Union Forever

Blog post confessional: I have a favorite town.  

With all apologies to every other town I have grown to love, cherish, hate, or feel ambivalent about, the town that my mind always wanders back towards is Union, CT. The only town in the Constitution State that has failed to break the "population: 1,000" threshold. Perspective: every other town in the state has had a four-digit population for at least 30 years. It happens to be located in the eastern part of the state on the Massachusetts border, about 25 or so minutes away from the University of Connecticut's main campus. Safe to say UConn's close proximity to Union was the highlight of my undergraduate tenure.       

Travis Reyes sitting in Union showing the audience a map of Union.

There is a decent chance that I have spent more time than any other human gazing at Union's two-page spread within a Central/Eastern Connecticut road atlas. Perhaps a Union resident has had to navigate town daily by looking at it. Then I would be second place. Regardless of all-time rank, I spend an inordinate amount of my free time wondering what exactly goes on in at the sites of specific, non-detailed areas on maps. Union has an abundance of these gems. 

My first foray into the enchanting world of Union was to include reaching the shores of Breakneck Pond. This body of water is a 92-acre (woods measurements? I can account for it being a fairly substantial lake) lake in Union's eastern half surrounded by the Nipmunk State Forest. And by "surrounded" I mean no accessible roads at least two miles from any point on the lake's shore. 

This infatuation became a reality one of the first weekends of my Fall 2010 semester (Senior Year!). Kate and I drove north from UConn on a Saturday afternoon on a Union spirit quest. Destination: the road closest to the shoreline of Breakneck (Carion Rd.). We navigated using the very map page seen in the picture above (scroll up)! Scroll down and you will see where we parked; a tiny dirt patch at the end of Carion (end of scrolling). Our journey commenced as we began walking down the wooded trails adjacent to this dirt patch. 

Commencement. Yours truly walking a few paces ahead of Kate for photo-op's sake.

 
Needless to say, Union was unforgiving on our first pilgrimage. Darkness had begun to creep in as we trudged a couple miles up the trail with still no sign of Breakneck, so we decided to head back to the Geo. I probably only speak for myself when I say the walk back was a shameful one. My curiosities were confirmed, though; Union was formidable. And it demanded to be taken seriously. I vowed to dedicate an entire Saturday to Breakneck next time. 

 Next time turned out to be two months later (why on Earth did it take two months to get back?). The Geo is again parked on the dirt patch; only this time there are a lot more daylight hours to spare (i.e. it is late morning). We are ready for Union and Breakneck Pond. Are they ready for us? Scroll down past parking photo to find out.

My Geo (RIP) being camera-shy.

This time Kate and I marched down the trail next to Carion Rd. with authority. Before long we confronted the spot we had previously turned around at...and we soldiered on. Soon after, the trail took a sharp turn west. Promising, I thought to myself. Breakneck Pond was both north and west (northwest) from where we were parked, according to the map. All the while the Nipmunk forest was composed densely of tall, straight pines that filter the sunlight in a sinister way, making the hike feel like a perpetual late afternoon. But fear not, audience, we could not be deterred by anything sinister or wicked on this day. After a bit of a downward slope we saw what appeared to be an opening of light up ahead. We were not being beckoned by heaven; we had reached Breakneck Pond! It appeared to us as such: 

The keen observer may notice the lighting varying here and assume we spent a while on the shores of Breakneck. The keen observer would be correct.

 We employed a loop-back trail to Carion Rd. as the sun began to sink behind the pines and I felt a distinct sense of exploratory pride (only understood by the likes of Lewis & Clark, et. al). As we were returning to UConn in the Geo, however, I realized that finding this elusive pond was only going to make me thirst for discovering Union's hidden secrets even more. But it was simultaneously a warm feeling. I knew in my bones that this was the first day of the rest of my life. I had reached the tip of the iceberg that was my longtime, deep-rooted desire for geographical exploration. Union and its patches of nondescript remote woods would be beckoning again soon. 

I had made a habit Senior Year of taking long drives through the towns surrounding the University of Connecticut with Kate (you're the best!) on the weekends. I would say that these drives were solely driven by desire for exploration. There may have been the occasional functional drive. The landscape, farm-culture and general obscurity of the "Quiet Corner," as these towns are known, is extremely inspiring to me (exhibit A: this is a blog post about Union). None of these towns, however, have ever matched the excitement and curiosity I feel when passing through Union. I get the sense that it is the most forgotten place in Connecticut, the place where the most stones are unturned. That exhilarates me. I suppose it is the place where I can feel most like an explorer, a la Lewis & Clark. This is why my future lies in the American West (a sentiment for a blog post from the future)...

