Greenfield, MA
Kara had to go the the bon-voyage party for her People To People trip in Deerfield, MA. I came along, and went a couple of miles north to another town called Greenfield while she performed her leader duties.
It's pretty neat to be around this kind of history. Greenfield was settled in 1686, and incorporated in 1753. At that time it was the northern frontier before the Canadian border. Sort of like the wild west.. or wild north.. or whatever. I went to Rocky Mountain Park, and rode along a ridgeline that is part of the same glacial formation as two other rides I've done: Mt. Tom in MA, and Penwoods in CT. Same rock and everything. Another interesting thing about this ride was the "poets seat tower". A sandstone tower that was built a long time ago in honor of the american poet Frederick Goddard Tuckerman. Tuckerman was good friends with Tennyson, and another poet I recognized but don't remember. I couldn't figure out when the tower was built, mostly because I have better things to do, but here's a postcard from 1910 with a picture of the tower:
I also considered getting a bit of Freddies poetry and posting that, but it's all pretty depressing. His wife and 21 year old son died practically at the same time, and much of his famous work is about that.
There was a lot of great singletrack, strangely familiar to Penwoods in Connecticut. A cool thing about the northeast is that I was in the middle of a town, and the trees were so thick I didn't even know it until looking this place up on a map. Town may be a strong word, this place is less dense than Florence. There was a bunch of cool rivers here too, some pretty sweet looking bridge jumping and whatnot.
So here are some pictures. An interesting new feature in Picasa is the ability to "geocode" photos. Basically, you can make a map that shows exactly where the photos are from. Cool huh?
A cool bridge outside of town
From the arched windows:
Seemed like some good light.
180 Degrees, pioneer valley.
Wooden platform right on the ridge. Of course
It's pretty neat to be around this kind of history. Greenfield was settled in 1686, and incorporated in 1753. At that time it was the northern frontier before the Canadian border. Sort of like the wild west.. or wild north.. or whatever. I went to Rocky Mountain Park, and rode along a ridgeline that is part of the same glacial formation as two other rides I've done: Mt. Tom in MA, and Penwoods in CT. Same rock and everything. Another interesting thing about this ride was the "poets seat tower". A sandstone tower that was built a long time ago in honor of the american poet Frederick Goddard Tuckerman. Tuckerman was good friends with Tennyson, and another poet I recognized but don't remember. I couldn't figure out when the tower was built, mostly because I have better things to do, but here's a postcard from 1910 with a picture of the tower:
I also considered getting a bit of Freddies poetry and posting that, but it's all pretty depressing. His wife and 21 year old son died practically at the same time, and much of his famous work is about that.
There was a lot of great singletrack, strangely familiar to Penwoods in Connecticut. A cool thing about the northeast is that I was in the middle of a town, and the trees were so thick I didn't even know it until looking this place up on a map. Town may be a strong word, this place is less dense than Florence. There was a bunch of cool rivers here too, some pretty sweet looking bridge jumping and whatnot.
So here are some pictures. An interesting new feature in Picasa is the ability to "geocode" photos. Basically, you can make a map that shows exactly where the photos are from. Cool huh?
A cool bridge outside of town
From the arched windows:
Seemed like some good light.
180 Degrees, pioneer valley.
Wooden platform right on the ridge. Of course
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