Hiking

I saw an article about an interesting trail in the Berkshires. It's a trail that goes to some interesting keystone bridges that were made with cut stone laid dry in the 1830s. A few are still in use and three were destroyed during a flood in 1927, but there are two unused out in the woods -- they changed the course of the railroad to make gentler curves to allow trains to go faster. Charlie and I drove out this afternoon to explore the trail. We found that the trail was still snowcovered (or ice covered) in places, and very muddy, so we didn't hike all the way out to the bridges. But we still had a great hike.

The engineer who designed the bridges, interestingly enough, was Whistler's Father. (And not the Whistler in the Blade movies either). The one we could see was beautiful and still looked like new. We'll have to go back when the trail will have dried out and hike the rest of the way out to the bridges.

Penny had a great time. There was no-one else out there, so we didn't feel guilty about letting Penny off the lead. She ran and ran and got lots of sniffies. Charlie worried that she might fall into the river, but with her four feet, she's not in any danger. She didn't like it when trains would go by, however. The trail runs parallel to the active tracks and we saw (and heard) three trains go by. Penny hadn't ever experienced a train before -- she hated it. Poor Penny!