{"id":1991,"date":"2012-09-06T23:30:17","date_gmt":"2012-09-07T03:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/?p=1991"},"modified":"2012-09-06T23:30:17","modified_gmt":"2012-09-07T03:30:17","slug":"bearing-east","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/2012\/09\/06\/bearing-east\/","title":{"rendered":"Bearing East"},"content":{"rendered":"

On July 4th I went biking in a big loop.\u00a0 I first headed south through the town of South Hadley, then west through Holyoke.\u00a0 I passed through Anniversary Hill Park, where I had biked a few years ago<\/a>, only this time I did not come out the way I had entered the park, I passed the tower and walked my bike through the woods on a dirt path, emerging on a side street further west.\u00a0 I then continued on to Easthampton.<\/p>\n

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Easthampton was once again this year doing a Bearfest<\/a>, with bear statues decorated by different artists displayed in front of businesses and in some parks.\u00a0 Here’s a sampling of the bears I saw:<\/p>\n

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This one by the municipal building did not use the standard statue:<\/p>\n

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This one’s a bit creepy (mainly because of the size of the bees):<\/p>\n

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A few were interesting alternatives to painting the statue, like the Steel Clad Bear:<\/p>\n

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and the Luminous Bear:<\/p>\n

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that one came with a warning:<\/p>\n

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This one seems to be partly carved out of a stone block:<\/p>\n

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That one was located in front of the old town hall building, which now houses a few arts organizations (and which I think is neat looking):<\/p>\n

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This one (called The Bear Truth) was the most overtly political message, and the saddest bear I saw:<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

I left downtown and headed for the Acadia Wildlife Refuge, which straddles the line between Easthampton and Northampton.\u00a0 I had thought that one could bike through the refuge, but that’s not the case.\u00a0 They do have a bunch of walking trails, though, so I spent some time walking them.\u00a0 Soon after I entered the woods, I encountered this elevated viewing platform up in the trees:<\/p>\n

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The partly enclosed platform stands on top of a few wooden pilings, and is mostly stabilized by several guy wires.\u00a0 Despite being stabilized, it (and the metal spiral staircase that leads up to it) sways back and forth a bit.\u00a0 The motion was a little disconcerting.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, it does offer a nice view of the Mill River and related wetlands:<\/p>\n

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Unfortunately, I didn’t see much wildlife while I was hiking around.\u00a0 I saw the occasional chipmunk, and encountered quite a number of mosquitoes.\u00a0 Some of the paths were almost overgrown, as well, so my legs got a bit scratched up.\u00a0 I left the place a little over an hour after I’d gotten there and rode on toward Noho.<\/p>\n

On the way, I passed along the northern edge of the Connecticut River oxbow, and went over the mouth of the Mill River on this little bridge:<\/p>\n

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Here is the oxbow itself, with Mt. Nonotuck in the background (to the south):<\/p>\n

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From there I headed up into Northampton, and then home via the usual trails.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On July 4th I went biking in a big loop.\u00a0 I first headed south through the town of South Hadley, then west through Holyoke.\u00a0 I passed through Anniversary Hill Park, where I had biked a few years ago, only this time I did not come out the way I had entered the park, I passed … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9,19],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1991"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1991"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1991\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2016,"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1991\/revisions\/2016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}