The day turned out to be unseasonably warm – certainly a lot warmer than the days that preceded and followed it.  The staging area for parade groups was in Lampron Park, about a mile from the downtown rally site.  Here are some members of our contingent while we waited to line up:

Other folks around us:

Right next to us was the local shadow cast for the Rocky Horror Picture Show (who perform at the Tower Theaters in South Hadley):

Here’s our banner, which I helped carry in the parade:

After a bunch of waiting, we finally got in line:

We ended up behind a high school gay-straight alliance, but I didn’t catch which school.

Here are some shots of the crowd as we headed into downtown:

People lining the courthouse lawn and steps:

Here’s some of the HHC people while marching:

Saw this drag queen greeting paraders:

And some more crowd shots as we passed City Hall:

As the parade ended, there was a large drum and hula hoop corps performing:

As I got to the rally, the mayor (who is lesbian herself) was giving the Pride Day proclamation:

I stuck around a bit to grab some food and look at the vendor booths, but didn’t stay for the afternoon of entertainment.  I did climb up to the top of the downtown parking garage to take some crowd pictures:

On my way back to the car, I noticed these rainbow sculptures in front of a store:

I certainly had a fun time, though very different from past such events I’ve done.  In the past I’d usually participated in pride marches in areas which were more hostile to queer rights (i.e. the Midwest), and enough years ago that the national political and social climate was very different.  It was interesting not to see anti-gay counter-protestors, and not to have a political purpose to present to the local community and/or politicians – basically, just a big party.

The first ceremony was held at the bike bridge over Main St. downtown.  It drew a pretty good-sized crowd:

It was originally thought that this section of trail, which parallels the train tracks through town, would be completely done by the date of the ceremony, but as you can see in the top picture, there is still a bit of paving to be done.  It should be finished by sometime in November.

As people were milling about, waiting for the event to start, I spotted local radio and stage celebrity Kelsey Flynn:

She was there putting together a radio story, which can be listened to here.  Here she is recording while people spoke:

Four people spoke on the trail system, the new bridges (over Main and North Streets), and what it took to get to this point.  They also mentioned upcoming projects, such as a trail connecting the Northampton trails to the Manhan trail in Easthampton.  The first to speak was Mayor Clare Higgins:

She was followed by Ward 3 City Councilor Bob Reckman (whose ward we were standing in):

(Reckman is the one with the moustache, not the baby)

Then came City Director of Planning Wayne Feiden:

and finally Ward 4 City Councilor David Narkewicz, who chairs the Council’s Bike and Pedestrian Subcommittee:

Wayne Feiden thanked various groups who were involved in helping realize the new trails, including Friends of Northampton Trails and Greenways, of which I’m a member.  Also present were some people from the Friends of the Manhan Rail Trail.  They said that the sinkhole in that trail was in the process of being filled in, and was more than half done.  I heard this past week that the work has been completed, and pictures can be seen at this site.

Once the crowd broke up there, I went a on a little tour of the Northampton trail with its new sections, led by Craig Della Penna, a local realtor and trail advocate.  He talked about the history of the older trail, and of the railways that used to run along the beds the trails use now.

The old Northampton Bike Path goes through the village of Florence, and there is a new section of trail heading through part of Leeds (both Leeds and Florence are sections of the City of Northampton).  At the end of the new Leeds trail, the Leeds Civic Association was hosting the second ribbon cutting, as well as other activities. Here’s the scene at that end:

Most speeches were given by the same cast of characters as earlier (Higgins, Feiden, Narkewicz):

I actually got a halfway decent shot of the moment the ribbon was cut this time:

The mayor had a local kid assisting her for the cutting.

Once that was over I had to head home to make dinner.  It was nice to have almost uninterrupted trail to take me all the way back to the center of Hadley from Leeds.  I got home in just under an hour.  I didn’t have much time to take pictures of the trails themselves, but hopefully I can do so on a future excursion.  Meanwhile, construction is starting soon on the trail down to Easthampton – can’t wait until they finish that!

Technically there are 2 peaks: South Sugarloaf and North Sugarloaf.  Pictured above is the South peak (seen from the river bridge), which is the one that has a road climbing it.

Having never been up that road before, I didn’t know what to expect.  It turned out to be a somewhat steep climb.  Thus, I had to stop and rest several times (maybe 7 times before I reached the top).  My legs were definitely up to the task, but I’d have to stop after a relatively short stint of riding because I’d be short of breath with my heart pounding.  A few minutes’ rest (and some water – I brought plenty) would leave me ready for the next stretch.  It had taken me 45 minutes to cover the 12 miles from my house to the mountain – it was another 30 minutes to climb the not-quite-a-mile to the top.

