Anchored in Amherst in a sea of continental Covid, limiting our ability to travel, we have explored what we safely could, either from the car or on a trail. Locally, we started with the Eric Carle museum, by reservation, a highly anticipated trip for Ione and her hungry hungry Caterpillar, Bonnie.
Then we hit the literary hiking trails; https://www.amherstma.gov/DocumentCenter/View/609/literary_guide?bidId=
Of course we started with the Emily Dickinson
Followed with the Bob M. McClung, named for a naturalist and children's book author who wrote "Bufo: The story of a toad". Based on the length of some of these trails, most of these authors were not long winded.
Wrapping up with the Robert Frost trail, where we took the road not taken and got lost ending up un-poetically in a cornfield.
Which was consistent with other literary hiking adventures we have taken through England's Lake District getting lost between Ruskin and Wordsworth.
After we wrapped up Amherst, we started to venture out in the Pioneer Valley and continued to feel some similarities with England and not based just on our confusion on hiking trails. Which makes sense considering most of these towns were founded in the mid to late 1600's by the English. We felt like we were driving on the right side of the street in Scarborough https://thechosenfugue.blogspot.com/2018/10/scarborough-fair-moor-or-less.html or Cambridge, UK xhttps://thechosenfugue.blogspot.com/2018/10/college-tour-and-cotswolds.html seeing towns with cemeteries wedged between houses with renegade tombstones scattered throughout parking lots; beautiful old buildings turned into trendy stores; and iconic colleges.
Lots of old small village towns, each with a seemingly separate town of the same name except with a East, West, South or North prefix, and all with only 3 different street names-Main, East and Pleasant.
We were excited to go to Holyoke and see the man-made canals which provided hydro-electro power for the city's manufacturing. Paper mills, cotton, thread, silk and wire factories made Holyoke an "economic powerhouse" 150 years ago, Both the mills and the town looked a bit dried up. But we actually seeing the canals at their low point as we saw them just after the annual draining of the canals. Timing is everything! We left equally drained of enthusiasm. Apparently Holyoke has also drained the "l" in it's name, as we learned from locals it's pronounced Ho-yoke.
Another local highlight was Shelbourne Falls, this area seems to be populated with similar gems.
And followed up that half hour by a trip to a combination apple orchard and sculpture garden in Northampton, but unfortunately no apple picking as windstorms destroyed the apple crop (2020, strikes again)
Having hit most of the local pandemic-safe highlights, we were now ready to go east and head to the coast through some more unoriginally named towns. https://thechosenfugue.blogspot.com/2018/10/wonders-man-made-and-natural.html. And since we were traveling, we kept our tradition of sampling the foods of an area at least once a country, and to us, New England is another country. Our first try was on at the witching and fishing towns of Salem and Gloucester which ended up as most of our food excursions, failing and going back home and eating home made tortillas.
Next coastal trip to another town named after an English one was to Ipswich- another well preserved colonial fishing town with a rich industrial, history. Feeling repetitive.
Before the Ipswich trip, we actually planned ahead and found a classic waterside take-out to get 3 different fish soups (we sampled Chowdah! Chowdah! and Chowdah! - All three pretty damn good.)
The main reason for the Ipswich trip, though, was to pick up cats for Ione. Pip and Posy, another literary allusion .https://nosycrow.com/series/pip-and-posy/
Drive-thru tourism acting like locals on the turnpikes and toll roads with our own EZpass.
The Connecticut turnpike/highway/expressway (very confusing on the names here) wins for presentation. Beautiful overpasses in a range of styles, well placed travel plazas- nicely named and tasteful bland architecture all wrapped up with a plethora of trees, just starting to change colors. Apparently, this road, Connecticut 15, Merritt Parkway is well appreciated https://www.knowol.com/information/connecticut/merritt-parkway-bridges-pictures-history/. Considering we did not leave the car through the drive, we appreciated it. Or maybe it was appreciated because we were not able to leave the car until we rolled to our destination.
Another perk to this trip was that we stopped to see Nick's sister on the New Jersey shore. Beachside towns share some type of cosmic connections; Gloucester MA and the Jersey shore mirroring their relatives across the sea, walking along the promenade we could have been in Eastbourne or Brighton, UK. https://thechosenfugue.blogspot.com/2018/10/bonfires-bandstands-and-beaches-in.html
On our return back, via Costco in Springfield, MA, it almost felt like going home to our hovel. Our basement apartment has mellowed with time as we watch the sunset lights and changing of the colors on the trees well framed by the ground level windows. The changing of the leaves is spectacular, the air has a bite you don't taste in the West.
Winter is coming, we are curious to meet the challenge of a true sustained snowy winter and see if our wimpy west coast winter clothes (triple layered) work. Although, the heater works, controlled by the upstairs inhabitants, reaching highs never experienced in our own home. We have had some new unwanted roommates, house centipedes. As with most roommates, they are creepy, disgusting but these guys move very fast. This is a stock photo, because they don't photograph well from the bottom of our shoes.
We hear mice in our ceiling heater vents but haven’t caught any so we moved the humane traps to our daughter’s attic, and in a month have caught 23 mice that we then release into the woods.
Hence, welcome Pip and Posy, since their arrivals- no mice.
So we got tested after our travels (negative), quarantined our 2 weeks and then returned to our quarantine-routine, our bubble life in Amherst, living the motto when in Rome avoid the Romans.
After 4 months here, it is hard to feel like we know the area. We can't visit most of the many museums in the area. Half the population (students) are missing. But the longer we have been in Western Mass the more we are appreciating the beauty of the Berkshires but still longing to be home on the West Coast. Besides Western Mass kinda sounds like a medical condition and while you can take the girl out of Western Mass, can you take the Western Mass out of the girl?
