Quick Trips/Also known as my summer days off, 2012:

Walkway Over The Hudson, Poughkeepsie, NY:  This is a pretty neat thing, a walkway built on an old railroad bridge over the Hudson River.  It’s about a 2 ½ mile round trip walk end to end, so a nice workout.  In summer it was very hot and sunny.  The first part on the eastern end goes over houses and industrial areas, and these and the city are always in sight in that direction.  The western side is more trees but there are still buildings along the river bank.  Downstream there’s a bridge and a curve in the river, upstream the river is pretty straight as far as you can see.  It was interesting, there are panels all along the walk telling the history of the bridge and its renovation.  Probably quite lovely when the leaves turn in the fall.  I never did find any signs telling how to get to the western end of it, and it was hard to find on the eastern side, no signs saying where to get off the highway, and few and far between and small through the city.

The Clark Museum, Williamstown, and Mass MOCA, North Adams, MA:  The Clark is always a treat.  They are in the process of a large addition project so things were a bit in disarray, with parts closed and only some of the regular pieces displayed in one room.  The temporary exhibit was of artifacts from tombs in China, some ancient pieces that were fascinating in the workmanship and the fact that they have survived, with the colors and details intact, for hundreds of years.  There’s a large gift shop with many art books and some different knick knacks and jewelry, and a small snack bar.  Mass MOCA, I had to keep reminding myself that it’s a museum of contemporary art and that was why most of what’s there made no sense at all to me.  The idea is terrific, some years ago they renovated old mill buildings into the museum and some shops and eateries.  Easy to get lost in, even with the map which I found not really clear about where you were and how to get someplace else.  I just couldn’t grasp the meaning of whole walls with straight lines painted on, or pianos and parts of them scattered around a huge room, with pieces of glass scattered around those. 

Picnic Area, Esopus, NY: A little local park right on the Hudson River, with a few tables and a nasty port-a-potty that no one had tended to in way too long a time.

Canoe Meadows Wildlife Sanctuary, Pittsfield, MA:  Look for the sign on the west side of Route 20/7 between Pittsfield and Lenox.  A nice area with quite a few trails of various length, the one I took went to a beaver pond with a beaver being busy in it.  The trails were well maintained, although the one around the pond was closed, with storm damage. 

Green Mountain NF/Appalachian Trail, Danby, VT:  Turn off Route 7 in Danby onto Forest Rd. 10/Brooklyn Rd and go up a ways to the trail crossing, past that there are some campsites along the road.  While not as idyllic as told in Backpacker magazine, the site I found was nice, quite large, surrounded by trees, just down the road from a beaver pond where a moose family was grazing one evening.  Close to a nice lookout down the valley, and to the AT/LT for hiking.  I went in to Little Rock Pond, a 4-mile round trip that was just far enough, a pretty walk and nice little pond.  Good place for camping away from a crowd.