There was no particular reason to go to Westhampton except that it is half way between Syracuse and Durham. However, it is in a very pretty area in mountains and has many bicycle trails.
On Wednesday the weather cleared up, although it remained cool. It seemed a perfect day to ride our bikes on the rail-trail that threads through Easthampton and beyond.
After taking a walk along the shore of a lake in downtown Easthampton (through the cemetery) we rode the bicycle path through Northampton (home of Smith College), Hadley (home of Hadley College) almost to Amherst (home of Amherst College and UMass). Mt. Holyoke College is nearby. This is a well-educated part of the country!
The bike path is very flat but goes through varied countryside. In Easthampton, we started at the lake and passed by the old factories that would have utilized the rail lines. Many of these buildings were still being utilized as factories into the 1980s and 1990s, but are now being converted to other purposes.
The path then takes you through Northampton, which looks like an interesting and pretty little town from the trail. It was so enticing, in fact, that we returned for dinner and ice cream as well as a stroll around town.
Finally, the path continues over the Connecticut River
(whose width is more impressive when one bikes or walks than from the car) and into Amherst. However, as this was our first long bike ride of the season, we tired before making it quite into town, and decided to turn back while we could still make it under our own power.
Northampton takes its bike racks seriously and most look like sculptures or spell out words.
On Thursday the weather continued to hold and we decided to go into Amherst.
First, however, I wanted a photo of an old orchard near the campground which I have been calling the Haunted Orchard. I have never seen trees in such weird shapes.
To park, we pulled into the Outlook Farm parking lot and then were treated to an unexpected delight.
The Outlook Farm store is very multipurpose. Upon entering, you are in the coffee shop, which smells unbelievably appetizing due to their on-site bakery. They also have a deli, wine shop, farm stand, grocery, and upstairs a very high quality craft shop. I particularly liked these sculptures made from wine corks.
We could not resist and abandoned our diets to eat some delicious pastries for lunch.
We then moved on to Amherst and the Emily Dickinson Museum. The house itself (and her brother’s home on the same property) was classic for its time. However, the story of the publication of her poetry would make a fine soap opera.
She carried on an extensive correspondence with both literary figures and local townspeople. Although she freely shared her poetry in her correspondence, she declined to publish anything during her lifetime. By the time she was 30, she had become extremely reclusive, seeing almost no-one except her sister Lavinia, her sister-in-law and best friend Susan and the household and farm staff. This gave her time to jot down lots of poems and poem fragments, often on scrap paper and often with multiple suggestions for alternative wording which in some cases dramatically changed the meaning of the poem. It also gave her time for voluminous correspondence.
After Emily’s death, Lavinia destroyed Emily’s correspondence (as per her instructions) undertook to edit some volumes of Emily’s poetry. Finding herself unequal to the task, she asked her best friend Margaret Todd to be the editor. Well-known to her, to Austin’s wife Susan and apparently the entire town, Margaret was having an affair with brother Austin. Needless to say, this provoked some drama with Emily’s best friend and confidante Susan.
Besides the family drama, editing was obviously challenging due to the multiple variants of the poems. As well, over a hundred poems are known only because they were in correspondence saved by others. After Margaret gave up the task, much of the work was done by Susan’s surviving daughter. Neither Emily nor Lavinia married and all of Austin’s children died childless, so there are no remaining close descendents.
Robert Frost also spent much of his life living in Amherst and teaching at Amherst College (many years later) so Amherst is a kind of literary Mecca.
Downtown Amherst is smaller than Northampton, but still pleasant. Amherst College is right downtown on a thilltop with wonderful views over the mountains.
We headed back to the RV for dinner. Tomorrow we head to Durham NH for our niece’s graduation and family time.