As expected, though, my efforts were rewarded by the view.  There’s an observation tower at the summit, as you can see here:

I climbed up, and took a look.  Here’s the view looking Northeast, toward Montague:

This is East into Sunderland center:

South, down the river:

Southwest, into Whately and Hatfield:

And West, into Deerfield:

Looking South, one can see some of the other mountains I’ve been on.  Here are Mt. Norwattuck (left) and Bare Mountain (right), which are near our house:

How close are they?  I could walk from home to the summit of Bare Mt. in about an hour if I wanted to (in fact, I should do that sometime).

Here’s Mt. Holyoke on the right (look for more about it in a future post):

Then this is the Mt. Tom Range, located on the other side of the river (West side, same as Sugarloaf):

Coming up Sugarloaf, there is a point where the road splits, so that there’s a loop going around the summit.  So heading back down, I was initially on a section of road I hadn’t travelled on the way up.  Some of that proved to be scarily steep, so I played it safe and walked my bike to the end of the steep part, and around the sharp turn at the end of it.  Riding the rest of the way down was fast, but not uncontrollably so.  My total time down the mountain was only about 6 or 7 minutes.

From there I headed West and picked up Route 5, which I took down into Northampton.  I then picked up the Norwattuck Rail Trail, crossed the river and headed back through Hadley to home.  Total distance: 30 miles.

Next: The Big Reservoir

I’m riding 50 miles again, a distance I have not tackled since that previous MS ride.  Once again, I need to work up to it, so I’ll be posting here about my training rides.  I also expect that I will be able to live blog some of the event this time (I thought I could last time, but my cell phone wasn’t up to the task – I have a better device now).

I have a page setup on the National MS Society web site where you can make contributions, though you can also contact me to pledge and then pay later.  If you have any questions, please do e-mail me.

Other denizens are thriving, though.  We knew that there was a groundhog living underneath our shed, but just this past weekend, I spotted some smaller ones with it:

I also spotted a little baby rabbit last night, but didn’t have a camera handy before it hopped away.  Of course, the downside to these little ones being around is that there are that many more mouths that might chomp on our flowers and vegetables.  We have to be vigilant…

First off, it appears that the mourning dove has hatched her eggs.  We never saw the eggs themselves, but now that there are chicks, the mama is off the nest getting food somewhat often.  I got a couple of pics where you can make out the babies, though I can’t tell how they’re doing (when I watched from the bedroom window I didn’t see them moving at all).

I climbed up on a stepladder to get a better picture (though I couldn’t observe the nest directly – I held the camera above my head):

Also, while doing some gardening, I noticed someone the likes of whom I hadn’t seen before on our property.  It was in this raised bed in front of the porch:

Behold:

It sat there and looked at me as I photographed it, just enjoying the heat.  A little later I saw it had moved a bit closer to the porch.  Later in the day it was nowhere to be seen.  We’ll see if it appears again.

Dove

A better view can be had from an upstairs window:

Dove in nest

We’ve been spreading birdseed on the driveway and lawn for her and her mate (according to an expert, doves prefer to collect seed off the ground), and we wait for a glimpse of eggs.  Apparently the eggs should be apparent when they are present, as doves aren’t very competent at nest building, and so the eggs will often stick out from under the mother.

Arzachel, who was the very old cat of the household, died 2 weeks ago on December 23.  He was about 19 years old, which is quite a bit older than most cats live.  He had survived many things which could have killed him, but avoided getting cancer (which killed both Shark and Nematode), or kidney failure (very common problem in older cats).  We discovered that he had congestive heart failure, and treatment by a cardiology vet ultimately couldn’t do enough for him.  The weekend before christmas he was no longer eating, so we took him in to end it.

The good news is quite a bit outdated.  That is, we have a new cat – one that we got 3 months ago.  We didn’t tell anyone for so long because we wanted to settle on a name first, and that took a while.  We started with a list of possibilities, and tried them out on her frequently to see what she would respond to.  The final choice was made a few weeks ago, so I now present Deodat:

A couple of weeks after Shark died, we started looking for a new cat.  We might have waited more, except that Arzachel seemed lonely being the only cat in the house.  We got here from a shelter in Springfield, and thought she might be a good companion for him.  Unfortunately, she seemed to be afraid of him from the get go, and even after she calmed down and started tolerating his presence, she was never friendly to him.

