I turned 45 in June, and, as I had done when I turned 40, I celebrated with a long weekend bike trip.  In this case, I headed north (and a bit east) into New Hampshire, where I intended to hike Mt. Monadnock, which I’d been meaning to do for several years. I started the trip … Read more

Back in April, I went for a 26-mile bike ride, which is a typical length for the early to mid-Spring as I get back in cycling shape.  I rode to Westfield, Mass to check out Stanley Park, which I’d heard about but had never visited. I entered the park on the South side, at a … Read more

In mid-October, a new hiking trail on newly conserved land was opened here in Hadley.  The Trustees of Reservations, a private non-profit, purchased the property to protect it from development, and are now making it available for the public to enjoy.  Mount Warner (a reasonably-sized hill in the north part of Hadley) is the location … Read more

On my third day in Iceland, I had a quick breakfast of yogurt and granola, or rather, of yogurt drink and granola.  It turned out that the stuff I thought was yogurt, Skyr, is more like a thin smoothie.  It still worked fine, as I even like having granola with plain milk. Outside, before getting … Read more

A couple of weeks ago (well before our big snowstorm), I decided to test a claim that I had made some time ago, I believe in a previous blog post (actually, the post is here).  My claim was that I could walk from my house to the top of nearby Bare Mountain in an hour’s … Read more

Over Memorial Day weekend, I was visiting Philadelphia, and went walking in the Heinz Wildlife Refuge.  I had not been familiar with it before, but it’s many acres of preserved wetland, located right near the Philly airport.  It’s surprising, but cool, that a chunk of nature has been protected in such a heavily urban area. … Read more

2 weeks ago I went on a hike in the hills near home.  This was a few days before the big snowstorm that I chronicled in my last post, so while it was snowy, there were only a few inches of it on the ground.  That Sunday was otherwise sunny. I hiked a half-mile down … Read more

I previously posted about my bike trip over the July 4th long weekend.  On the Monday of that weekend, I went for an extended hike.  This was another hike of parts of the Metacomet-Monadnock trail – I covered sections 3 and 4. As with other one-way hikes, I brought my bike along on the back … Read more

A week ago I went for a hike on trails that are nearby our house.  When I say nearby, I mean that they’re behind the houses that are across the road from us. I hadn’t had a chance to explore these trails much the last time I was on them, but I had time to … Read more

This is my final post from the trip to Canada last month.  Toward the end of the week there, I got a chance to go hiking in Kouchibouguac National Park, which is about an hour North of the city of Moncton. Something that’s interesting about the park is the variety of different types of forest … Read more