Catch-up Time

It's been a quiet, cold week here, without much interesting to tell. I've been busy at work (3 weeks to go, but who's counting?), and at night Al's been out teaching his EMT classes and I've been doing paperwork. He's getting ready to leave tonight, at MIDNIGHT, to go fishing, in 30 degree temperatures....I haven't told you all that sometimes he's a little out of his mind :-)....so I decided to catch up on some long over due photo organizing.

This past summer, as in the last few years, we take short camping hops on the weekend to get away from the shop for a few hours. I do mean short...we would leave the shop at lunchtime Saturday, and return home Monday evening. But it was a break of sorts. In August, we decided to go to the Berkshires, MA. looking for some cooler weather and a pleasant diversion. We take the Cross Sound Ferry from Orient Point on the north fork of Long Island, and it was a 2 hour drive to Plainfield, MA., where we stayed at Peppermint Park Camping Resort. It was very nice, with spacious sites for a private campground, was close to our intended destination for Sunday, Mount Greylock State Reservation, and they allowed 2 dogs per site. Now, we were just starting to use Microsoft's Streets and Trips, and I ended up bring us there the "back way". As we were chugging up the road, past industrial areas, desolate farms and the such, I was getting a few sidelong glances from Al, and finally the query, "how did you find this place?". Once we reached it, all was good :-). It was very pretty, and quiet, and the folks at the office were very pleasant, always a nice way to start a stay! The site was very nice, as you can see below.

At this time we still had the Fleetwood Avalon pop-up towed by the GMC Yukon. It was the perfect set-up for short trips. Because it was buggy there at dusk, we set up the Eureka Breezeway Screenhouse, which we love. It only takes maybe 10 minutes to set up or tear down, and so easy with the 2 of us, it's worth doing only for a weekend. It's definitely coming with us!

One of the things about having the pups with us, it forces us to do alot of walking around the campgrounds! I really enjoyed walking here. There were alot of seasonal sites, but it was obvious they took great pride in keeping the sites and trailers in tip-top shape. The lawns were very neat and well tended, several gardens were set up; I wish my own lawn looked as nice as some of these :-). My favorite decoration is shown here:

Someone was really into frogs! They had at least five separate displays of frogs set up :-).

Sunday after breakfast we went to visit Mount Greylock. We picked up a driving tour guide at the entrance, and started off. There are several hiking trails within the park, and we did do the Bradley Farm Interpretive Trail loop at the visitor's center. It was quite warm that day, even at the higher elevation, so in the interest of not having the 4 of us drop from heat exhaustion, that was the only hike we did that day. We would like to return during the fall some time and do some more extensive hiking. The road was beautiful as we climbed up the mountianside, with beautiful vistas:

Not quite as awesome as the views out west, but quite nice in their own right :-).

We reached the summit, after winding around for several miles, and stopping here and there to get out and look at stuff. The summit is an elevation of 3491' and was a bit cooler. Very nice views up here. The prominebt feature at the summit is the Veteran's War Memorial Tower, dedicated by the state in 1933 to honor Massachusetts men and women who gave their lives in time of war. You can climb the 92-foot tower as well for a 360 degree view of almost 80 miles! This has been designated by the U.S. Department of the Interior as a National Historic District in 1998, and was a very nice stopping off point.

We then continued down the mountian on the north side. I would say we spent a good 4 hours in the park, enjoying the scenery. It did make for a pleasant, relaxing day. About a 45 minute drive back to the campground for the evening. I could easily see spending several days just at Mount Greylock, hiking the various trails. In the fall during the leaf changeover it must be beautiful!

Well, Monday we head off to New Jersey to take possession of the Cougar once again. I hope to have a glowing report of Lakewood Camping World to post here; so far, they have been most pleasant to deal with! I also hope by next week to have a closing date for the sale of the business set, so stay posted. And thanks to all my new followers, and I hope you find my ramblings and pictures enjoyable. Have a great weekend!