The Berkshires

Although within a day's drive from home, I made one more stop, in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts. Just two hours from home, this is a beautiful area, and close enough for Nancy to drive up to rejoin me, and for our friends the Lawrences to come up for bike riding and camping.

The weather was horrific Thursday night, so Nancy delayed her arrival until Friday, but it was great to have her back, and the dogs, particularly Kinsey, were also ecstatic. The next morning Gene and Austin hooked up their camper trailer and drove up to camp in the site next to ours. After setting up and wolfing down some lunch, us guys loaded our bikes into Gigantor and drove over to nearby Jiminy Peak for some downhill mountain biking. Here is the truck loaded with bikes:


Jiminy Peak runs two chairlifts during the summer season for sightseeing, access to their alpine slide and mountain coaster, and for mountain biking. Here are we three riding up for our first of many runs:


The recent wind and rain brought down a lot of leaves, so the trails were slippery. It made for some exciting, adrenaline filled riding! Here is Austin traversing a steep section:


And here is Gene skidding down the trail:


Later in the afternoon we ended one of our runs to find Nancy, Theonne, Athena, Toby, Kinsey and Fluke waiting for us! Gene went to ride the mountain coaster with Athena while Austin and I went back for another trail ride. Here we are at the bottom - muddy and happy:


A hearty dinner cooked over the wood fire was just what we needed after a day on the mountain:


The next morning we had a great big campfire breakfast of eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes and english muffins. Then we took a drive up to the summit of nearby Mount Greylock. At 3491 feet, it's the hightest peak in Massachusetts, and offers a commanding view of much of the state, plus some of New York and Vermont. Here are the three girls with the three little white dogs:


And the whole lot of us:


It was a great weekend, full of fun and camaraderie. We were glad to find an opportunity to get our two campers out for a weekend, and that everyone was able to come up and have a good time.

Now we're back home for a while, probably all of the month of October.