Every region has its own special and unique places to go. Don’t miss your chance to check out those in your own backyard!
Contra Dancing
Western Massachusetts is home to some of the best contra dances anywhere in the world. What is contra dancing? It is shocking to me that contra dance, which is sort of the lefty-liberal version of square dancing, remains relatively unknown outside the people who do it. I randomly walked into my first contra dance in New Hampshire about 15 years ago without much in the way of dancing prowess, and a whole world opened up. Live music. People of all ages. Movement and mingling with people. I met my wife contra dancing in Greenfield. Could it happen to you? Possibly. The Guiding Star Grange at 401 Chapman St., Greenfield, hosts contra dances on most Fridays and every Saturday. There are Wednesday night contra dances in Amherst at the Masonic Lodge on 99 Main St., most weeks. Brattleboro hosts dances on Sunday nights at 118 Elliot St., and there are dances every second Saturday of the month at 65 Walker Street in Lenox. Admission usually runs $8-$10. No partner is necessary. The culture of contra dance is to change partners often. And you might see me out dancing — or calling from the stage. contradancelinks.com/schedule.html.
A Literary Tour
One day while taking Amtrak through Amherst, the conductor came over the loudspeaker and said: “Famous Amherst poet Emily Dickinson once wrote, ‘Because I could not stop for death he kindly stopped for me’… we will be stopping in Amherst shortly.” Massachusetts is home to so many of the literary greats, and we have our fair share west of Walden. Any literary pilgrimage should probably include the Emily Dickinson Museum, 280 Main St., Amherst. During the summer it is open every day, except Tuesday, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. emilydickinsonmuseum.org.
For those who like a nice stroll with their reading, Monument Mountain, in the Berkshires north of Great Barrington, is the site of a famous meeting between Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1850. But beware, the two of them had to seek shelter from the rain. thetrustees.org/places-to-visit/berkshires/monument-mountain.html. In nearby Lenox is Edith Wharton’s summer home on 2 Plunkett Street, where are tours (including a “ghost tour”) and weekly literary round tables on Thursdays. edithwharton.org. Don’t forget about the newly opened Dr. Seuss Museum at 21 Edwards St., Springfield. springfieldmuseums.org/about/dr-seuss-museum.
Tackle Home Upgrades
The staycation is also a time when you can tackle those long-standing home projects you never seem to find the time to do. And remember: It’s not housework when you’re doing something truly awesome. Build that treehouse for your kids you’ve been putting off. Paint your whole house gold. Plan out an awesome flower garden that will be the envy of the neighbors. Rework that “spare room” or basement into a cool bar, or workshop, or playroom. Disadvantage: you’re working on your vacation. Advantage: the rest of your life will become all the more awesome. These projects don’t have to be large scale, either. Since moving this spring, my wife and I have yet to hang our posters, paintings, or other wall hangings that used to decorate our old apartment. Will it take a staycation to finally do it? Quite possibly. Also, we still haven’t tried using that pasta maker we got for our wedding …
Achieve Peace
One of the more horrifying evenings I’ve had recently was when I attended a talk at the University of Massachusetts Amherst by Noam Chomsky. The topic was basically that if by some chance we escape nuclear war, climate change will probably kill us all. The antidote? How about a trip to the New England Peace Pagoda in Leverett? Inaugurated in 1985, the Peace Pagoda is a Buddhist monument to inspire peace and help unite people. Located at 100 Cave Hill Road, Leverett’s is one of about 80 peace pagodas that exist in the world, many of them in Japan. Most Venerable Nichidatsu Fujii built the first of them following the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which killed more than 150,000 people. In addition to the pagoda is a new temple, inaugurated in 2011, where prayers and ceremonies take place. Fujii said: “When we believe in the just truth of the law of causation, we must completely abolish armaments, not only nuclear weapons, but all tools of killing and destruction and all means of war … Preserving the precept against taking life taught by the Buddha is the assurance of peace and tranquility in this world.” Good words to think about during the tranquility of a staycation.
Take in the Oddities of the Valley
There’s a lot of beauty in Western Mass. There’s also a lot of weird stuff. Like the Eyrie House ruins in Holyoke, located at the end of a two-mile hike off of Christopher Clark Road. After a successful run in the hospitality business, William Street was struggling with too much competition from other hotels in the Holyoke range. Unfortunately for him, one night, alone in his hotel, the building burned to the ground in a horse cremation gone wrong. Or how about the Joseph Allen Skinner Museum, located in South Hadley, Mount Holyoke College at 50 College St.? Open Wednesdays and Sundays, it features a collection of 7,000 objects including suits of armor, a hippopotamus skull, and a 150-pound meteorite. Then there are the glacial potholes in the Deerfield River at the base of Salmon Falls in Shelburne Falls. The swirled rocks were formed about 14,000 years ago, and the erosion that formed the unique patterns continue today. And of course, who doesn’t love wide trees! The Buttonball Tree on North Main Street in Sunderland (you can’t miss it), some claim, is the widest tree east of the Mississippi and the largest in Massachusetts. Basically, it’s a BIG tree. And old. The sycamore is at least as old as the Constitution. So check that one off your bucket list.
