A few more of my favorite things

Manchester, Connecticut is the second place I lived, after Amherst, Massachusetts, where it was possible to navigate large chunks of the town on paths. Amherst owes this trait to a desire to at least feel eco friendly, while Manchester's trails were often less official. The town has a large enough population in the socio-economic class that doesn't own cars, and people who walk places know the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, so they wear in paths across vacant lots, creating fantastically fun infrastructure for bicycles.

In honor of this trait, and either inspired by, or in competition with, the Hartford Parks Tour organized bicycle ride, I less organized than threw together my own Manchester Parks Tour. While the capitol city's version uses roads to connect all the parks, my goal was a route that used as many pathways of varying officialdom to navigate around town whether there was a park nearby or not. Some people even joined me for the ride, and I hope had fun!

Offial map of the very unofficial ride

I have a not at all secret love of connections that are possible by pedestrians or pedals, but not cars, so when I was confirming the location of my new physical therapy with Bay State Hospital in South Hadley and spotted a green line connecting two dead end neighborhoods, I was more than a wee bit intrigued. I missed using it last Thursday on my intake appointment visit, but yesterday, it was the obvious choice for a little bonus exploration on my way home.

Going green is good!

Far better than leaving a red spot on busy roads

Disguised as one more driveway,

the gate just at the treeline

made this an ever so inviting feature.

Yes, any sneaky cut through, especially a new one, makes any ride special, but yesterday's was already quite good even before that finale. I'd taken mostly backroads to the center of South Hadley where I learned that construction on the Mount Holyoke campus made my usual cut across its edge a more involved and less paved ride between its buildings. From there I collected the water bottle I'd accidentally left in Matt's car when he was helping transport my less able body a few weeks ago.

Photo credit to Matt 

in guiding me to where he stashed it.

I'm responsible for any hacked cropping.

Always good to again find a bottle I first found on a bike ride last year and it headed me the right direction to swing by the town library overlooking falls on the Connecticut river. I then completed my commute with a Google Maps suggested zigzag through neighborhood streets that kept me off Route 202 more than I knew possible. Live and learn, and live longer!

I find myself agreeing with the valuation.

As a bonus,

right, left, right, left, right, left, right, left

is easy to remember!

And one more thing to really like,

poison ivy is about to lose it's leaves!