The Berkshires & Vermont 2018: Intro

In the summer of 2018, Emilie and I had tickets to see Blondie (yes, that Blondie) at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (Mass MoCA) in North Adams, Massachusetts, which is a bit more than a two-hour drive from our home. So, a couple of weeks after we returned from our Alaska adventure, we were to head out to the Berkshires for the show. We had planned on spending two nights in the area doing a couple of bike trails and exploring museums in addition to attending the concert.

However, just before that weekend, I received mail saying that my jury duty scheduled for the Monday following was cancelled. So, now we had that whole week open. We had been reading about a cool bike path out of Burlington Vermont (Island Line Rail Trail), so we decided to extend our trip to include tooling around Burlington as well as western Mass, and things in between. We booked an Airbnb in Burlington, put the bikes on the rack of Emilie’s Subaru Forester, threw our day packs in the car just in case, and headed west out of Sutton, Massachusetts.

Mohawk Trail to North Adams (The Berkshires)

Day 1 – August 3

We left home around 1:30 P.M. and took Route 2 most of the way. The road toggles between a one-lane and two-lane scenic highway, one of the main alternatives to the Massachusetts Turnpike for travelling east-west in the state. Western Mass along Route 2, from Orange (north of Amherst) westward is an especially beautiful ride. This is part of the Mohawk Trail Scenic Byway. Rolling hills, farms, forest, and rural mill towns, and historic sites and markers dot this sometimes-dangerous hilly and serpentine route. During foliage season it is actually one of the most popular scenic roads in America, and for good reason.

The highlight for us was the amazing hairpin turn beginning the descent down Florida Mountain from Clarksburg, MA into North Adams. The Golden Eagle restaurant sits at the point of the turn, and there are places to pull over to view the expansive, breathtaking Berkshire scenery below.

At around 4:00 P.M. we checked in at the Maple Terrace Motel in Williamstown, MA, the next town over from North Adams. This is a very nice, clean, family-run motel on well maintained grounds, and with friendly, helpful owners. The guy who checked us in accommodated our bikes by making the shed by the pool available for them. He gave us restaurant and activity suggestions.

We had planned on going for dinner, and then on to the concert at Mass MoCA.

Unfortunately, our car wouldn’t start. It was dead in the motel parking lot. We spent about an hour trying to figure it out, and getting (non)-assistance from Subaru via phone. At that point we made an appointment for first thing in the morning at Bennington Subaru in Vermont…we figured we’d have it towed.

We took a cab to Mass MoCA for the Blondie concert, as there was no local Lyft or Uber service. It was only about a 10-minute ride, but along the way, the cabbie picked up another rider along the way. Shared cabs are typical here, apparently. Because of the delay due to our car, we did not get dinner, and so we ate BBQ pork sliders at the concert. It was raining all day, but the rain graciously stopped about 30 minutes before the outdoor concert. We sat on the lawn on our raincoats and enjoyed a great concert. Once the concert stopped, it began to rain again…the rain straddled the concert perfectly. We could only assume that God is a Deborah Harry fan.

After the show we hung out at Bright Ideas Brewing which is in the same industrial complex as MASS MoCA, so we just walked over. We shared an outdoor, covered table with two very nice younger sisters from the area. After about an hour we called for a cab to bring us back to the motel. Again, a shared cab ride, so a couple of detours within North Adams along the way to our motel. We contemplated our morning plans for getting the car to Bennington and went off to sleep for the night.

Next: Mass MoCA, Mt. Greylock, Rail Trail