Road Trip/Mt. Greylock

Sunday was looking to be a nice day and overall it was. I took the opportunity to make my way west. The foliage around here is beginning to turn, but the western part of the state is very hilly, and it seemed that they had passed peak color.

The entire drive out took about 3 hrs including a pit stop. The complexion of the terrain changes and so does the lifestyle and vibe. Many small towns in valleys. Mt. Greylock is near the upper west corner of the state. The drive out was essentially a two road drive. The Mass. Turnpike takes you in a southwest direction then Rt. 20 takes you back in a northern direction. Apart from passing some population centers like Worcester (pronounced "wissta or "wussta"), Chicopee (derived from a Native American name), Springfield, that has a metropolitan area population of 680,000+ which surprised me and Pittsfield.

Outside of the population centers the landscape is dotted with little towns and farms. A whole different world from where I live. The last city you come across is Pittsfield.  Named after a British Nobleman and politician William Pitt. Whoever he was. 48,000 people live here. Less than my city and yet they had a very impressive downtown. Put my local one to shame.

Mt Greylock is the highest point in the state at 3400+ ft. Not much when compared to real mountains. It's just the biggest of all the hills in western Ma. Still It's a beautiful part of the state.

Though the weather was fine. One in the afternoon is not the best time to take pictures due to the position of the sun, a need of a better camera for shots of a big scope, better knowledge of photography and better timing. The pictures are what they are.

The Visitors Centers at the base of the road to the summit. This is taken late in the afternoon as we were leaving.

A stop at a scenic overlook on the way up the summit road. This is composed of 3 pictures stitched together. The colors were muted and the sun was bright.

A shot from the top.

Though I was less than thrilled with some of the pictures there was one that came out surprisingly well. At least it's my favorite.

 Most of these shots were taken the very limit of my zoom. Still it is a record of my trip there. Below is a slide show with most of the pictures I took. It's a small file. I am working on a video that will include larger version of the photo's dispersed between video clips. It will be an extravaganza by my standards. I even have a new opening for the video. I hope I can pull it off before I pull out my hair. I'm talking strictly amateur here. So here's  the little slideshow.

 Overall it was a very nice day. I got to see a different part of my state. Indeed a different way of life, from the one I am accustomed. The drive home took almost an hour longer because of a seemingly inexplicable traffic slowdown. A large traffic jam 50 miles from Boston. Then we have the tolls. I don't know if I could be a tol taker. Talk about monotony. On the other hand we had a local TV news station do an expose' on the the highway dept. and found that many toll takers were earning $60,000+ a year for basically making change. Still hundreds of car a day. Taking money and tickets a giving back change. I celebrated arriving home by stopping off at a local regional restaurant. The "99" and and have one of their very good cheeseburgers.

I got home at around 8:30. after almost 7 hours of driving. Apart from the traffic slowdown on the way home, it was easy and uneventful day of driving. The car performed well.

So that's that. I be back in a bit.
I'm outta here.