The Beneski

Fascinating to think about and to actually see artifacts related to the natural history of western Massachusetts and the earth. That's what makes a visit to the Beneski Natural History Museum at Amherst College such a treat. Thousands of these objects are on display here, while thousands more are stored away for use by both students and faculty around the world.

Cross Path Road

I know that visually this probably is not the most interesting photo. I was just curious about the street's name as it--ahem--crosses the Norwottuck Rail Trail in Hadley, Massachusetts. I mean, it's pretty straightforward as street names go. Sort of like Main Street or High Street. There's a street near me called Center Street, which I suppose got it's name from the fact that it runs smack dab down the "center" of a subdivision, even though it is--if I might say so--rather tangential to everything else around it, now that I think about it. 

What about the street names near you? Got any zingers? :-)

Bridge

I've photographed this bridge many times over the past few years. The last time was last year on the Fourth of July. It's become something of a go-to destination every time I visit this region.

According to Wikipedia, the "Norwottuck Rail Trail Bridge is an eight-span steel lattice truss bridge. It crosses Elwell Island in the middle of the river, providing no access to the island in an attempt to keep the island otherwise untouched. Riding over the bridge shows eight spans, with two of them over Elwell Island. It was built by the R. F. Hawkins Ironworks Company. The bridge was redesigned by Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, Inc. of Watertown, rebuilt by MassHighway, and opened in 1992 to bicycle and foot traffic as part of the Norwottuck Rail Trail."

View of the Connecticut River and Elwell Island

Fly or Drive

Honestly, I debated long and hard about whether to fly or drive to Massachusetts this year. I drove last year after several years of flying. What finally convinced me to fly again this year was the convenience. I REALLY like to hike every day, up to five miles or more a day. But driving to Massachusetts almost certainly meant spending more time in the car rather than on the trail. The cost, I figured, was about the same. What's more, by flying, I was able to fly AND hike in the same day, even with the unexpected delay this time in getting out of Richmond. On this particular trip, I was able to hike again one of my very favorite sections of the Norwottuck Rail Trail (above).

Close Call!

It was a really close call. My plane landed in Philly shortly after 11:30am. I thought the gate where my next plane was waiting was right next door. Nope! Turned out it was on the far side of the adjacent terminal. Oh jeez! 

So I basically power walked to the next gate and arrived just in time to find that all the other passengers already boarded and the plane on the tarmac primed for flight. Sheesh! 

Still, I made it. Moments later, as soon as I was safely settled into my seat, we were barreling down the runway on our way to Hartford, Connecticut.

Flying over Freehold, New Jersey. That's the Atlantic in the background.

Weather Delays

Went away for a few days over the holiday. Caught an American Airlines (AA) connector flight from Richmond, Virginia, to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Only the flight out of Richmond, originally scheduled to leave at 9:40am, was delayed because of all the bad weather last week in the southeastern United States. In fact, I was on my way to the airport when I got word that my own flight was going to be delayed until 10:40am. That presented me with a problem, because my flight from Philadelphia to Hartford, Connecticut, was scheduled to leave at 11:43am, leaving me almost no time to hoof it across the Philadelphia airport to my flight out. Probably not the best idea.

What to do? Well, an AA agent kindly looked up some alternatives and suggested that maybe I should catch another flight out of Richmond leaving at 9am. Well, that would have been great . . . except for the fact that even that flight was delayed until--get this--EXACTLY 10:40 am. So there I was back to square one.

Well, what to do? Again, the AA agent went to work and suggested that just maybe I could still catch the Philly flight out if she seated me at the very front of the plane, so I could make a quick exit. I was a little dubious. But short of any better alternatives, I took her up on her suggestion.

Find out in tomorrow's post what happened. :-)

View from my 10:40am flight out of Richmond, Virginia.

Operation Columba

I think there must be something about the nature of war that occasionally causes those involved to think out of the box. Ukraine's recent attack on a Russian air base using drones launched from trucks strikes me as an example. But so, too, does the idea of using pigeons (aka Columba livia) as couriers in wartime, because that's what Gordon Corera's book, Operation Columba, is about. 

During WWII, smuggling information out of Nazi occupied territories in Europe was hard, if not impossible. So some creative minds in Great Britain hit upon the idea of dropping homing pigeons into those territories to aid the process. The pigeons would be delivered by planes, resistance fighters would attach specially prepared information to tiny canisters attached to the pigeons' legs and send them on their way back across the channel where the information would be conveyed to whomever needed it the most.

Operation Columba, as it was called, evidently proved surprisingly helpful to Allied forces in numerous ways. And Corera's retelling of that story drew me in deeper and deeper, page by page, and chapter by chapter. So much so that I'm now hot on the trail of some of Corera's other books.