{"id":944,"date":"2010-07-26T23:36:49","date_gmt":"2010-07-27T03:36:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/?p=944"},"modified":"2010-07-26T23:36:49","modified_gmt":"2010-07-27T03:36:49","slug":"bacon-co-op-and-rattlesnake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/2010\/07\/26\/bacon-co-op-and-rattlesnake\/","title":{"rendered":"Bacon, co-op, and rattlesnake"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the long Independence Day weekend, I went for a bike ride into the towns of Shutesbury and Leverett (both hill towns to the North and East of Amherst).\u00a0 I intended to visit 2 places, and maybe make it to one or two others.<\/p>\n

The first place I wanted to go was Baconville.\u00a0 What is Baconville you ask?\u00a0 That’s exactly what I wanted to know.\u00a0 There is an intersection in Shutesbury which, if you look on Mapquest, is labeled ‘Baconville’.\u00a0 I first spotted it on a map of the area on the National Weather Service<\/a> page (it isn’t there any more).\u00a0 That label doesn’t show on Google maps, but if you try mapping ‘Baconville, MA’ on Google, it will point to the same intersection:<\/p>\n

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Basically, it’s where Sand Hill Rd. and Baker Rd. meet W. Pelham Rd.\u00a0 I couldn’t find info online about it, so I thought I’d go see what was there.<\/p>\n

To get there, I rode through Amherst into the town of Pelham, and then came North on Buffam Rd. (which turns into W. Pelham Rd.).\u00a0 That road involves a good deal of climbing, so I had some slow going.\u00a0 On the way up, I spotted this interestingly colored house:<\/p>\n

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There were 2 flagpoles near the end of the driveway, one flying a US flag, and the other with a flag that seemed to have the same colors as the house:<\/p>\n

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However, I couldn’t get a very good look at the flag.\u00a0 I tried looking for flags of other countries, but couldn’t find one with that color combo.<\/p>\n

Continuing on, I soon came to the crossroads known as Baconville.\u00a0 And here’s what I found:<\/p>\n

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There’s not much there.\u00a0 I definitely had the right place, as evidenced by the street signs:<\/p>\n

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There were a few houses, one of which had some nice stone walls:<\/p>\n

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And an electrical or phone transformer of some kind:<\/p>\n

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But nothing else to speak of.<\/p>\n

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I looked for a sign, or a historical marker of some kind, but found nothing.\u00a0 Perhaps I’ll have to check with the town historical society sometime.<\/p>\n

From there I continued North, and bore slightly East toward Leverett.\u00a0 I ended up traveling on a dirt road for quite a ways, which is fine, as long as it doesn’t get too steep.\u00a0 However, there were a couple of spots where the road headed downhill to steeply for my comfort, given the loose surface, so I walked my bike in those areas.<\/p>\n

I did come across a lovely marsh area while still in Shutesbury.\u00a0 Here are some views of it on either side of the road:<\/p>\n

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A bit further up the road, there was a dam that the wetland flowed over into a creek.\u00a0 Here are shots of the area above the dam:<\/p>\n

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And the dam itself:<\/p>\n

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Just after that dam, I entered the town of Leverett.\u00a0 Not long after, I came to the end of the dirt road I was on, where there was what looked like an old mill building with a creek running past (probably the same waterway that the marsh fed into).<\/p>\n

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I almost immediately turned onto another dirt road and came to my next destination, the Leverett Co-op:<\/p>\n

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Yeah, not a great picture of the building, but the sun was behind it when I was there.\u00a0 I stopped in for some extra water (and a cherry-cheese danish).\u00a0 It’s a neat little place, and would be very convenient to shop at if one lived up in the Northern part of Leverett.\u00a0 Besides selling groceries, there’s a little cafe there, a computer with Internet access (not sure if it’s high-speed), a playground (with old merry-go-round):<\/p>\n

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and also a quiet garden with peaceful decorations:<\/p>\n

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This fellow also resides on the grounds:<\/p>\n

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I left the co-op and traveled down the dirt road that it’s on, called Rattlesnake Gutter Rd.\u00a0 I had not paid close attention to the road as marked on Google Maps – if I had, I would have noticed that the road gets very thin for a while.\u00a0 It turns out that the road climbs up a hill, and then becomes closed to motor vehicles.\u00a0 It turns into a gravel path only open to bikes and pedestrians, which goes through a conservation area.\u00a0 Once again, I found myself having to walk the bike through parts that were downhill, but it was definitely worth going through there.\u00a0 Rattlesnake Gutter turns out to be a pretty gully in the hills, and I took a few photos:<\/p>\n

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Eventually, I passed a gate at the bottom of the hill, and the road turned into a road once again, and not long after intersected a paved road.\u00a0 From there I pedaled down through Amherst and home.<\/p>\n

Total ride distance: 33 miles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the long Independence Day weekend, I went for a bike ride into the towns of Shutesbury and Leverett (both hill towns to the North and East of Amherst).\u00a0 I intended to visit 2 places, and maybe make it to one or two others. The first place I wanted to go was Baconville.\u00a0 What is … 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\/944"}],"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=944"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":975,"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944\/revisions\/975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seakingdom.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}