A Living Magazine - Day 331 - Homecoming - Northampton to Greenfield

I woke up, packed up and hit the road...

A barnside mural.

Medium sized snake whom I discouraged from crossing the road.

At this point solar power started to make its appearance. There were residences, businesses, government buildings and parks, stuffed with solar panels. Obviously, western Massachusetts had gotten the message about the value of clean electricity...

Veteran's memorial in Whately.

There wasn't much in Whately. I had tentatively planned to stay there and work, then camp. But there wasn't even a store to buy a drink. It was too early to find a sleep spot, so I just continued up the road, taking some shots along the way...

These two pictures represent downtown Whately.

As I walked along Route 5, the landscape began to change. There was a mountain range on my right, and a river, a floodplain, marshes and fields on my left. The area became more touristy...

I liked this. Never seen windows as a part of a chimney before.

I saw the sign welcoming me to Deerfield. But there were no downtown buildings along the road. Then I saw this sign, and arrow pointing to the left. I decided to check out whatever historical architecture (or anything else that I could find) might lay beyond the main highway. I was not to be disappointed...

One of my favorite buildings for its sheer lack of size.

Could this house be any bluer?

At this point I'd like to highlight a subject I've mentioned before, one whose point is made extremely well as I explored Deerfield. The work that once went into the aesthetics of home and public structures was simply extraordinary. Well, let me rephrase that. It was ordinary, when ordinary was full of class and quality. Today, building is all about practicality and efficiency, and, let's face it, the bottom line. That means no more crown molding, no more flourishes, no more attention to artistic detail.

First let's observe what craftsmanship really looked like...

The doorways in this town were exquisite,

with the above example being considered rather bland at the time.

The little evenly spaced squares along the base of the roof are an example

of dentil molding. This is seen often in colonial and federal houses.

Not seen in modern construction very often.

Front porch with dentil blocks, round columns and fluted square columns.

A large foursquare, federal (five bays wide), with dentil blocks and stylized door frames.

Here is a unique and consistently copied form in the molding.

I don't know what it is called, but see how a diagonal break is made

in the pitched molding? It is not only extruded out, but layered.

The doorway is particularly grand....

Gambrel roof, with the enormous chimneys and small windows

characterizes a colonial style, with the starkness of dark wood.

Okay, now we look at a dormitory building just constructed for the school. Notice just how vast the difference is, with its lack of any feature that we saw above in the older buildings...

Yes, it is well constructed, probably cost a pretty penny and looks quite functional. But, my goodness, compared to the buildings that surround it, to me at least, it looks chintzy and uninspired.

The sun was sinking low, and I was much closer to Greenfield than I thought I'd be on this day. There was a chance that I might still make it there before sunset. I took the short street back up to Route 5 and continued on, all the while looking for a sleep spot...

Along an extensive stretch of road, I saw what I thought was a potential place up to my right, where the trees along the hillside seemed to level off above me. Could this be a flat area where I could camp?

I waited until no cars were coming, then made my way quickly into the woods, climbing as fast as I could upon hearing traffic approaching again. What I found was an old logging road, now turned into a storage spot for scrap lumber. And, some of it wasn't so scrappy. I thought that maybe someone had been banking away the slats and beams from old barns to sell for a nice profit to folks who wanted that old look. And, I wasn't far off, as I would discover. Unfortunately, there were no places fit for sleeping...

I really did my best to search high low, even stepping along a muddy tire track section, into a bunch of thorn bushes at the very end of the road. I was already up on the hill and didn't want to waste the opportunity to camp if it was possible. There was also a railroad track that ran very close to the area. Steadily, I got the creeping suspicion that a truck could come barreling down that dirty path at any moment. Spark said, essentially, "time to leave."

When I got back on the Route 5 and nonchalantly kept walking, I looked up to see that the piles of lumber went on and on. This couldn't be an individual stockpiling wood...

It turned out that there was a salvage lumber company about half a mile down the road, with signs for discount lumber. It all made sense now. If anyone lives around this area just south of Greenfield and is looking to build a nice old looking shed I would strongly encourage checking out this wood. It was good quality,building materials, not rotted out, and piled in a way that kept it from bowing and bending, I would suggest checking this place out. I kept walking...

Finally, I reached the sign I didn't think I'd see on this day...

I was utterly exhausted from this 16 mile trek. The area around the border of Greenfield looked promising for finding a sleep spot. I had planned to meet up with my friend Melinda, a resident of the town the next day. Feeling good about the fact that I wouldn't have to walk very far to meet her, I decided to scout around the old train trestle which had a long bank of greenery running down to the river under it. I slipped around the edge of the trestle and made my way down...

Finding a place that was slightly inclined, but not overly so, I excavated a spot just under some old fallen trees. These trees were clean and stripped of bark and they lay at just the right angle for allowing me to sit down--a rare and highly sought extravagance. Usually I have to stand at sleep spots until I get into the tent, and even then I can't really sit up.

So, I laid out the green tarp, then assembled the tent on top of it, and decided not use the rain fly. It was a warm evening, and I thought it might be nice to actually see the woods around me from inside the tent during the night.

Then, just sitting there resting, I discovered a small family of diminutive moth caterpillars on a leaf in front of me and watched their behavior for a good long time. I noticed that when I breathed on them, they all would band together, maybe for safety or maybe just a result of my bad breath? When left alone, they would venture out to the edges of the leaf to munch on it...

Eventually the sun went down, and I got tired. I'm like a little kid when I'm at a sleep spot. I stay up until I can't keep my eyes open, drinking up every bit of the day that I possibly can. And, at some point I just decided it was time for bed. I retired to the sound of evening birds, peepers, the occasional car or truck above me, and the peaceful rippling of the river water below me, taking a shot of the tent before I entered it...

It had been a long time since I'd slept without the fly (Birmingham, Alabama, actually!). The sounds, the air, the smell of a fresh spring night lulled me into unconsciousness, and the land of dreams.