Favorite Spot for Family Fun? Gardner Lake!

?  ? The ? These are great places for a fun afternoon. So is the playground at ,  and the arcade at in Mohegan Sun.

is a fabulous spot for an outing, and the playground at the is a good spot, too - and kudos to the readers who suggested those places! 

But ... drumroll please... it was that took top honors in this week's Readers' Choice poll.

Gardner Lake, which is 529 acres and was named after the Gardner family, which originally owned it, is a natural lake, says the Connecticut DEEP. 

A 168-foot-long earthen dam raises the water level 4 feet, so that the average depth of the lake is 14 feet. Its deepest point is 39 feet, near Minnie Island State Park, which is both the only island in the lake and Connecticut’s smallest state park at 0.88 acre.

Gardner Lake State Park, which is in Salem, is 9.75 acres. It was added to the state's parks list in 2001.

Here's a great story about the lake, from the DEEP's website:

In February of 1895, a grocer by the name of Thomas LeCount decided he wanted to move his house. Rather than dismantling and rebuilding it, he decided to wait until winter and pull his house across the lake. He got about 100 yards off the south shore of the lake when the house slipped into a large snow bank. Thomas could not right the house without breaking the ice. Eventually, he decided to leave it for the night and come back in the morning to solve the problem. Overnight, the mill operators drained some of the lake’s water for power. This caused the house to crack through the ice, pitching over at a steep angle. It stayed there until spring, and sank into 15 feet of water when the ice thawed. For many years the second story and attic remained above water looking much like a lighthouse. Children fished from it in the summer and skated through it in the winter. Some fishermen claim that on quiet nights they can hear mermaids playing the piano that sunk with the house.

Thanks for playing, everyone! Please come back on Monday for a delicious new Readers' Choice.