Part 2 - The Fire Tower On Beebe Hill

The hike up Beebe Hill to the fire tower was quite brief, less than 1.5 miles, and it wasn't long before I spotted the caretaker's cabin up ahead with the fire tower itself rising up behind it:

A man with two little girls and a small dog arrived at the same time we did. He told me that he hadn't brought a leash for his dog and didn't want her interacting with mine, so I said I'd wait by the caretaker's cabin while he and his girls went on ahead to the fire tower. While I was waiting with my dogs on a leash, a friendly family of six adults arrived to explore the tower for themselves:

I tied Seamus and Fergus at the bottom of the fire tower:

And Clover and Daphne to the other side. I didn't want any of them attempting to follow me up those steps:

And then I began ascending the fire tower. As I climbed, the caretaker's cabin began to look smaller and smaller down below. The Taconic Mountains formed an attractive backdrop:

One couple did not want to climb the tower, so they waited on the ground for the rest of their party, by now at the top of the fire tower. My dogs were barking for attention and by time I arrived back down on ground level, this couple had made friends with all four dogs:

And the view from the top was superb, clearer than I'd ever seen it before. I could clearly see the windmills atop Brodie Mountain and Mount Greylock in the Berkshires of Massachusetts. Alas, the photo doesn't show enough detail to be of much help, but even my aging eyes were able to clearly see the windmills' details. I couldn't, however, make out the tower atop Mount Greylock:

The towers of the Empire State Plaza in Albany rose up above the trees like the city of Oz in the distance, about 40 miles away:

I enlarged and cropped the above photo to help illustrate what I so clearly saw on that sunny afternoon. Because most of Albany's downtown sits down in a valley, only the Empire State Plaza (and sometimes the State University towers) are usually visible from mountaintops. Can't you just imagine Dorothy, Toto and friends following the yellow brick road toward that city in the distance?:

And the rolling hills of the Hudson Valley stretched out below us in another direction:

Seamus and Fergus looked quite tiny down on the ground below:

I had a nice conversation about hiking with a man from Pittsfield, Massachusetts as we stood at the top of the fire tower enjoying the view. But it was windy and my dogs were anxious, so I began to descend the stairs to continue the hike back to the trail head:

A Nostalgic Drive To Mount Greylock

On a hot, hot, hot Sunday afternoon I decided to leave the dogs at home because I feared that Seamus couldn't handle the heat and humidity if we hiked. And, to be honest, I didn't much want to be climbing uphill in such weather either. So I decided to drive, without dogs, to Mount Greylock in western Massachusetts. I used to live and work in the area, so this would be a nostalgic tour for me. But as I crossed the state line I saw, for the first time in my life, a giant windmill situated atop a green hill:

A bit further along, I spotted another hill with many of these windmills (click to enlarge):

As I got closer, I decided that there must be about 10 of them on top of Brodie Mountain. Apparently, the Brodie Mountain Ski Area is supplementing its income by hosting a wind farm. Jiminy Peak was still open though I never saw the Brodie Mountain signs. I couldn't decide if the windmills were a horrific blight on the natural landscape or kind of pretty in their own way - perhaps a bit of both:

I used to drive over Brodie Mountain on my way to work in Pittsfield, Massachusetts every morning for many years. Shortly after I moved to the area, perhaps 35 years ago, I got the job in Pittsfield and stayed in New Ashford, Massachusetts at a tiny motel consisting of a row of cabins while I searched for a house. The cabins were right behind this white shop which, at the time, was a Bible Book Store. A very sweet older lady ran it and lived in the house on the left with her husband. I stayed there for many weeks and she became a sort of surrogate mother to me. I was filled with emotion to view the old place, now abandoned and with the cabins now long gone. I'd kept in touch with this woman for many years, but of course now she is gone and her place is for sale:

I had some difficulty finding the road which would lead me up to Mount Greylock, but once I'd found it I began winding my way up, up, up. I caught glimpses of the surrounding Berkshire Mountains every so often as the road skirted the edge of the mountain. And what was that interesting purple wildflower? I've searched my field guide and decided it was Blue Vervain, Camassia scilloides:

The scenery was, of course, beautiful and it brought back a flood of memories from when I used to drive up here frequently:

I pulled off the road at a scenic overlook and had a nice talk with this handsome and friendly biker. He too had been driving up Mount Greylock for many decades and he too associated it with many powerful memories:

My little red car performed marvelously as it climbed higher and higher. I stopped every now and then for a nice view. I was almost to the summit, but I'll post more about that tomorrow: