Diary February 21, 1960: An Enchanted Fairyland!

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"Dear Diary--

To think that I traveled well over a hundred miles today! We went all over! Finally we stopped at Brigham's Candy. What an enchanted fairyland! After that we stopped to get some cheese. No, that was after we went to the top of the mountain. And what a mountain. I thought my ears would pop! Then, to top it all off, we got out (Marcia, Leslie, Uncle Eddie and I) and looked down with the binoculars! I stepped into the snow and sunk twice! Coming back to the car, I felt as if I were defying all the laws of gravity, and walking half-way-side-ways, or inside-bottom-out-and upside-down. Whew!"

This mountain would have been Mt. Holyoke, at the top of which was--still is--Skinner Park with its Summit House. Abraham Lincoln vacationed there, among many others. Thomas Cole painted the view from where I was "looking down!" (It now hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art). The binoculars were Nazi binoculars, taken by an American soldier off the body of a dead German and bought by my uncle; he had a collection of WWII guns and so forth, some American and some SS. They really were great binoculars.