Caching With Doris & Hanging Around 8/13-14/2009

Thursday we stayed around the coach until about noon and then we went and picked up Doris, Kim's aunt, and took her caching to Shelburne Falls and Greenfield with us. Our first stop was in fact right up the road from where she lives to an old house sitting on the hill and a cache in the woods behind it.
Next we were off about 2 miles from her and a Green River haunted covered bridge cache. Back in the 1600`s, Deerfield was raided by a band of French soldiers and Indians. The 200 or so captives were taken North to Canada, along the way crossing over the Green River in present day Greenfield. Eunice Williams, wife of the town`s reverend who just hours before had given birth, was hacked to death in the river by an Indian. Today, a plaque set in a stone tells the tale, and a covered bridge looms beside it connecting North Greenfield and the Meadows section of town. It is said that Eunice shows herself here, at night, when motorists stop inside the bridge, turn off their headlights, and beep once. Other sightings have been beside the dam above the bridge, and downstream in the middle of the river. Although we couldn't drive down the road as it was closed so we couldn't stop on the bridge to see if that was true.
Next cache we had to drive into Shelburne Falls and make a stop at the Visitor's Information Center for a cache located down in back at the site where once was an old jail below the fire department.
Next cache was just down the street at the Salmon River Glacial Potholes. It is a fascinating story about how the potholes got there too. glacial melt water washed over the metamorphic rock that can be observed at the falls. The rock itself is called gneiss, which is a very hard and resistant to erosion type of rock. At the time of the last ice age, about 15,000 years ago, there were approximately 2,000 feet of ice that covered Shelburne Falls. As the last glacier melted the Connecticut River Valley, where Shelburne Falls now sits, was flooded. This flood created a huge glacial lake. This glacial lake became known as Lake Hitchcock. As the lake drained, it caused the flow of the Deerfield River to swell. The river carried in its rushing waters a large load of stones, sand, and mud. It began to erode the hard, metamorphic, rock called gneiss over which it flowed. As this water washed over Shelburne Falls the water picked stones and sediments of various sizes and they became trapped in cracks that then, literally, drilled into the underlying metamorphic rock. With the vast amount of melt water run off the pressure of flowing water kept the smaller stones tumbling around for thousands of years. Additionally as some stones are eroded away they were replaced by more stones and this allowed the process to continue. If one images a washing machine, except with stones in it, one can easily see how these potholes became so perfectly round and wide. In fact there is one pot hole at the site that is believed to be a world record size pothole. Over time the stones that tumble around inside the pothole eventually break through the down stream side of the hole and the forming of that individual whole is completed. As you can see by the pictures some of them are quite large.
Then down the street a little farther to the Bridge of Flowers, a bridge with flowers planted all along it on either side. The bridge was originally constructed in 1908 to carry trolley tracks 400 feet across the Deerfield River. When trolley service ended in 1928, the bridge was neglected and soon became an eyesore. In 1929, the bridge was purchased by the Shelburne Falls Fire District, since it carried water mains across the river and, at the impetus of town residents Walter Burnham and his wife, a fundraising drive was launched to turn the bridge into a beautiful garden pathway. A local businesswoman and Woman's Club member, Gertrude Newall, was named the bridge's first "gardener," a post she held for 30 years. In 1983, the bridge underwent a massive half-million-dollar renovation to ensure its continued longevity. All plants were removed from the bridge during the renovations, and, in 1984, the bridge reopened to the public, newly designed by Shelburne Falls horticulturalist Carrolle Markle. The design still features Wisteria vines that were kept growing during the reconstruction by members of the volunteer Bridge of Flowers Committee and returned to their original spots on the bridge. Today, the Bridge of Flowers is maintained by a paid gardener and assistant and volunteers from the Committee and the Woman's Club. More than 20,000 people stroll its blooming expanse each year, and care is taken to ensure that from the time the tulips pop up in April until the mums mark the end of New England's fall flowering season that something spectacular is always in bloom. The informational brochure I picked up at the entrance to the fabled Bridge of Flowers in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts, brags that the bridge is "the only one of its kind in the world," and I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt! In all of my travels, I can't say that I've quite seen anything exactly like this floral masterpiece that has been the village's centerpiece since the bridge was abandoned by the trolley line in 1928.
Next it was around the corner to a cache at a famous quilt shop. Next was a cache located at the Shelburne Falls Trolley Museum. The Shelburne Falls Trolley Museum is dedicated to preserving and operating Shelburne Falls & Colrain Street Railway trolley car No. 10. This car was built by Wason Manufacturing Co. in Springfield MA in 1896. It was delivered new to Shelburne Falls and has never left the valley. For thirty years it served its namesake towns. For twenty years it crossed the Deerfield River on what is now the famous Bridge of Flowers. Saved by a local farmer, it spent sixty-five years as a chicken coop, tool shed and play house. Now, through the efforts of the Shelburne Falls Trolley Museum, you can ride it in the same freight yard where it used to load and unload passengers, apples, mail, milk and other freight, one hundred years ago.
Then it was off to Poet's Seat Tower located on top of a high hill overlooking the town of Greenfield. Poet's Seat Tower is a 1912 sandstone observation tower, located in Greenfield, Massachusetts. It was so named to honor a long tradition of poets being drawn to the spot, in particular, the local poet Frederick Goddard Tuckerman. By 1850, the location was referred to as "Poet's Seat" by Tuckerman in a surviving herbarium entry for November 10th of that year. An earlier wooden tower was erected at the site on June 3, 1879. This first structure was built, along with a public drinking fountain and a road accessing the site, under the auspices of the The Greenfield Rural Club.
Our last cache was located in downtown Greenfield near the library. Then we were off back to Doris and Ro's house and we dropped her off and we went back to the coach to shower and feed Muffy and Raggs and then drive back to their house for dinner. We had a lovely dinner of hot shrimp cocktail, Caesar Salad with a great homemade dressing, pizza made on the BBQ grill and fresh fruit for dessert. I introduced them to Buffalo chicken wing pizza made with our hot sauce and they seemed to love it. All in all we had a GREAT visit with Doris and Roy and Doris seemed to enjoy caching with us very much. After dinner we said a sad goodbye and headed back to the coach.
Friday I wasn't feeling to good so all we did was hang around the coach for the day and do a few well needed things. I think the hot humid weather finally got to me as it has been awful lately here. Well I guess it's time to say until next time and we love you all. Mom & Dad