem, MA, just a few miles away, had never heard of it. And small wonder. Almost no one lives here (2010 population: 780) and it has no industry to speak of. What is does have aplenty is trees. It is basically wall-to-wall forest. If you like long walks in the woods, you will love Warwick.
The reason we spent three nights here, as I have already mentioned, was the combo birthday bash and farewell party thrown by Ray and Kim in the burgeoning metropolis (2010 population: 990) of New Salem (a.k.a. “the forgotten Franklin County town”). The dominant geological feature of New Salem is the Quabbin Reservoir, one of the largest public water reservoirs in the country (over 410 billion gallons capacity). In addition to providing pure drinking water to most of eastern Massachusetts, including Boston, it is also a wildlife sanctuary. Bald eagles have been reintroduced there and the population is growing.
Ray and Kim’s cottage is surrounded on three sides by restricted-access watershed land and they see the wildlife up close. Hummingbirds swarm their feeders, wild turkeys, deer and moose occasionally wander through the yard and eagles sometimes swoop by. It is a very serene place.
We stayed at the Wagon Wheel Campgroundin Warwick. I previously mentioned our misadventures in finding the place, so if you go there I suggest that you enter the coordinates into your GPS rather than relying on the address. It is much larger than Saddleback with over 100 sites, almost all of which have full hookups. It was a joy being able to set up the sewer line so that it would drain by gravity alone. It also offers horse-drawn hayrides. We didn’t go on one, but I can imagine that the kiddies would love it.
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- The “safari field”
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- One of the Wagon Wheel horses
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- The Wagon Wheel office and store
It being mid-September in one of the coldest parts of Massachusetts (Orange, just to the south, is pretty consistently mentioned as the coldest spot in the state in winter weather reports), most of the sites are either unoccupied or occupied by vacant seasonal RVs. We didn’t have any neighbors within a hundred yards. Which is probably a good thing as the dogs got loose on our return from the party Saturday night and decided to explore the campground. In the pitch black (and it gets VERY dark in Warwick – on a clear night the Milky Way stands out like a smudged White-Out streak in the sky) they disappeared from sight immediately. As it was “quiet time” I had to call in a whisper. Grace came back almost immediately, but Cha-Cha wandered around for several minutes before deciding to return. I should have locked him out. Would have served him right. But he might have succumbed to frostbite (37 degrees at 6am today).
The Wagon Wheel is hosted by Scott and Kim Williams. We didn’t meet Scott, but we did meet Kim and their son Wade, both of whom were very helpful. They made us feel very welcome.
But it is too damn cold here. Time to head south.