Gear

I don’t write reviews of gear. Years ago, I gave Kris a new fly rod, an Orvis Helios 3 five-weight–what else does a girl want for Christmas?–and I wrote a review of the rod. I’ve been embarrassed ever since. I think I said that it cast well. Our Massachusetts guide brought along an Orvis Helios 4 nymphing rod, the new top-of-the-line rods from Orvis, and I was excited about fishing with it, but you won’t get a review from me, except that it looks good and it cast as well as I could cast it.

My opinions about fishing gear aren’t worth much. I tend to fish the same brands over and over, so I don’t really have much basis for comparison. From time to time I catch rod fever, or convince myself that I need a new reel to replace a perfectly good reel that I hardly ever use. Some days you just need to go to the store. But my opinions? You don’t need them.

So be warned: I’m going to share my opinions on fly rods:

• Most modern rods can outfish me. I have never tested a rod’s limits.
• If I lose a fish, it’s not the rod.
• You can’t have too many fly rods in a closet back home.
• For trout, I fish Winston rods because they’re pretty. Fly rods can always cast better than I do, so they might as well be pretty.
• I usually decide that I need a new fly rod when I haven’t gone fishing in a while.
• Someday I’m going to fish that Tenkara rod again. Someday I’m going to fish that Euro nymphing rod again. Someday I’m going to fish that Winston 3-weight again. Someday I’m going to fish that Sage 12-weight.
• I think I need a new 10-weight. The new Orvis Helios 4s seem really nice. Maybe Kris needs a new 10-weight. Too bad Mother’s Day is past.
• When I pick a rod for a day’s fishing, I always pick a rod that’s reasonably heavy. It’s like the start of the baseball season: this isn’t a time for pessimism. Picking a heavy rod affirms my certainty that I will catch a bigger, stronger fish than I can otherwise handle. I won’t, and deep in my heart I know I won’t, but there’s plenty enough opportunities in this life for sad outcomes.

We took two 5-weight rods with floating lines to Massachusetts–hers was the Helios 3 I’d gifted those many years ago, and mine was a Winston. I didn’t take the Tenkara, nor the 12-weight.

Palmer, Massachusetts

We’ve been to Massachusetts before, so we fished two days, spent three nights, and then came home. Otherwise, we didn’t do anything but eat. It’s just as well because Palmer is not a tourist Mecca. We ate at an Italian place with huge portions of red sauce, a sushi joint that’s pretty good, and a railroad-themed restaurant in the old train station. I think that if I lived in Palmer, I’d eat at the sushi joint a lot. I think if we’d spent four nights, we’d have eaten at the sushi joint twice.

We stayed at the Trainmasters Inn, a railroad-themed bed-and-breakfast owned by the people who own the railroad-themed restaurant. It was nice, there was hot water, and I liked looking at all the train bric-a-brac. The railroad-themed restaurant gave us free bread pudding because we stayed at the inn. At the bed-and-breakfast, the breakfast was always a berry muffin left by unseen hands on a cake plate in the self-service coffee room. They were good muffins, but by the third morning I would have liked some variety.

There was a railroad hobby shop next to the Italian place, but it was never open. That’s too bad. If my life had taken a slightly different path this could be a blog about toy trains. What guy doesn’t love toy trains?

I didn’t see any running toy trains at the railroad-themed restaurant, which seems to me a real oversight.

Donuts

By statute, the only donuts allowed in Massachusetts are Dunkin’s. Does anyone really like Dunkin’ Donuts? The answer to that is yes, Massachusans. I suspect they eat Dunkin’ Donuts three meals a day, 365 days a year. On Thanksgiving and Christmas they have turkey, but they also have Dunkin’ Donut dressing on the side.

I counted six Dunkin’ Donut shops in the Hartford airport, and if I were the Governor of Connecticut I’d call out the national guard to protect the border from illegal immigration.

See that line of cars in the parking lot? That’s the line of cars for the Palmer Dunkin’s takeout window. It was at the back of the building, so that line of car loops around the building.

I made Kris go to Dunkin’ Donuts twice, and in the interest of science I tried several. I thought the Boston creme was the best of the lot, but Kris refused to try it. It did look pretty goopy. The blueberry donuts were ok, and so were the chocolate glazed. I suspect that the plain glazed had never seen hot fat. The donuts were passable, but none of them explained the Massachusetts obsession.

Where We Didn’t Go

We’d been to Fenway a couple of times, and have had good visits to Boston. We’ve been to Nantucket. We didn’t fish there though, and we haven’t fished Martha’s Vineyard or Cape Cod for stripers. Stripers would be an excellent choice for Massachusetts, but from what I can tell April was a bit early in the season.

We didn’t visit the Emily Dickinson house, which was just up the road in Amherst, and we didn’t visit Walden Pond.

Snow

It snowed the second morning we were there, and on the third day it was still snowing when we reached the airport. As far as I know it snows every day in Palmer, and Massachusettians spend their days standing at the plate glass window at the Dunkin’s watching the snow.

Playlist

Massachusetts makes for a good playlist. You could actually do a great playlist of music by Berklee College of Music graduates, though I didn’t. The first song I put on the list was “Dirty Water” by the Standells, which was a favorite song of my childhood. Apparently the band’s sound engineer wrote it after he was mugged visiting Boston, and the Standells were from LA, but Bostonians made it their own.

On my Massachusetts Playlist, there’s James Taylor, Joan Baez, the Cars, Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers, Aerosmith, J. Geils Band, Marky Mark, Donna Summer (did you know that there’s a 17 minute version of “Love to Love You Baby” that includes at least 15 minutes of heavy breathing?), Boston, the Pixies, and the strangest baseball song ever written, Warren Zevon’s “Bill Lee.” None of it is magnificent (except maybe Jonathan Richman), but it’s mostly good, and none of it is unlistenable (at least in short doses–that heavy breathing goes on a bit too long). Most of it is pretty sophisticated stuff. There’s also New Kids on the Block . OK, some of it is pretty unlistenable.

Guitar

I took a guitar to Massachusetts, but I never took it out of the case.