Category: Travel

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Blogging Career Driving Military Travel

Chicopee Massachusetts

Welcome back to #TravelThursday. 12 years ago this month the USAF sent me to Westover Air Reserve Base in Chicopee Massachusetts for an observation of how my counterparts there do the same job as me at their base. Me and my supervisor at the time flew in to Bradley International Airport (#BDL) on a Monday. Bradley is located in north-central Connecticut about halfway between Hartford Connecticut (15 miles to the south) and Springfield Massachusetts (15 miles to the north). We got our rental car, and we drove northward into Massachusetts towards Westover. It was my very first time ever into the states of Connecticut and Massachusetts, and I haven’t been back there since.

Westover Air Reserve Base (ARB) is the former Westover Air Force Base (AFB) – built in 1939 at the start of World War 2. It’s been an ARB for the past 30+ years, and it’s the largest ARB in the U.S. in both size and military and civilian employee population.

Chicopee is the city that includes nearly all of Westover. About 55,500 residents call Chicopee home. The city reached its peak population during the early-1970s, and it’s been dropping steadily since. It’s a northern suburb of Springfield which it borders. About 156,000 call Springfield home, and about 700,000 live within the Greater Springfield metro area.

“When at Westover – eat at Bernie’s“, and so we did. It’s a nice restaurant located inside a train car. It’s very unique-looking from the outside, and the food is pretty good inside. I remember it to this day.

The area sits near the foothills of the scenic Berkshires – a low-elevation mountain range that’s part of the Appalachians. It’s about a 45-minute drive to the west. On a future visit to the region (and I hope that there is one) I definitely wish to explore this area. Chicopee is known as the “Crossroads Of New England”. My first (and only to date) visit to New England was way too short (barely 5 days). It was a sneak-peek of a future non-work-related trip that will hopefully include more of New England into Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine.

Finally – I was wondering if Chicopee / Westover was the furthest north I’ve ever been here stateside. No. It’s near 42.2° north latitude. I’ve been further north – Detroit (42.3°), Milwaukee (43.0°), Syracuse (43.1°), and Niagara Falls (43.1°).

Next #TravelThursday we’ll visit ZooMiami. Let’s keep traveling together.

All rights reserved (c) 2022 Christopher M. Day, CountUp

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1970s 1980s Blogging Driving Movies Radio Travel

Kings Dominion

Welcome back to #TravelThursday. Kings Dominion is a fun seasonal amusement park located between Washington D.C. and Richmond Virginia (much closer to Richmond) right along I-95. The 280-acre park opened on May 03RD 1975 – the same exact date that my little brother was born. Starting in the late-1970s and continuing into the mid-1980s me and my family would visit the park every few summers. We would actually alternate between Kings Dominion, Busch Gardens near Williamsburg Virginia (opened 13 days after Kings Dominion), and Hershey Park in Pennsylvania (opened 116 years ago this weekend).

Kings Dominion is generally open starting in mid-March – weekends only at first, and then daily from Memorial Day Weekend to Labor Day Weekend. The park returns to weekends only during the Autumn months. It’s also open during Christmas and New Year’s Week for festive displays and events known as #WinterFest.

Me and my brother always had a lot of fun roaming around the park and riding all of the rides. My parents were there for the shows, shops, and restaurants.

There are still some original rides from the 1975 opening including what used to be the “Rebel Yell” rollercoaster – now known as the “Racer 75”. It rises to a height of 85 feet, and it drops 81 of those 85 feet at a top speed of 56 MPH. That was perhaps the first rollercoaster I ever rode on. It was scary back then, and I wouldn’t ride it today because – well – it’s still scary. (And nowadays I get motion sickness very easily on those types of rides.)

That’s me as a teenager in the early-1980s atop the Eiffel Tower – a one-third replica of the real thing – standing tall at 314 feet. (The observation decks are 40 feet below the top.)

So 26 years ago this week (leading-up to Memorial Day Weekend) was my final visit with my brother to Kings Dominion. My brother won a radio contest on Washington rock station #DC101 – two free tickets to Kings Dominion – where you got to go there as VIPs before the park opened to participate in a “Mission: Impossible” scavenger hunt all throughout the park. (The Tom Cruise movie premiered at the box office that week.) Me and my brother drove down to the park on an unseasonably chilly and drizzly day, and we had lots of fun with the scavenger hunt and the rides on that day.

A lot of fun family memories at Kings Dominion. It’s good to see it still thriving with new generations of families 47 years later.

Next #TravelThursday we’ll visit Chicopee Massachusetts. Let’s keep traveling together.

All rights reserved (c) 2022 Christopher M. Day, CountUp

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Blogging Computers Driving Internet Travel

Melbourne Florida

Welcome back to #TravelThursday. 29 years ago I lived in Melbourne Florida. It was my home from March 1993 to March 1994. I lived in a cozy low-rent studio efficiency on South Oak Street – at first full-time and unemployed, and then part-time and fully-employed.

