Bustling Bay State

Today I am writing about the state where I live for Blog Around the World! If you do not know about this fun site, follow Debbie's button on my sidebar and check it out. Each day she features bloggers from around the country and world, having them write about the place they live.
Welcome to Massachusetts, the Bay State! I am very excited to show you around this place where I have lived for 17 years! Do you see the top right corner of Rhode Island? I live just a smidge over the line in the Town of Franklin. We are directly Southwest of Boston. Every Tuesday I drive into the city to see my various doctors. If traffic keeps moving, it takes about an hour. From my house to downtown Providence takes about 30 minutes.



Massachusetts was named for an Algonquin Indian word that means "a big hill place." It is the forty-fifth largest state in size, and the fourteenth largest in population. That's a lot of people squooshed into a little space! This is Mount Greylock, the highest point in the state. One of the things I like about living here is that we have bustling urban centers such as Springfield and Worcester, small towns, and more rural areas like Norton and Sturbridge. No matter where you are in the state, you are no more than three hours from anything else. We have beaches on the Atlantic Ocean, mountains that some states would consider hills, and forests. We even have cranberry bogs! History, tradition, technology, education, environmentalism, literature, music and theater are all things that come to mind when I think of Massachusetts. I grew up in northern Connecticut, and in my mind Massachusetts had 2 parts, the BIG CITY of Boston, and everywhere else, where my parents made us go on foliage tours every fall. 6 hours of driving as a family around New England; what joy!

I asked several online friends who have never visited Massachusetts what comes to mind when they think of us. History and the city of Boston were top of everyone's list, as I expected. "The shot heard around the world," was in Concord, the Pilgrims landed in Cape Cod, and the Boston Tea Party, are just a few of the key events in this state's history. One of our country's first walking tours, The Freedom Trail, is a great way to visit many historic sites within a 2.5 mile area. A mostly brick line in the pavement takes visitors throughout the city, either with a paid guide or following a map on their own.

Another thing mentioned was colleges and education. There are 122 colleges and universities in Massachusetts, making it the largest concentration in the country. The colleges and universities here are excellent, as they are most places. Having a concentration of so many great research minds in such a small place increases the chance for scholars of all genres to get together and share ideas and work on projects. In my opinion, that's the benefit of a Boston or Massachusetts college. I received both my Bachelor's and Master's degrees from Lesley College in Cambridge. My sister graduated from Mount Ida College in Newton, and my BIL is a Northeastern

graduate. We all came to the "big city" from our little Connecticut town of 3,500 people, and ended up staying in the area. Two of the best-known Boston area colleges are Harvard and MIT, which is pictured below. In the 80s I found them to be great party schools where girls always got in and didn't have to pay for anything! WOO! HOO!

People love to envision Massachusetts lighthouses along the coast, with the beautiful beaches and cute villages where they can be found.

Fishing was a major industry here, with the Sacred Cod even being the state fish! Unfortunately the oceans have been severely over-fished and the population needs to grow back.

The Sacred Cod is a carving of a codfish that hangs in the chamber of the Massachusetts House of Representatives. It represents the importance of the fishing industry in the early history of the state. Cod were very abundant in the waters surrounding Massachusetts, and in 1974 it was chosen as the official state fish. He (or she, I don't know the gender!) is even featured in advertising for the city of Boston!
This post is getting very long, and I can see some of you nodding off. It seems I only ended up writing about a view things, and only those in the Greater Boston area. If you'd like to read more and see some other parts, I posted an entry about the Berkshires several months ago. The Berkshire Mountain area is the western area of the state, right next to Vermont. I love to go to the Berkshires once or twice every summer for the theater and antiquing. If you ever get a chance to visit Massachusetts or any of the New England states, give yourself several days and plan a tight itinerary because there is so much to see and do! You will want to plan great meals, beautiful scenery, something historic, like Old Sturbridge Village, and something fun such as the New England Aquarium, each day!The Connecticut River is one of the three major rivers that flow through Massachusetts.