Mohawk Trail

May 6, 2018

We left Pine Crest campground today and headed to MA via Highway 2. This is called the Mohawk Trail and I think originally it was a deer trail, then maybe the Indians used it, then years later I think some genius came along and paved it…and widened it…a little. It’s called a scenic route, and it is. But, it’s not the kind of road that you want to do with a 38’ rig behind you. It’s hard enough to pull a steep mountain road but add switch backs and you have a potential crisis! Fortunately, traffic was light, and we didn’t meet anyone coming from the opposite direction on the switch backs.

Our destination was Country Aire Campground in Shelburne Falls, MA. Once we were down off of the mountain the scenery was beautiful, trees are budding out, flowers, green grass and (for a change), blue sky’s!! The campground is very nice, large sites with full hook ups. Still early in the season, so we were not jammed in.

We are here because Phil’s Taylor ancestors lived here for awhile, in Ashville, just a little ways from where we are camped. We walked a couple of cemeteries together, then he went off and hiked through a few others on his own.

We took a day to walk through one of the little towns close to the campground, Shelburne Falls. This is an old town, very well kept up. It’s like an artist colony, little shops everywhere with handmade items. Unfortunately, it was a week end and most of them were closed.

The town has tuned the old trolley bridge into a bridge of flowers, and it was beautiful!! It was the obvious that it was the work of many, to plant and keep up with. Some were still waiting to see if spring was serious about sticking around, the wisteria for one. Or three or four, they were wrapped around anything they could find, and had been provided with additional things to crawl on, so that they made arches all along the bridge. I bet they were lovely when they bloomed, arched across the bridge the way they were.

From there we walked down the hill to the Glacier Pot Holes. This caught our interest. Multicolored rock at the base of the falls, which is actually caused as the water from the river comes out of the power plant. The rock surface has been smoothed as if a glacier has receded over it, but the pot holes don’t look to me to be a result of the water from the falls.

Just up from the falls is a small sandwich shop and bakery where we had a bite to eat. Humm, Humm good!!

We went to the little store up the block to pick up a few items we needed. Remember the grocery stores from when we were kids, they weren’t huge buildings, but on the bottom floor of an old 2 or 3 story building. This was the store in Shelburne Falls, little nicks and cranny’s where it might have been added on to at one time or another. Like a blast from the past.