When I got my honorable discharge from the USAF I moved to Melbourne Florida (from the Washington D.C. area). This was in the aftermath of the destruction of my former home at Homestead Air Force Base. In hindsight – I should have relocated to Melbourne directly after Hurricane Andrew instead of the #DMV (where I grew up as a kid). Had I gone to Patrick Air Force Base while still on USAF Active Duty my life of the next 30 years may have turned out completely different – perhaps for the better – maybe for the worse.

My first 5 months in Melbourne were crazy – and a lot of fun – as I looked for a job in the local area. It was probably the most fun 5 months of my entire life. It was during those 5 months that I learned how to use a modern Windows 3.1 / DOS 6.0-based personal computer for the first time ever. I also discovered an early form of social media known as the BBS (bulletin board system). My friend was running a popular BBS at the time where people would dial-in (via modem) to his computer and participate in message boards and live chat. I was so fascinated by that. I decided to create my own BBS – MANx CAT BBS. It went online during the early-morning hours of Friday May 21ST 1993. It continued for over 4 years.

MANx CAT BBS spawned MANx On The Net – which was the World Wide Web spinoff of the BBS. MANx On The Net evolved into MASSIVESMASH.COM in 1998 – my music-based web site, and it in turn became this blog in 2007.

Original Masthead (1998-2007)

So this weekend marks 29 years of online activity for me – starting with that first BBS – created in Melbourne Florida. And on that BBS we talked about travel and music – among other topics.

Since I moved away in March 1994 I’ve only visited Melbourne a few times. I don’t know anyone there anymore. My old rundown apartment complex was bulldozed to the ground years ago. The city has grown a lot over the past 30 years. So has the metro area (essentially all of Brevard County / Florida’s Space Coast). Over 600,000 call the area home nowadays. 30 years ago that number was right around 400,000. It was congested back then. I know it’s worse today. It’s a nice scenic area with the rivers and the beaches, but I wouldn’t want to live there.

Next #TravelThursday we’ll visit Kings Dominion in Virginia. Let’s keep traveling together.

All rights reserved (c) 2022 Christopher M. Day, CountUp

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Blogging Driving Food History Holidays Military Shopping Travel

Marsh Harbour

Welcome back to #TravelThursday. 15 years ago this week I was on Marsh Harbour in the Abaco Islands of the northwestern Bahamas – about 195 nautical miles from home. (Marsh Harbour is adjacent to southern Palm Beach County Florida.)

I was with my brother, his fiancé, our parents, and her parents and siblings. Most of us arrived on Wednesday May 09TH 2007, and we stayed until the following Wednesday May 16TH 2007. We stayed at the Bahama Beach Club resort. My brother and his fiancé got married there on Saturday May 12TH 2007, so today is in fact their 15TH wedding anniversary !

It was a fun wedding. It was a fun week. We explored Marsh Harbour and some of the surrounding Abaco islands. I have some 290 photos of that week on my computer – chronologically sorted from arrival to departure. My brother took all of the photos. (I had not yet become an amateur photographer.)

Over 100 photos cover a fun 5½-hour family trip via ferry to and from the neighboring island of Elbow Cay – where we visited the Elbow Reef Lighthouse and the small village of Hope Town.

View from atop the Elbow Reef Lighthouse

This vacation was just 8½ months into my salvation (3½ months as part of my first church family). As a baby Christian learning and understanding God’s Way I was very conflicted as to how I should act in certain circumstances – particularly where drinking alcohol was involved. I chose to abstain from it completely. It really made me look like the odd one out, but I think that’s what’s God’s plan for each of us who believe and follow Him. Don’t blend in with others. Be different. Be radical.

I was also a bit ill that entire week. I had near total blockage in my right ear. I could barely hear out of it, and it gave me headaches all throughout that week. I played it off, and I didn’t tell anyone about it. Soon after I returned back home I scheduled an appointment with an #ENT. At that appointment the doctor removed multiple chunks of ear wax from my right ear and flushed both of them. My hearing was restored 100% after that.

One last thing that put a damper on this trip is that my cat’s health was quickly deteriorating in the days leading-up to it. I took him to his regular animal hospital before I left to be examined and kenneled. As it turns out he passed on the day after I returned back home. (I’ll post on that next Tuesday May 17TH 2022 – the 15TH anniversary of his death.)

I really did enjoy our family trip to Marsh Harbour. I’d like to go back there again with family, and enjoy the scenery, and do fun things like we did 15 years ago.

Next #TravelThursday we’ll visit Melbourne Florida. You know – I used to live there. I’ll tell you all about it. Let’s keep traveling together.

All rights reserved (c) 2022 Christopher M. Day, CountUp