Western New England: A Collective, a Cooperative and a Volunteer

Once again, we've just taken off our traveling shoes. Once again, they look a bit dusty and worn. Just like our trips to Scotland, we put a few miles on both them and a borrowed car.

Like all of our recent adventures, this one was short but filled with activity. Though unlike many others, this time exploration was tempered with social visits. Karen's parents were kind enough to put us up, even though they weren't home until our second night, provide us with breakfasts and loan us a car. Between that and the frequent flier tickets we'd scored, it made for one of our least expensive vacations, if you didn't include the soccer tickets that were the excuse for this little junket. But, of course, the weather called for it to be hotter up there than down here at home, peaking in the mid-90's the first two days. Perfect New England weather for touring around in May. Yeah, right.

We landed in Hartford after a bumpy flight. A high school friend of Karen's who still lives in her hometown was kind enough to pick us up on her way home from work just a short distance away. We repaid her with dinner at an Italian restaurant in the center of town that had a very good mushroom and spinach lasagna and an excellent Peak Organic IPA on draft. Bright and fresh, one of the best pints I've had in a long, long time.

The next day we set out early with a couple game stores and a yarn store on our list. The first game store was in Amherst, my parents old college stomping ground. As we parked to hunt for the game store on foot, we found ourselves in front of a bookstore called Food for Thought: A Non-Profit Worker's Collective. With advertising like that, we just had to go inside. For a small store, it packed in a lot of intriguing titles. We had to keep ducking out to feed the meter. I haven't seen a collection of books quite that radical since browsing Left Bank Books in Seattle. I was beginning to see why Karen's parents didn't want her going anywhere near this place for college. My parents would hang their Republican heads in shame. I ended up with two titles, Apocalyptic AI: Visions of Heaven in Robotics, Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality, and Storytelling: Bewitching the Modern Mind.

From there we found the game store in a sublevel basement beneath a row of shops. Turns out it's run by volunteers. But again, we uncovered a few offbeat finds, two independent pamphlets, one of which uses plastic cowboys and Indians like you can still find in the drugstore to create a miniatures combat game, and a board game where the goal for winning requires cooperation rather than competition. From there, we wandered to another bookstore that serves both UMass and Amherst College with both new and used titles, then had lunch at the Amherst Brewing Company which makes a respectable Honey Pilsner. My father told me somewhat wistfully that nothing like that existed when he went to school there. We could have spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the variety of shops and restaurants in the revitalized downtown, but that would have to wait for another trip as we had other stops to make.

So we headed off to Northampton where we easily found a game and comics store run as a co-op, a continuation of the theme. While they were more heavily invested in comics than games, they had a great selection of independent role-playing games, mostly one-off, short run titles in booklet form. Had we been in the market, there were easily a handful we could have walked out with. As it was, Karen only picked up one graphic novel with absolutely no dialogue in it. I was impressed.

Next we hit a yarn store Karen's mother and sister liked to frequent. Now, I know you are thinking yarn store, oow, how exciting. And normally you'd be right. Except I suspect the two game stores and the two bookstores might have fit inside this place. If you can knit it, spin it or crotchet it, they have it. They have a warehouse in the back filled with shelves of the stuff, from wool to cotton to bamboo to silk to things I'd never heard of (let alone knew you could make clothing out of), and every blend between. Karen broke down and bought a $46 skein of a silk/wool blend that kept calling her name. When we got back to the house, her mother had to see it, if only to say she had seen what one that expensive looked like.

After that we took a leisurely drive down an alternate route to the highway. Karen remembered visiting a set of fossilized dinosaur tracks in a park by the Connecticut River from her days as an undergrad and wanted me to see them. After a quick check with the iPhone, we found the pull-off without much problem. The tracks themselves are in an exposed rock bed by an overpass on the highway. It looked like a geology class had been there just before we were, as most of the 100+ tracks had been outlined in chalk and assigned numbers of individual Eubrontes (15 high, 20 feet long carnivores) that made their way across the ancient mud, whose ripple marks could still be seen. Spectacular, even if it wasn't as eye-catching as the group of teens there with us would have liked.

You would think by now our first full day would have been coming to an end. Not so. With a quick stop at Karen's parents, we were off to see the US Men's National team take on the Czech Republic in E. Hartford, at Rentschler Field (where UConn plays). After almost getting snagged in heavy traffic, we heeded the highway signs informing us of an alternate route (again with the help of the iPhone) and were parked and in our seats just five minutes before kickoff, unlike a number of other people who came in the main way. The game was a little disappointing. All the stars we thought we'd be seeing in this first of a two game sendoff series were in the skyboxes eating hot wings. Once again, just like Tampa in February, we got to see the backup squad. Though the Czechs brought at least a few of their real players, including perhaps the best goalie in the world, Petr Cech, who made a signature Premier League save completely stretched out late in the first half. The game was competitive until the second half when we made wholesale changes to a number of players who won't be going to South Africa this summer. After that, the wheels pretty much came off. At least we got to see a couple players we hadn't before, including Demarcus Beasley and Oguchi Onyewu, so it wasn't a total bust. A nice venue and decently cool weather for watching a game. Refreshing after wandering around in 94 degree heat all day. Still, it took us an hour and a half to get out of the parking lot, which got us home after midnight but before Karen's parents arrived from the airport after one of their flights had been delayed.

