Wild Hogs II Day 4

Wild Hogs II Day 4 7/17/2010

After our long ride to Boston and back on Friday, we decided that it would be good to take it easy for a day knowing that we have the long ride home tomorrow. We slept in. I did not get up until 0630 which is an hour later than any other morning this week. When we did get up we just kind of hung out around the camp site for a couple of hours relaxing and discussing the weeks events and what we should do today. We decided breakfast would be in order and a Boston Creme donut from Dunkin Donuts was calling Scotts name, so we decided that would be the place. About 0900 we headed into town. At breakfast we discussed the possibilities for the day. We decided that we would like to re-trace some of the riding we had done earlier in the week that we had really found enjoyable. We stopped at a couple of stores in the area to see if we could pick up a few things we needed, then got down to some riding.

We made another run up Mt. Greylock, very much enjoying the twisties all the way up. We came down the opposite side which is just as enjoyable as North Adams side. On the way up we kept passing runners coming down the mountain. They were wearing numbers like they were in a race. When we got up the mountain we asked what was going on and were told that it was the "Mass. Dash" a charity relay marathon going from the North Adams, over Mt. Greylock and all the way to Boston, 150 miles in all. The team members run in about 8 mile legs. They expected most of the teams to make it across the state to Boston in about 36 hours. this run had to pass over countless mountains on their way east. It was a truly amazing undertaking.

By the time we made our way back to North Adams it was lunch time. We decided that Pappa Ginos would work. It was a restaurant in the same chain that we ate at in Boston. After lunch we took a ride around town, looking at the various old houses and buildings. It is so very cool riding around these classic New England towns with their many colonial and victorian style buildings and the classic style church buildings.

After touring town we headed west on Rt. 2, the Mohawk Trail. This is the road we traveled most of the way to Boston on Friday. We enjoyed the first 30 miles or so of it so much that we just had to run it again. This time we weren't on a deadline or in a hurry so we made a few stops along the way. One place that we stopped was along a river. This river is a classic example of many of the mountain streams in that area. It was very rocky and ran rather swiftly in places. Scott and Jay decided to wade in for a bit. Kevin and I sat on the bank and just watched and teased them. It was a beautiful place. From there we headed farther down the road to the "Cold River". This river is very popular for tubing and rafting as well as swimming. We went to the river bank and watched the rafters and tubers float by as well as watching people diving off a huge rock on the bank of the river. We also explored a very old family cemetery there along the river bank. The family had the last name of Hawk. The graves were all every old. One we found was from 1808. We also saw runners from the "Mass. Dash" passing through a check point there. We talked to a couple of team members that we saw there and realized that they were some of the same people that we had seen at Mt. Greylock earlier that morning.

We decided to head back the way we came, taking another run at the great road that they call the Mohawk Trail. Along the way we stopped at some scenic overlooks and at a souvenir store where we enjoyed talking to the old man that owned it and buying a cool drink. On the way back to camp we decided to check out the Natural Bridge State Park in North Adams. We had passed the sign for it every day this week and thought we should investigate what it was, further.

It turns out that the "natural bridge" was a formation made by the erosion of the stream passing over the naturally occurring marble deposits on that mountain. The result was an actual bridge of stone that you could walk over. The entire park was very interesting. It had been a marble quarry from the 1800s to 1947 when the Mill was destroyed in a fire. They had built a dam from white marble to form a mill pond that was then used to supply water to power the plant. The marble dam is still there and absolutely beautiful. The formations down stream of the dam are amazing. Only God knows how long it took that water to cut the rock to make it look that way it does. Two very nice lady park rangers only charged us one parking fee to park our bikes. It was very nice of them as they are supposed to charge per vehicle. After viewing it all, it would have been well work the cost of $2.00 a piece to see it.

Finally we headed back to camp to decide what to do for our last supper on the trip. Nobody felt like going out to eat, so we made another run to the grocery store to cook up our own food over the fire. I ended up with chicken pot pie, Kevin had a "Hot Pocket" pizza sandwich, Jay had a couple of small round steaks, and Scott had a chicken breast cutlet. It all worked our very well and we enjoyed just relaxing around the fire and reviewing the week.

About 8:30 we started to hear thunder. The forecast called for a slight chance of a thunder storm. We checked the weather radar via our handy cell phones and there was a severe storm bearing down directly on us. You know how the intensity is shown with colors with red being the most intense? This first cell was just about all red. Behind it and moving our way were 4 or 5 other smaller cells which were converging to make one big one. We stuck out the first wave under our tarp lean-to over table. When we saw that the next was likely to be larger and longer, we decided it would probably be best to go ahead and move into the tents. Those storms raged until 2 or 3 am with extremely heavy rain and a lot of close thunder and lightning. Luckily it did not bring a lot of heavy wind. That could have been a real issue in the woods in a tent. Needless to say, none of us slept real well. Only time would show what the morning would bring, but one thing was certain. We would be packing up wet gear in the morning.