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April 22, 2007
Project 351: The Southwest Corner
All week long, I was checking the weather forecast like it was a winning lottery ticket, peeking every five minutes just to make sure the numbers hadn't changed.
So Saturday (which was my birthday, if the #33 post below was too subtle) dawned sunny and high 60s and just absolutely perfect. Time to hit the road! I headed almost all the way out west on the Pike, and made my first stop in Tyringham as Santarella, famously known as The Gingerbread House. Then over some windy mountain roads to Monterey. What the pictures don't convey is how nice the Berkshires smelled. The air was crisp and clean, people were burning leaves or something off in the distance everywhere, and it was just fantastic. Of course, I wasn't downwind from any cows.
In Monterey is the old General Store (here's what they purport to sell, but I wasn't in the market for castor oil or cheese hoops. I saw a classic Monterey, MA, traffic jam, when three cars all pulled out at the same time.
(Monterey, incidentally, has its unusual name because it split off from Tyringham right about the time the U.S. was celebrating its victory in the Mexican War. The things you learn on the interwebz.)
Next stop was Sheffield, where there's a really cool hiking spot called Bartholomew's Cobble. Right up along the Housatonic River, there's a hill covered with huge rocks that apparently are geologically interesting (what I don't know about geology...) but definitely cool to look at and wander around. The soundtrack was provided by spring peepers. I took a lot of pictures there. And the park ranger, whose name I never got so I shall call him Bartholomew, seemed impressed when I told him about Project 351.
Also in Sheffield was the last battle of Shay's Rebellion, which is one of the many things in US/MA history I feel I ought to know more about.
Next town up was Egremont, which had the best quintessential Berkshires shot I came across all day, looking over Mill Pond to some mountains I assume are actually in New York.
Finally, the hardest landlocked town in Massachusetts to get to: Mount Washington. It's in the very southwest corner; it only borders Egremont and Sheffield; you can't get there from Sheffield because of the mountains, and the only way in is from Egremont over a winding mountain road. (I guess you can get in from CT or NY, but that seems like cheating). But it's worth it. The road down to Bash Bish Falls State Park was stunning. I've never driven in Colorado or Idaho, but I'd put Falls Road up against any scenic drive in the East.
Falls Road leads, as you may expect to a waterfall - Bish Bash Falls, the highest one in the state. There are two trails down to the falls; one is long but level, the other short but straight down (and then back up) an excruciatingly steep hill. Guess which one dumbass chose. My knees may be 33 by the calendar, but I think I was walking like a 67-year-old for a while after I got back to the car.
70 down, 281 to go! 20% done!
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Comments
Did you see Steffey while you were in the Berkshires? And what happened to Foxwoods?
Posted by: V-bunny | April 23, 2007 02:35 PM
No - I keep assuming I'll run into her at some point, but it hasn't happened yet. She's probably in Armenia or something. Foxwoods postponed, but it's gonna happen soon.
Posted by: michael | April 23, 2007 03:08 PM
