{"id":717,"date":"2009-09-17T21:50:21","date_gmt":"2009-09-18T02:50:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/?p=717"},"modified":"2009-09-17T21:50:21","modified_gmt":"2009-09-18T02:50:21","slug":"training-turning-or-falling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/2009\/09\/17\/training-turning-or-falling\/","title":{"rendered":"Training: Turning or Falling"},"content":{"rendered":"

This past Sunday, I went for a longer ride than my previous few, up to the village of Turners Falls<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 It is not its own municipality – rather the village is part of the Town of Montague<\/a>, which generally lies across the Connecticut River from Greenfield and Deerfield.<\/p>\n

It was almost a straight North ride all the way, passing through parts of the towns of Amherst, Leverett, and Sunderland before entering Montague.\u00c2\u00a0 I went through Montague center, and stopped off at the Book Mill<\/a>, which I’ve written about before<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"millsign\"<\/p>\n

\"bkmill1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I browsed there for about half an hour (didn’t buy anything), and then continued toward Turners Falls.<\/p>\n

There was a bit of hill climbing to do on the way North, and then the road descended quite a ways into downtown T.F.\u00c2\u00a0 The main drag through town is called Avenue A, and it looks something like this:<\/p>\n

\"turndown2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"turndown3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"turndown4\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This sign greets visitors coming Southwest over the river from the Town of Gill:<\/p>\n

\"turndown1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Here is the bridge to Gill:<\/p>\n

\"turnbridge1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The view upriver from that bridge:<\/p>\n

\"turnriv1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Here is the dam on that side of the bridge:<\/p>\n

\"turndam1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"turndam2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Here’s the downriver view on the other side of the bridge (and the dam):<\/p>\n

\"turnriv2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"turnriv3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On the bridge I saw these flowers:<\/p>\n

\"bridgebouquet\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Perhaps someone fell or jumped from that spot.<\/p>\n

There is a canal that comes off of the river and parallels it for a while.\u00c2\u00a0 Along that canal is a bike path:<\/p>\n

\"turnbike\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Here’s the bridge, seen from the path:<\/p>\n

\"turnbridge2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The canal, with not much water in it:<\/p>\n

\"turncanal1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Further down it has more of a flow:<\/p>\n

\"turncanal2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Across the canal are old factories\/mills, beyond which is the river proper, and then a ridgeline:<\/p>\n

\"turnfact\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A walkway crossing the canal:<\/p>\n

\"canalwalk\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Just outside of downtown, I ran across a sculpture park that I had not known about.\u00c2\u00a0 It has many things made of old bike parts, as well as some other items:<\/p>\n

\"sculpark0\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"sculpark1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"sculpark2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"sculpark3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"sculpark4\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"sculpark5\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"sculpark6\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"sculpark7\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"sculpark8\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"sculpark9\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"sculpark10\"<\/a><\/p>\n

After riding around a bit more, I stopped in at the Rendezvous<\/a> for some food:<\/p>\n

\"rendezvous\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I had a delicious cheese plate and a virgin mojito (lime and mint are a wonderful combo when you’re thirsty).<\/p>\n

From there I rode the bike trail to the West, and followed it across an old train bridge into Deerfield:<\/p>\n

\"bikebrg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Here’s the view from that bridge North, looking at the confluence of the Deerfield River with the Connecticut (and the car bridge into Greenfield):<\/p>\n

\"greenturnriv1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This is South (down the Connecticut):<\/p>\n

\"greenturnriv2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I didn’t have time to explore the West side of the river, so I came back across, and headed back down to the bookmill and toward home the way I came.\u00c2\u00a0 Somewhere in Leverett, I believe, I came across this little fenced-in cemetery:<\/p>\n

\"picketcem\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I think it may be a family graveyard, as there seemed to be a house just behind it.<\/p>\n

I made it home about 5.5 hours after starting out, feeling pretty tired (and sore in the legs).\u00c2\u00a0 Total distance: 46 miles.<\/p>\n

Next: A Place with a Base<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This past Sunday, I went for a longer ride than my previous few, up to the village of Turners Falls.\u00c2\u00a0 It is not its own municipality – rather the village is part of the Town of Montague, which generally lies across the Connecticut River from Greenfield and Deerfield. It was almost a straight North ride … 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":[19],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717"}],"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=717"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":753,"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717\/revisions\/753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}