A Really Nice Hike and a Menu Suggestion

On Tuesday it was a lovely spring day and so we decided to take the day off! We drove to CT where there's no snow on the ground. We had lunch at Pinchot Sycamore tree - which is the largest tree in CT! It's an amazing tree! I'll post some photos and you'll be amazed too.

After lunch we drove to Talcott Mountain and had a really nice hour-long hike up the mountain to Heublien Tower which was built in 1913 as someone's summer home. Part of the trail is along a ridge and there's nothing I love more when hiking than to hike along a ridge in the sunshine. There were amazing views to the west and a nice view of an oxbow of the Farmington River. We could even see the huge sycamore tree from up there! (It's that big.)

We hung out at the top and had a snack then headed down on the Metacomet trail. This was even better than the trail up! More hiking along a ridge. The Metacomet trail went off in a direction that felt wrong so we stayed on the wood road and made our way back through some rather wet spots but it was well worth it. It took us 1 1/2 hours to get down. All in all it was a great afternoon and I'm looking forward to the next adventure.

The video is of a vernal pond with lots of vocal frogs. (and a little humor)

Gunn Brook Falls and some really cool rocks

Trevor & I took our housemate, Rowan (age 9), to a couple of waterfalls this afternoon. Spring is the ideal time to visit waterfalls. This one is in Sunderland, MA. It's called Gunn Brook Falls. We visited it a couple of years ago in September and it was just a trickle. Today it was really flowing.
The geologist in me really likes it there because it's where I can see contact between the Mt. Toby Conglomerate and the Turners Falls Sandstone (drool). It's awesome. I have to fight the urge to start the geo-speak with the 9 year-old. Lithified? HUH? Cement? HUH? Alluvial fan? HUH? Contact?
Instead, I say things like, "sure, that could be a fossil" and "yes, that's granite" and "it's quartz". (Not likely but if you want to believe that you go right ahead. I'm not going to ruin your afternoon.)
When we were done at Gunn Falls we drove over to Roaring Brook Falls in Leverett. The path was snow and small pond-covered. The sun was setting behind Mt. Toby so the light wasn't very good for photos so no photos of Roaring Brook Falls today. I'll have to get there before noon for good photos. Again, another opportunity to drool over the Mt. Toby Conglomerate. (I'm such a nerd!)

Shopping Tips

Here's some tips for clothes shopping at the Salvation Army:

1. Be careful not to buy the items that you donated a few months ago. You'll be attracted to the item because you like the color or style but look at it carefully. There's a reason you donated the item. For example, your friend told you it looked "like a towel" on you.
   
2. Don't buy items with bleach spots on them. If you're like me, you probably have several of those at home.
   
3. Just because you can zip it doesn't mean it fits. This applies to pants as well as hoodies.
   
4. Go ahead and buy the $1.99 tank top that only fits just OK. At least you didn't pay $14.50 for it at Old Navy.
   
5. Inspect all items carefully and try everything on. All sales are final!
   

Another Waterfall video

Enders Falls, Enders State Forest, Granby, CT. Falls #1.

Pedestrian Errands

We did all of our downtown errands on foot today. In an effort to get exercise and reduce our carbon footprint we drove to downtown Northampton and parked on Gothic Street in on of the 10 hour metered spots and walked up to Main Street and then headed west to the Forbes Library on West Street. Along our way we ran into Jim DuBois and his girlfriend, Phoebe, who were also doing errands on foot. Jim lives downtown on West Street and doesn't own a car so doing errands on foot is totally normal for him. We chatted with them and compared errands. Us: library, bank, post office, health food store, comic store. Them: bank, post office, stationary store.

We headed to the library where we ran into Tim "the deaf guy" (that's what we call him, I really don't know his name). When we were finished at the library we headed back to the truck on Gothic Street to drop off the big bag of movies, music and books before heading to the bank and then down Main Street to the Post Office and across the street to Modern Myths (Trevor) and Lamson Goodnow (me). Once we had our stash of comic books and kitchen stuff we headed back up Main Street to Thornes Market and went to Cornucopia for bread, fruit, tofu, snacks and treats. Along the way Trevor remembered that he needed to go to the hardware store for something and since he prefers Florence Hardware (not on our way home) over Foster-Farrar (on our way home) we increased our carbon footprint. Better luck next time.

It was fun anyway. We were downtown for about 2 hours and got everything done and got some exercise!

Waterfall with sound

Here's Ender Falls #4 with sound. The Connecticut Waterfalls website has pictures and sound of all of the waterfalls. We've listened to a few but they all sound the same to us and we think they might have just turned on the shower and held the MP3 player in the shower and pressed "record". So instead I decided to shoot short videos of the waterfalls. Seems more authentic.

Enders Falls and MacLean Game Reservation, CT

Trevor & I took the day off today (it's easy when you're unemployed and self-employed). We drove to Granby, CT - about an hour from our house - and went to Enders Falls at Enders State Forest. We've learned that the time of year to visit water falls is Spring not Fall. This may seem obvious to some but we've learned the hard way that all you're likely to find at some waterfalls in September is just a trickle. It's usually a great hike but if you were really counting on seeing a spectacular waterfall, you're out of luck. Anyway, we've been checking out the CT waterfalls website and decided to visit this one in Enders State Forest. According to the website it has 6 waterfalls. We're not sure how they're counting but we counted 8. It was pretty spectacular.

The B&W photo is water fall #6 (I think) where we found a sunny spot in the sun and had a great lunch. It was wonderful.

After we were done there, we drove to MacLean Game Reservation, also in Granby. We picked a 2 mile loop trail and it was great! Since the visit to the waterfall was mostly just standing around and looking it was nice to actually walk and stretch our legs. We came across the little cabin and I decided to try being an artist, again.

It was a great day. I'm looking forward to our next adventure. Maybe another waterfall!