She is friendly to humans, though, and likes to sit on our laps (especially at the dining table, oddly enough).  She also is a big ball of energy, and wants to play much of the time.  This is not too surprising, as she’s much younger than our previous cats were (the shelter estimated that she was a bit over 2 years old, making her 2.5 now).  She’s a bit weird, though.  Besides the lap-sitting at table, she also likes to run past someone who’s headed up the stairs, then grab the top step as she gets there, letting her momentum flop her onto her side on the landing.  For the first couple of months she lived here, she would spend a good deal of time under the couch, and in particular would squeeze under there when she see someone coming (it took a little while to figure out that she was playing, not hiding in fear).  She still goes under there occasionally.

I have yet to put up a web page for her, but I will get around to it at some point.

Yesterday I did the big ride, and it was quite a ride. First off, I want to thank again everyone who donated. In supporting my effort, you’ve helped fund more MS research and advocacy to the tune of $711.00. Pretty good considering that last year’s ride had an average fundraising total of $660 per rider.

The day started early, as I needed to leave the house around 7:00 to drive out to Pittsfield. I actually left around 7:10. I have a bike-carrying rack that attaches to the trunk lid of the car, but this was the first time I’ve carried my bike on the freeway with it. Things were fine as I headed down I-91, but then I got on the Mass Pike (I-90), and as I got back up to speed, one of the bungie cords got loose, and the back end of the bike started to move up the pole of the rack. I had to pull over and secure the bike better. At least now I know how to properly attach the bike for 65 MPH driving.

Because of that stop and the late start, I got to the ride location at 8:20, 40 minutes before my ride would start. Between checking in, loading up the bike, putting on my number, applying sunscreen, hitting the restroom, and grabbing a cider doughnut from the food table, that was barely enough time. Once I lined up with the other 50-mile riders, I had about a minute to snap this picture:

I didn’t count, but there seemed to be 20-25 other riders at the start with me. A few more people passed me after the ride began, though, so there were some stragglers who started after the group did.

We started out riding West, passing the Pittsfield airport. The ride then headed South, passing a local apple orchard (from which the aforementioned doughnuts had come). I quickly ended up behind other bikers in the pack, largely I think because they all had road bikes and mine is a mountain bike. However, I also slowed myself down by stopping to take pictures along the way, starting with this little marsh a couple of miles in:

We were given a cue sheet for the ride that listed all the turns to take and some landmarks we’d pass, and how far to go after each step. In addition, there were periodic paint markings on the ground (‘MS’ plus an arrow), showing which way to go at intersections, and paper arrow signs on sticks or poles whenever a change of direction was required. Somehow I didn’t see the arrows for the first major turn, but there were some volunteers directing traffic there who pointed me in the right direction.

The ride entered the town of Richmond, and took a short loop to the North before heading South again (presumably this loop helped pad the distance of the routes). Along the loop I got a nice view of some mountain:

I’ll warn you now: I don’t know the names of any of the peaks I saw or photographed on the ride. Perhaps if I spend more time in the Berkshires in the future, I’ll get to know them. The route was somewhat hilly, though the climbs were all pretty gradual and not too long. I was able to make fairly good time, and once I really got warmed up I could head up the inclines a little faster.

Here’s another peak I shot, seen across a farm field:

Shortly after that picture I crossed above the Mass Pike, and took pictures of distant mountains in each direction. This is looking East:

and here’s West:

I was in West Stockbridge by this point, and after only a few more minutes’ riding I came to the first rest stop (of 2), almost exactly one third of the way through the ride. I had some food, including a PB&J, and topped off my water supply. I also typed up a blog post, but couldn’t get it to appear right away. I was using a post-by-email method, because typing an e-mail message on my cell phone is a little easier than using the blog interface. However, the blog is supposed to check for e-mail postings if you reload the page, and it wasn’t grabbing the e-mails when I loaded the blog’s front page on the phone (I had e-mailed a post with only a subject line right before the race). It could be that the version of the blog displayed on mobile devices doesn’t contain the code for checking the e-mail account, but the 2 posts did show up later.

I left that rest stop after nearly half an hour (I spent more time typing on the phone keypad than eating), and went through the town center of West Stockbridge. I crossed over what I believe to be the Williams River, which flows right between several buildings. Here’s a view from the little bridge:

and a picture of flowers in planters on the bridge railing:

From here the route went South and a bit West, through the town of Alford. After riding a bunch of the way on some wooded roads, and up the longest hill of the day, I came to a nice view of some more mountains:

A little while later, back in a tree-lined section of road, I found this individual at the end of someone’s driveway:

Saw some more mountains off to the side as I headed further South:

I then passed the approximate halfway point, and headed into Great Barrington, the Southernmost town on the route. After a bit the route headed Eastward for several miles. It was during this Eastward section that I passed, and somehow did not see, the other rest stop. I suppose I was enjoying the ride too much.

