Burlington, VT to Northampton, MA

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Ben and Jerry’s Factory

Day 5 – August 7

We said our goodbyes to our AirBnB host and headed to breakfast at the Burlington Bay Café again. Then we drove a mile to check out the tallest filing cabinet in the world (according to our Offbeat Attractions app).

After pondering and scratching our heads over this we then went another mile to Oakledge Park. The park is an impressively large recreational park with sandy beaches along Lake Champlain, hiking trails, and lots of other activity offerings. We got out to explore a very cool treehouse in the woods, and then the Burlington Earth Clock. We found this via the Offbeat Attractions app also. It is a 40’ wide circle of fourteen large granite stones that creates a clock and calendar. When standing in the middle of this Stonehenge-like formation your shadow supposedly indicates the current time. Fortunately, we had our cell phones with us so we could tell the time since we couldn’t figure this out for the life of us. It was still pretty cool.

Then on the road towards Lenox, MA for a Boston Pops concert at Tanglewood Music Center, the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, featuring John Williams conducting some of his Star Wars music.

Heading south out of Vermont we realized we weren’t too far from the Ben and Jerry’s factory, ice cream headquarters, in Waterbury (just 30 minutes south of Burlington), so we went.  What a zoo the parking lot was!  Definitely a popular spot. But they had flaggers giving directions in the parking lot so that was helpful.  We found a spot and headed first to find out about taking the famous tour of the factory.  There was not much of a wait, and so we got our ticket and headed back out to the Flavor Graveyard.

This was fun…seeing the gravestones of all the retired ice cream flavors, each of which had its own clever epitaph.   Then we took the Ben and Jerry’s factory tour.  It was a very good tour given by an awkwardly entertaining high school kid.  We definitely recommend this tour, and not just because you get free ice cream…well, ok…mostly because you get free ice cream.

The capital of Vermont, Montpelier was only about 20 minutes away from the Ben and Jerry’s factory. So we detoured to see the capitol building.  Montpelier is as quaint a state capital as you will find.  Just as one would expect to find in Vermont.  We walked around the capitol building for about 20 minutes, got a sandwich in the cafe in the building, and ate lunch on a bench on the capitol grounds.

Tanglewood

Back on the road towards Lenox we hit some pretty bad rain/lightning storms. We had to pull over to the side of the road twice, but we eventually made it to Lenox around 5:00 P.M.

We met up with Emilie’s high school friend Devon and his friend at Old Heritage Tavern in Lenox at around 6:00 P.M. The restaurant and Lenox were hopping because of the Boston Pops concert at Tanglewood Music Center.  We were lucky to score a parking spot nearby. While at the table in the restaurant I booked a motel room online at the Sunset Inn in the town of Lee, about 10-mintues away. There were very few rooms left in the area for under $300 per night due to the Boston Pops concert. We paid $139 for a modest motel room, but it was decent, and close enough.

After dinner at the Tavern we checked into the motel, then drove to Tanglewood for the concert and fireworks.  We had uncovered lawn seats for the show, but just like the Blondie concert a few nights ago, the rainstorms had fortunately all passed by and we ended up with a perfect night of first-rate music under the stars.   John Williams was just one of three guys sharing conductor duties over the Pops that night.  But of course, seeing him conduct his own Star Wars music was a rare treat. Fireworks shot off during the finale, “1812 Overture”, and then full fireworks after the concert ended.

Exiting Tanglewood after the concert presented lots of congestion on the one-lane road heading back toward downtown, but we eventually made it back to the motel around 11:30 P.M.  Off to bed.

Manhan Rail Trail to Northampton 

Day 6 – August 8

I woke up with what turned out to be shingles on my leg (not knowing exactly what it was at the time), so we decided that we would make this day the final day of our trip.  We drove about 45 minutes to Easthampton, Massachusetts to do the 10-mile Manhan Rail Trail from Easthampton to Northampton, Massachusetts. Northampton is one of our favorite cities to tool around, so the end-point would be a bonus for us. We found a parking lot for the trail on Payson Street, near the Police Department in Easthampton and picked up the bike path here.  A group of elderly people sitting on a bench told us we could park there…. that was good enough for us.

The rail trail is completely paved, and mostly flat with a couple of climbs, but nothing too challenging.  Lots of trees, ponds, houses, old mill buildings, and an awesome mural on a building opposite the old train depot.  It becomes a bit rural as it gets into Northampton. We took a pitstop downtown and walked around, going into shops, and getting lunch.

A couple of blocks within the city we got to the head of the Norwottuck Rail Trail that starts in Northampton, goes through Amherst, and ends in Belchertown, Massachusetts.  We biked this trail just a couple of miles to the old rail bridge that spans the Connecticut River.  We had done this trail before and so we wanted to at least take in the great north and south views of the wide river that we remembered from the last time. Then we heading back toward Easthampton. This added about 6 miles to the ride.

We got back to the car in Easthampton and took a detour through the town of Amherst and the UMass campus so I could reminisce about my college days at UMass.

On the way home we stopped at the home of our friends Jeff and Gillian in the very rural town of Wendell for dinner. If you want to find the beautifully rustic middle of nowhere in Massachusetts, go to Wendell.

We left around 8:30 P.M. and got home around 10:00 P.M.

We biked about 70 miles in total on the trip.

End of Berkshires and Vermont adventure for 2018.