The first weekend in June I went on a bike trip up to Turner’s Falls and Greenfield.  I headed up through Amherst, Leverett, and past Montague Center to get to Turner’s Falls (where I had been on a previous ride), and once I got there, I rode the full length of the bike path that follows the Connecticut River.  That path runs for a while along a canal, but then the canal rejoins the river to the West of downtown.  While next to the river proper, I saw several ducks sitting on logs in the water, and I also saw this bird:

Which, from some Google searching, appears to be a cormorant.

The path eventually leaves the river for a bit, then crosses it, as the river turns South.  The path ends soon after, in the Northern part of Deerfield.  From there, I rode across the Deerfield River into Greenfield, and went downtown to The People’s Pint for lunch.  I had never been there before, but had recently heard about the sodas that they brew themselves.  I tried both the root beer and the ginger ale, and while the former was good, the latter was amazing!  It’s fairly gingery, but also has a citrus base to it.  Highly recommended.  Unfortunately, while the brewery bottles a number of its beers for sale in area stores, the sodas are only available there at the pub.

Once I left there, I headed home by a different route than I’d taken on the way up.  I rode down through Deerfield, Whately, and Hatfield into Northampton, and then back across the Connecticut to Hadley.  This ride was part of an effort to extend the distance I can ride – the total length was about 53 miles.  More on my riding plans for this year in an upcoming post.