Shortly after I would have passed the rest stop, I crossed a little bridge over the Housatonic River:

A bit further along, the route headed North again. It came close to this ridge:

Imagine having that in your backyard!

Soon the road was running alongside the river. I initially thought this river was called the Fox River, because I saw a building labeled “Fox River Paper Co.” However, maps showed me it is the Housatonic. Here are pictures of a wider section of the river next to the road:

Another mile or so and the road crossed the river, but still was following it, and the river was narrower and had some slight rapids. This was a fishing area, and I saw a few people out there in their waders. I also covered a couple of miles without seeing any route arrows, and began to get worried that I was off the route. I stopped to look at the cue sheet, and it seemed to indicate that I had done all the right things (this was when I realized, though, that I’d missed the rest stop). I also had no cell reception at that moment, so I couldn’t call the organizers to check the route or do another blog post.

I kept going on that road (highway 183), and did eventually see arrow signs. I then passed the Norman Rockwell Museum, but was not interested in visiting. Just a tad after that I got to the next turn in the route, and started heading Northwest on highway 102, back toward West Stockbridge. I was three-fourths of the way along at that point, and this is when I really started feeling fatigued, and the hills started to be a little harder to climb, despite being gradual.

Just before reaching West Stockbridge, I ran out of water. I thought about stopping at a store in town, or going off the route a bit to go back to the first rest stop, but decided against both options. The ride had volunteers driving back and forth in support vehicles, which would pass at pretty regular intervals. Sure enough, I was able to flag down a vehicle shortly after passing the town center, and got a bottle of water from them. That was also when I posted to the blog again, using the regular interface instead of e-mail.

I was certainly slowing down at that point, and even little hills required me to rest, but I was able to push on, and even got another wind (my fifth or sixth wind) with about 5 miles to go). I was concentrating all my effort on keeping going, so I didn’t take any more pictures along the route. With less than 3 miles to go, I was back on a road that I recognized, retracing the beginning of the ride. This encouraged me further, and I had a little more energy to finish. Also helping was when I saw the sign saying “1 mile to go!”

As I rode back into the parking lot at the finish, a group of volunteers stationed there cheered me in, which was nice (I heard them cheering another rider just after I got there). According to the cue sheet, my total ride was almost 51 miles, and I had ridden it in just under 6 hours.

They had a cookout going to feed all the returning riders, so I ate heartily. The location of the start and finish was a ski resort, and the dining area was right by the ski lifts. As I’ve never gone skiing, I hadn’t seen chairlifts up close before, so I took some pix:

After eating, I packed up the car and made ready to leave. I took a couple of last pictures of myself post-ride, including showing off my number. I leave you with those photos:

The assessment given by the vet who diagnosed Shark’s cancer was correct. He said that Shark probably had a few weeks, maybe a month, to live. That pronouncement was made on August 13, and the end came on September 12.

I originally got Shark in the summer of 1994. We had stopped by a dancewear store in Ann Arbor during the sidewalk sales that accompany the annual Art Fair (which is actually four different art fairs). There were 2 cats living in the store, but the store was getting ready to move, and the owner told us that in their new location they wouldn’t be able to have cats. The two were litter mates, and his sister had already been promised to someone, but Shark didn’t have a home lined up yet (that was already his name). We agreed to take him, as there was only one cat in our house at the time, who we thought would like the company. It took a couple of days to accomplish this, because he would run away and hide in the store’s attic wall whenever anyone tried to catch him and put him in a carrier.

He was pretty much my cat from the outset. He was only a year or so old when I got him, and wasn’t much interested in sitting on my lap or being picked up. Eventually, though, he did come to like such things after he got a little older and mellower. For several years he would go flying through the air when he’d play, as can be seen on his web page. In later years he got less active, and also somewhat chubby.

Generally he was a healthy cat, with occasional problems such as when he ate a bunch of thread right out of the sewing machine, and I found him with it hanging out of his mouth, still attached to the machine. He was diagnosed with a heart condition a couple of years ago (hypertrophic cardiomyopathy), but medication kept that in check (Shark has always been easy to give pills to). This year he lost weight over several months, which initially was thought to be thyroid-related (and might have been in part), but he turned out to be in worse shape.

He declined slowly, still being affectionate, but hiding more often and losing his appetite despite pain-killing medication. This past Wednesday he hid all day, and by evening was crying when we tried to move him, and then was unable to walk correctly. I took him to the emergency vet clinic late that evening.

It was hard to say goodbye, and I keep being reminded of things I will miss about him. I also have occasionally forgotten that he’s gone in the past couple of days, thinking in the morning that I have to give him medicine, and the like.

To our surprise, when our normal vet found out he’d been euthanized, they sent flowers. I’ll end this post with a picture of that arrangement: