Mount Toby

Last Sunday we hiked up and around Mt. Toby (about a 5 min. drive from our house).  We hiked along the Robert Frost Trail until we reached the summit and were able to see an amazingly beautiful panoramic view of fall foliage spanning a 50-mile radius.  On the hike down we followed a different trail and even went "off-trailing" to explore a series of waterfalls!  As always, pictures will speak far more loudly than words, so please enjoy :-)

Peek-a-boo!  Heading out for the hike!

Survivor Man.

"I took the path less traveled by..."

"...And that has made all the difference."

Views from the top of Mt. Toby.

Hanging from trees.

Upside down!

We found mini waterfalls!

A quick stop at Cranberry Pond at the end of the hike.

Notice the reflections in the water.

Cyclocross Weekends

Bikes, bikes, bikes!  We have been very busy the past few weekends with lots of bike races!  Last weekend, Mike raced in the Mansfield Hollow Cyclocross Race on Saturday, followed by the Stratton Brook Park Cyclocross Race on Sunday.  The Mansfield Hollow race was a very exciting location because it was just minutes away from where Mike lived during his summers while interning in Connecticut.  Also exciting was a chance meeting with Mike's good friend and college roommate, Pete.  Pete spotted Mike warming up for the race and Caroline was able to snag a picture of the two before the race.

Mike and Pete before the race!

In the end, Mike and Pete finished within seconds of each other, in 5th and 4th place, respectively.  It was a great race, but the weekend had just begun!  The following day we headed to Stratton Brook Park in Simsbury, CT (a little northwest of Hartford).  Mike got the win at this race, placing first in the Category 3/4 race!  It was a pretty long course, including a very sandy beach and a pinwheel at the start!

Coming around the first turn to start the race!

The pinwheel - it's very confusing!

Mike trekking across the sandy zone of the race.

After great placements over last weekend, Mike was having so much with racing that he decided this weekend he would do two races on the same day.  So on Saturday we headed back to Connecticut to the Smith Farm Cyclocross race.  The race course meandered its way around an apple orchard and was so much fun for racers and spectators alike!  And after two hours of intense and fast-paced riding (with only a 15 minute break in between), Mike placed 4th in his first race and 2nd in his second race!  All in all it was a great event and we enjoyed apples and homemade bread from the farm after the race.

Mike zooming, jumping, and zooming some more through the first race!

The race looped throughout an apple orchard.

The colors are starting to pop!

Racers at the start line!  Mike lining up for his second race of the day!

Mike is photo ready at the finish line :-)

Caroline needed a picture too!

Yesterday we went hiking up Mt. Toby and got a TON of amazing pictures so stay tuned for our next post with the much anticipated New England fall foliage!!!

The first half of October

Wow, time flies.  Can you believe October is half way over?  We apologize for keeping everyone in suspense for the past few weeks, but we have been extremely busy!  The first weekend in October we went to Shelburne Falls for a relaxing afternoon before Caroline started her new job.  The following weekend we went to a corn maze.  And this weekend we have two cyclocross races (to be discussed in a later post).

Shelburne Fall is located on the scenic and historic Mohawk Trail in the Berkshire foothills.  The major attractions we visited were various local artists' shops, the Bridge of Flowers, and glacial potholes.  Originally a trolley bridge in 1908, the Bridge of Flowers came to be in 1929.  Today, it has over 500 varieties of flowers, vines and shrubs.  We thought we might have missed peak color times for the bridge, but realized we were mistaken when we saw how many beautiful flowers were still in bloom in early October.

Bridge of Flowers  Shelburne Falls, MA

View walking along the bridge.

Coiling tree trunk.

The glacial potholes were another beautiful site.  They were ground out of granite during high water when the last glaciers melted.  These waters flooded the Connecticut River Valley, creating a huge lake which fed extra water to the Deerfield River.  These rushing waters contained several stones, sand, and mud which eroded the hard rock beneath it.  Potholes formed when stones trapped in cracks in the riverbed were twirled and vibrated in the fast-moving current, drilling their way into the river bottom.  This process continues to happen today.  The potholes range from 6 inches to 39 feet in diameter (the world's largest pothole).

Various views of the glacial potholes.

Last weekend we donned our flannel shirts and made our way through our first ever corn maze!  It was tons of fun and a much more involved experience than we expected.  Mike's Maze at Warner Farm opens every September-October with a new theme.  Past themes have included the Mona Lisa, John Kerry and George Bush, Julia Child, and Charles Darwin.  This year's theme was art-inspired with Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup (see the aerial view below).

2010 Mike's Maze at Warner Farm: Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup.

As you can see, it was a pretty detailed and their was a lot of ground to cover.  As we made our way through the maze we had to answer several multiple choice art-inspired questions as well as stop at "printing presses" to get stamps of different artworks.  We even got to stop at Spudzooka, a potato gun, and take a few turns at shooting.  After two and a half hours of wandering through the maze, we finished our trip to Mike's Maze with hot cider, corn dogs, and corn chowder.

The maze looks much different at ground level...

View of corn maze and Mt. Sugarloaf in the background.

Corn.

Making our way through the maze!

 Sorry again for the delay between posts- we will be much faster from now on!  Expect our next post within the next few days, including details of this weekend's bike race events!