The next day, we slowed down some if only because of the heat. After a relaxing morning getting caught up with Karen's parents, we hit Mount Tom, a state preserve in the water gap along the Connecticut River. Again, Karen wanted to share a place she had first seen as an undergrad, even though it was only about 30 minutes from home. After hunting around a bit to find a pay-station mentioned at the unmanned gate (that was really for donations but regardless Moogie always pays his debts, especially for natural spaces), we drove around. Now "mount" in this part of New England means about 1000 feet of elevation, big by Florida standards but not quite even the Appalachians. There was a decent view off to the west from an observation tower by the road, but the road to a second tower was "closed for winter." Again, this is New England, so winter is technically the nine months between Labor Day and Memorial Day, though at 96 degrees, I don't think there was any danger of ice on the road. Undeterred, we found a trail and hiked up between 1/2 and 3/4 of a mile climbing several hundred feet in the process. Not exactly challenging except we were in street clothes and sneakers (the Floridian in black). Less than ideal, but we made it. And were treated to an impressive view of the Connecticut River Valley and the hogback ridge through which it had punched some indeterminate number of millions of years before. At least we had a spot of water, but not entirely enough.

Afterwards, we retired to a tavern near the back entrance to the park. No beer this time as I was still trying to rehydrate from the climb. We did however sit next to two different tables, one of women, one of men, whose conversations were quite fascinating to overhear. The women got our attention when we first caught the words "out of wedlock" drift over. From there, they proceeded to discuss a funeral and all the levels of social violations surrounding it, including the family riding to and from it in a van instead of a limo (imagine the scandal). With deference to my gentle southern readers, no one gossips like New England women. Where for southern women gossip is an art form, with New England women it is more of a career. There is no subtly about it. On the other side, the men, all salesmen and marketers, were recounting the levels of corruption they encountered in various cities of the northeast. Key safety tip: if you want to move your goods in the high-rises of New York, remember to bribe the freight elevator operators. And don't be stingy. A Jackson only buys you entry into the line. It takes a Grant to ensure you're first in the queue. Of course, that doesn't compare to Boston, where they said the graft was naked and direct. You want to be a subcontractor on this project? Here's exactly how much I expect to get paid, up front. No one does corruption like the industrial northeast.

Having cooled off a bit, we headed out for Old Sturbridge Village, a neat little historical attraction just short of midway between Springfield and Boston, where they have re-enactors set as residents in a New England town circa the 1830's. A fascinating mix of museum and live interaction, with people working the old crafts and talking to you as characters from the village. We only had a couple hours to wander as the earlier hike up the hill had taken longer than we'd budgeted for. Between that and the weather, still in the 90's, we were tired and moving pretty slowly by then. We got to see a handful of exhibits, enough to get a good feel and want to go back, before they started to close up shop.

From there, we headed into Sturbridge proper to meet my aunt's family at an outstanding Italian restaurant. She had arranged for my three cousins and their families to gather there, almost a perfect midway point for everyone. Two of my cousins I hadn't seen in over ten years, the other in more like thirty. We had a pleasant evening, if too short to catch up with and meet everyone properly, with excellent food, including superb scallops and pasta. I know it meant a lot to my aunt to see everyone together again. I only wished I'd been in the position to enjoy some wine.

We drove home on the back roads in a beautiful New England twilight. The quality of the light is so different up there. It reminds me of late fall down here, when all our trees still have their leaves but the sun is no longer arc-welding bright in the sky. Most of the trees were in bloom up there, with the cottonwoods dusting the ground with a fuzzy snow that looked like a dandelion warehouse had exploded somewhere nearby. Fortunately nothing that was in bloom bothered my head overly much.

We thought our night had ended when we got home, but nature still had one last surprise in store for us. Not long after we went to bed, a line of thunderstorms rolled through. Of course, me, the Floridian, woke up, said to myself "thunderstorms, no big deal" and went right back to sleep. Karen stayed awake to watch and listen like she used to when she was a kid. Sometime in the middle of the storm, she heard a crack, crack-crack, which turned out in the morning to be two separate one-foot diameter oaks that had come down behind the house. One uprooted, taking a small maple with it, the other snapped off about halfway up. Both were maybe fifty feet tall. Fortunately, they fell clear of any structures, Karen's parents' or the neighbors'.

The storms finally brought a touch of cooler weather the next day, somewhere in the mid-80's. We spent the morning again visiting with Karen's parents (and checking the excitement from the night before), then drove with them over to Karen's niece's to meet the family's newest, three week-old addition. Karen's grand niece was beautiful but so tiny. But very attentive to her surroundings as Karen held her. After a brief visit so as not to overly expose her to the colds Karen's parents had returned with from their trip, we headed back home. Karen and I took the afternoon to wander through a Springfield city park maybe fifteen minutes away. This is what parks should look like, spreading lawns, tall trees, ponds connected by waterways with bridges, a rose garden, geese and ducks in abundance, brick buildings with slate roofs. It reminded me of Montgomery County's parks in Maryland only larger and more manicured. It makes our little park in the backyard feel almost completely untamed. The quintessential New England park. That evening, Karen's parents took us out for a lovely dinner in honor of her birthday. And she even got to have some lobster, both in an outstanding lobster bisque and a stuffed tail with her steak at dinner. My roast duck was excellent, though I must say after two hand-crafted beers, the bottle of Bass I had (the best they had to offer) was wan by comparison.

The next morning, we drove to the airport early to catch an 8 a.m. flight to Tampa, the only direct flight of the day. We were back home before noon, which felt pretty strange for coming back from a whirlwind ninety-six hour trip to a place we would like to explore a little more. As vacations go, it was short and packed, but at least Karen got to spend a little time on her birthday in both the places she calls home. And the cats were content to sniff our shoes to discover all the interesting places we had been.

© 2010 Edward P. Morgan III