A Shakedown Cruise

We finally got off in New Speedy...a five day trip to Western Massachusetts and the Hudson River. It was a bit of a shakedown cruise to make sure that all the systems work in the van and to get a feel for driving it and living in it.

We, along with our friends Harry and Sally in their Roadtrek, left on June 6th for Lenox, MA. We had reservations for a couple of nights at October Mountain State Forest. It was a straightforward trip on the Mass Turnpike and New Speedy handled quite well, especially compared to Old Speedy. The Sprinter drives almost like a car, except for being high up with a great view of the road, We didn't have high winds, so we don't yet have a feel for handling in windy conditions.

October Mountain has a rather small campground. We had reserved site 5, which turned out to be half of a paved drive-through site shared with site 6. A great choice if one is traveling with friends or family in site 6, but 6 had already been reserved, so Harry and Sally were elsewhere. We looked around and saw that site 17 was empty. It was a grassy site and backed up to the forest, much more private. It was available, so we moved. We could only stay two nights as all sites in the campground were booked for Friday and Saturday nights.

After setting up camp. Ellen and Sally went off to do a little birding. We dined outside, the only time we could do that for the entire trip. It was quite warm, so we tried out our new back door screens overnight The Sprinter has double doors in the back and Ellen fashioned a full-size screen that fills the entire door opening when both doors are open. It is quite airy, but not particularly private...the advantage of a site that backs up to the woods. It is held in place by a Velcro strip that goes around the edge of the door frame. We mounted the strip on the outer edge of the frame, which meant that we could not close the doors without going out and taking the screen off completely...the first thing on our list of continuing modifications is to fix that.

On Thursday, we visited Naumkeag, a 44 room Gilded Age "cottage" on 48 acres in Stockbridge that is owned by the Trustees of Reservations. It was left to the Trustees by Mabel Choate in complete condition with its original furniture, household goods, artworks, farm tools and even Mabel's clothes. The Trustees have endeavored to keep it that way. While the house is impressive without being gaudy, the gardens are its jewels. Mabel worked with the landscape architect, Fletcher Steele, for 30 years developing the gardens. It was a worthwhile visit on a hot and sticky day.

The hot and stickies turned to rain, which was going to be a key feature of the shakedown trip. We got a chance to try out dining with friends in Speedy. Unlike the old Dodge van, all of the seats swivel. With addition of a folding stool, we have relatively comfortable seating for four at the front table, so Harry, Sally and Nina, the dog, joined us for dinner.

The rain had stopped by morning and we were off to our next campground, Schodack Island State Park, along the Hudson River in New York. It was the closest place we could find that had sites available for Friday and Saturday nights. We made a couple of stops along the way.

We left early and made a birding stop at Mass Audubon's Pleasant Valley Wildlife Sanctuary, just outside of Lenox. Ellen, Sally and I spent a couple of hours walking the trails, hearing a lot, but not seeing quite so much.

After Pleasant Valley, we didn't have far to go to get to the Hancock Shaker Village where we spent most of the afternoon. It is quite the village, missing only Shakers (the downside of a religion that espouses celibacy as the only lifestyle), with living quarters, working wood shops and blacksmith's forge, active gardens and a huge round stone barn, complete with livestock.

Schodack Island State Park is right on the Hudson River, within a stone's throw of the I-90 bridge over the river. While the park has been there for a while, the campground is brand new. There is good and bad in this. The restrooms and showers are bright and clean, but the sites are a bit raw. They are mostly electric-only sites, but are very sandy. This, along with on and off rain, made it nearly impossible to avoid tracking sand into Speedy. We had another dinner in Speedy.

Unlike the area around October Mountain, there wasn't much to see near Schodack Island...except the birds. It is an Important Bird Area (an official designation) so Ellen and Sally went off to do important birding in the morning. In the afternoon, between raindrops, we all walked down to the highway and railway bridges over the Hudson. We had been told that there were raptors on the bridges. We managed to find the Osprey easily enough and we saw Bald Eagles over the Hudson, but the Peregrine Falcon eluded us until Harry spotted one sitting on the edge of the railroad bridge. The walk back yielded three more Bald Eagles flying across from the boat ramps.

As the rain returned we had dinner in the other Roadtrek on Saturday night.

Sunday we headed Northwest to Williamstown and the Clark Institute where we spent much of the day visiting the museums and the cows. Actually, they visited us as we looked at an outdoor installation called Crystal, an asymmetric small structure, open on one side, overlooking the grounds of the Clark. The cows came by to look into the structure as we were looking out.

After the Clark, and a stop at Tunnel City Coffee, it was off to Savoy Mountain State Forest outside North Adams. Ellen & I have camped here before and really enjoyed the campground. It is open and at the top of the mountain. Aside from the overnight rain, it didn't disappoint.

It was back home on Monday traveling the length of the Mohawk Trail (Route 2) all the way to 128 and home. We made a stop in Shelburne Falls for coffee at Mocha Maya's, a stroll across the Bridge of Flowers and a visit to the Salmon Falls gallery to look at the glass works of Josh Simpson, a particular interest of Sally.

It was an uneventful trip back with a lunch stop in the Wendell State Forest in Erving.

It was a successful shakedown cruise with only about two pages of items to add, rework and remember for the next trip.