Sunday 12 May 2013

Monday 13 May, 2013

Can't believe that they charge up to 10cents a gallon more if you pay by credit card...we filled up with 15 gallons which was about 3/4 of a tank. Hope that doesn't take off in Aust. And it is cheaper buying fuel the further away from the big cities, to the tune of 50cents a gallon! Go figure!!!
We stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn last night in Springfield, Massachusetts. Everywhere in the hotel they had stunning photos of flowers in very simple frames. They were so amazing! I love photos of flowers!
It seems that this trip will be the trip of misses. I had wanted to stop at the Eric Carle Museum (the very hungry caterpillar) but it was closed. I also wanted to see the Dr Seuss museum and that was closed too (Mondays are not good for museums) but at least we got to see the Seuss Sculpture Garden.
Theodore Seuss Geisel was born in Springfield, Mass in 1904. His rhyming style came from his mother lulling him to sleep by chanting pie lists she remembered from her bakery days in Germany. His first success, The Cat in the Hat, was written after he read the article "Why Can't Johnny Read" which stated that children's books were boring and antiseptic. Seuss wrote 40 books, translated into 20 languages.
The sculpture garden was fabulous, children would love it. Brass statues of the most popular characters, all made by Seuss's granddaughter! The book was over 3 metres tall!
There was also another sculpture in the gardens made of twigs and branches twisted into shape. So creative!
We drove from South to the Northeast of Mass hoping to drive to the top of Mt Greylock (1160 metres high) where you can see 100 miles in all directions which means you can see the states of New York, Mass, Vermont, New Hampshire and Conn. but surprise, surprise, the road doesn't open until next weekend. We have been so surprised at shops, restaurants, hotels and attractions that are closed from October until the end of May. Some small towns are almost completely closed up!
We then drove North to Vermont and through some beautiful scenery. We stopped in Shelburne Falls (home of Bill Cosby and his wife) to see the Bridge of flowers. Volunteers, with the help of two part time gardeners, tend the gardens and buy anything they need through donations and have done since 1929. There were some really lovely flowers. I have never seen pale blue irises! It was originally a trolley bridge built in 1908 and spans 130m.
We then stopped to see the Glacier potholes, the potholes were ground out of granite during the high water of the Glacier Age by the whirlpool action of the water and the gyrating stones...sizes range from 15cm to 13m!
We continued through some more of the scenic highways, one of which went by some ski slopes!
Temps today were between 5-9C but as we were mostly in the car it wasn't too bad!




















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