With his new Red Sox hat
My husband’s birthday was Friday and he wanted to do a road trip into lower Vermont and around into the Berkshires of Massachusetts. I’d given him a new Red Sox hat and he nearly lost it in the wind many times that day.
I didn’t amount to much before we left at 11, merely made 2 dozen eggs into devilled eggs. But my helper friend was here and he set to work clearing around the little dogwood. The idea was to make it conspicuous so the excavator contractor won’t drive on it. So he cleaned out all the grass back to the tree’s new dripline.
When I next get outside with help, we’ll move the extra wood chips from the New Herb garden and mulch around it. Then I will put up a low fence around that.
The night before we’d gone and gotten munchies for the cooler: grapes, the inevitable chocolate chip cookies for him, dark chocolate covered fruit for me, 2 cheeses, his potato chips, my kettle corn, bananas, sugar pod peas, his soda, and my flavored seltzer. We also found chipotle lime chicken wings.
My helper friend had grown up in the Berkshires so we consulted him about backroads to travel. He said it’s too hilly to have roads that went anywhere, and we’d probably end up on numbered highways most of the time.
My husband had a moldies list of music he made on his phone, stuff from the 60’s and 70’s. We had our maps, music, and munchies and were ready to go at 11AM.
We headed up the Interstate and hadn’t made it 20 miles when there was a real serious sounding noise and bumping from the rear end. My husband had just changed out the left wheel bearing 2 days ago. He pulled over as far as he could and checked the wheels. Turns out he’d forgotten to torque one side when he put tires back on from the job. We pulled off the highway and in a safer place, he rechecked them all. Then we started off, again.
We made it about 2 more miles and the road he’d planned to take was closed: bridge out. We eventually found our way to Rt. 112 and ended up in Jacksonville, VT. We picked up Rt. 100 and headed to Whitingham, VT.
Our first destination was Whitingham Dam in Whitingham, VT. It had been decades since we’d been up here, and we’d never really looked at the dam. For more on this side trip:
https://steemit.com/vermont/@goldenoakfarm/whitingham-dam-vt-july-12-2019-goldenoakfarm
Back on the road we headed into Readsboro, VT.
As we’d driven through southern Vermont we kept seeing the ravages of the flooding several years ago. This is a branch of the Deerfield River in Readsboro.
These wildflowers were growing in the parking area. Again, I had no idea what they were. They looked like a cross between dill and Queen Ann’s lace. The foliage was lacy like Queen Anne’s lace too.
We picked up Rt. 8 South and headed for North Adams, Mass. Our destination was Mount Greylock.
War Memorial on top of Mt. Greylock
For more on this side trip:
https://steemit.com/mountgreylock/@goldenoakfarm/mount-greylock-mass-july-12-2019-goldenoakfarm
We went down the back side of Greylock, through Adams and into New Ashford. Then briefly into Lanesborough and on into Cheshire.
Lanesborough, Mass.
We had actually been pretty able to stay on back roads until Cheshire and continued mostly on back roads through Windsor, Peru, Cummington, and Goshen.
Cheshire, Mass.
Now we were back in our neck of the woods and picked up Rt. 9 in Williamsburg and went through Leeds into Florence where we planned to stop for supper.
We’d been to the Uya restaurant when it first opened a few months back and liked it. After all the munchies, we wanted something light and this restaurant does Poke Bowls and Sushi Burritos. You select all the ingredients for your meal. I had a burrito made with seaweed wrap and my husband had a poke bowl. Excellent fresh ingredients!
From there we headed over to the car show in Whately, Mass. For more on that side trip:
https://steemit.com/antiquecars/@goldenoakfarm/the-car-show-july-12-2019-goldenoakfarm
The whole trip ran from 11 AM to 7PM. We went 148 miles. Most of those were done at about 15 – 35 mph whenever traffic would allow, so we could really see the area. Everything was free (except supper), I think we spent $3 on water and something else.
He was delighted with the trip, said it was the best one we’d done in a long time. So his birthday was a great day for him.
Source: Uya: https://www.facebook.com/pg/uyarestaurant/about/?ref=page_internal
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/uya-restaurant-florence?select=FIwXWQSfqSWMLvv-YySMLg
