awesome autumn Sunday

The day started off a little stressful as Brooke and I woke up a little bit later than we expected over at my house. Our plan was to catch one of the four feral kitties she has been attempting to rehabilitate over at her house and bring this kitty to Tufts Animal Hospital School place whatever by 10am to get "fixed". Somehow we were also to catch two more of the remaining 3 and bring them to way Western Mass where some folks were awaiting their new "barn kitties". The kitties were scared shitless and holed up in an old keyboard organ in Brooke's livingroom. It was nearly impossible to extricate them from their hiding place. It was nearly 10 and things didn't seem to be getting any better. By now, Brooke's roommate Rob was involved in trying to get the kitties out. I felt pretty useless and opted to go home and would wait for Brooke to call me so I could bring her & the kitties to wherever if indeed any part of today's plan was to happen.

I got home. I felt awful. I felt useless / hopeless and like I'd left a really awful impression in Brooke's mind of me. But then the call came. She & Rob had unscrewed the back of the keyboard organ and gotten two of the kitties out and we could proceed with the drive out to Richmond, MA. We apologized to eachother for being so stressed & nerved up. We lucked out and caught our favorite wordplay game on public radio and we listened to other fun local alterna-radio stuff as we raced on out westward.

We had a great ride on out the Mass Pike to the very last exit in Stockbridge, MA, exit 1. Brooke was using the map thing on her phone to guide us on in to where these kitty adoptees lived in Richmond. We drove around on roads like Stevens Glen, Swamp Road, Lenox Road, Turkey Trot Road... We arrived at the peoples' house on Dublin Road and we brought the kitties out to this very nice horse barn with a heated room where an older black kitty also lived. The ferals would start out in a metal cage for a few days until they adjusted to their new environs, but then eventually would have access to a whole new world including a hay loft, an entire barn, horses, etc. I was a little concerned about where we'd be bringing these little cuties, but this barn set-up was perfect!

We left Richmond and planned to head on up to North Adams for curry eats. But along the way, we found all kinds of other stuff...

We headed the wrong way on Rt. 20 and inadvertantly found a giant Beaver mascot character behemoth thing atop a wooden cart. The giant beaver was the mascot for a self-storage facility.

On Rt. 20 in Lee, we spotted RETRO POP SHOP on the left hand side and had to immediately turn around and investigate! Lots of old Coca Cola signage & products, old soda machines, dinette sets, croquet sets, coolers, salt & pepper shakers, signs, knick knacks, chotchkeys, doodads, ephemera... VERY fun place! Owner Pierre Duhon said he's try to hook me up with some inexpensive old cigarette machines that I could turn into art vending machines or something... His website may be nonexistant, but I will be returning to this very cool throwback in time kind of shop.

We were delirious with hunger and we refused to eat at a chain restaurant type of place. We headed further up towards North Adams, but when we came to Rt. 9, we opted to head towards Northampton instead as it was more on our way home and it was getting to be around 3pm or so...

In Pittsfield we spied a custom motorcar company with really cool vintage race cars, mostly Jaguars, very curvy and sleek!

Finally... we hit the outer edge of Northampton by Look Park. And then the Miss Florence Diner. We discussed our dining plans for two seconds, abandoned the curry idea and had breakfast instead at this quintessential retro diner...

All in all, it was an awesome day of driving, exploring, adventuring...