Despite my love affair, the next full-day trip to Union waited until the following Autumn (2011). There is an unnamed lake in Union's western half that had me salivating since I left Breakneck. Fed by "Brown's Brook" from the north, it lies between I-84 and Stickney Hill Rd. This was to be one of Kate and I's first Autumn adventures following our undergraduate graduation. New Britain is considerably farther from the mysteries of Union than UConn is, but that did not deter us (me?). 

This day began with an even earlier start than our Breakneck success. Parking in a dirt lot at the end of a dirt road littered with vague state park-esque signage, we briefly started south onto the trail. This trail led us to a single house, one that was clearly inhabited. Mind you, the dirt road leading to the dirt parking lot was a good mile from any other signs of civilization. This house was a microcosm of Union, as far as I was concerned. Union's mysteriousness was affirmed yet again in my eyes. Upon seeing the house, we swiftly turned around and doubled back in the other direction.

Not the state park-esque signage.

This time, we reached our destination in a much smoother fashion (Union was throwing us a bone?). The trail curved right down onto the shores of the nameless lake. We pondered the significance of being the first humans to lay eyes upon it: (If we weren't, why didn't it have a name?)

 

We spent the day with our lake.

 Although we failed to report our discovery to Union authorities that day, this blog post will serve as its official press release. Union authorities: we will be submitting our copyrighted namesake suggestion to you shortly. 

Unnamed Lake is relatively small in size compared to Breakneck, so after lunching on its shores we moved forward (eastward) past the lake. We continued to follow the trail for another mile or so until it seemed to be curving southward. It was at this point that I thought I was hearing the distant whirring of cars speeding by. I hypothesized that we had come pretty close to I-84. Translation: I knew that I had to trudge through the woods (off the trail) until my hypothesis could be confirmed with my own eyes. With Kate standing her ground on the trail (my muse was solitary), I ventured through the woods. Almost immediately I heard some rustling and emerging from behind a tree trunk was a deer. My heart leaped out of my t-shirt. For a split second we were face-to-face (face-off) before it tore off in the other direction. In that moment I knew these were really uncharted waters. About five minutes later I stood at the top of a hill and looked down (through the dense woods) at I-84. Mission accomplished. I returned to my lover, waiting patiently on the trail all the while, and we headed home. 

I am no Hedonist; apparently I indulge in my muses far less often than I would like...the next Union day trip did not occur until the following June (2012). This also happens to be our most recent Union pilgrimage. Its focus was the peculiar "Cat Rocks,"(a highly recommended link; a page out of the Hartford Courant archives almost 20 years old!) located in the Northwest corner of Breakneck Pond. The label "Cat Rocks" on the map right next to Breakneck pond has been taunting me for as long as Union itself has; what the hell could those possibly be? I needed to conquer them. And if nothing else, they have a ridiculous name and are the inverse of New Britain's minor league baseball team, the Rock Cats. This particular journey was preceded by a bit of research (click on that link!) which only heightened my sense of intrigue. This time entering the Nipmunk via Bigelow Hollow State Park, the most official-seeming (read: corporate state park) place in Union.  

As we headed up the trail alongside the western shoreline of Breakneck (we had previously traversed the eastern) one thing was apparent: it was summer. I do not mean that in the nostalgic, joyful sense. I mean that there were a shitload of mosquitoes everywhere and that we had to bathe ourselves in OFF! spray. Union in the Summer is much more of a pest than Union in the Fall. 

Sticky.

We sweated and swatted our way up the Breakneck shore and realized that we missed the official entrance trail to Cat Rocks when we ended up at the far northern tip of the lake. We doubled back carefully and headed up Cat Rocks Boulevard (as it's known around my condo). Within about 10 minutes we had arrived at our destination. I suppose that the considerable folklore, unaccompanied by photography, (click that link!!!) led me to envision towering columns of rock situated in a picturesque open field. But the forest never subsided, and the rocks were unassuming at best: 

The most comprehensive shot of Cat Rocks.

I will admit they were pretty difficult to climb up, given the abundance of leaves covering them. But other than that, Cat Rocks were a disappointment. Yet somehow, as we sweated and swatted our way back to Bigelow Hollow, I realized that the sheer unexplainable (relative) hype surrounding the Cat Rocks had caused me to fall even deeper in love with Union. My main question was, why are these bunch of rocks deemed noteworthy enough to be included on a map, and be (relatively) widely known? Union will never cease to intrigue me, and I will not rest until every stone from every corner of the town in unturned. Something about the air in Union is different. And I also know something strange is lying just below its surface. I cannot articulate what it is at this point. But I intend to find out. And you, audience, will be the first to know (second, after me). Union, I will return. 

Thank you for reading this love letter. Until next time...

listening...Serengeti-Shazam