US 7, CT 112 to Housatonic River Road – 3.1 miles
Monday, October 8th 2018
Back in Connecticut heading north this time! It’s been 2.5 years but it’s finally time to finish Connecticut! I once again feel like a broken record by saying it but this was once again a much more difficult hike than I’d anticipated. And not only because I’d forgotten my poles…
I drove to CT without a plan and decided I’d figure things out when I got there. This is often the way I function as spontaneity is sort of a way of life for me and especially when I’m solo it doesn’t really matter because if things don’t work out no one else is affected by the consequences! It was late afternoon by the time I arrived and I found the nearest parking lot to where I had left off in 2016. It was the on Water Street just west of Falls Village. I sat in the car and pondered my options and as luck would have it, a friendly old guy from PA happened to be sitting in his truck next to me. I chatted with him and he said he was a shuttle driver, waiting to pick up some lady hikers but apparently they were running behind schedule. I asked him if he’d mind driving me a few miles down the road to CT 112/US 7 and he was kind enough to agree. Great! At least I’d get a few miles in before dark! He dropped me off and I hiked an easy 2.5 miles back to my car. Ok…now what to do next? I had no other options for transportation yet. I hiked 0.6 miles to Housatonic River Road to check out the waterfalls I’d read about and walked back to my car along the road. It was now dark. Time to make some decisions…
Why is it that nice scenery and poor cell service always seem to go hand in hand? Western Connecticut is very beautiful but the cell service sucks. I drove 19 miles to Great Barrington, MA and hoped for better luck. There wasn’t an Uber or Lyft to be found… so I instead decided to try to find a shuttle that would take me back to Falls Village in the morning. I sent a few emails and texts to addresses I found on whiteblaze.net and hoped for the best. In the meantime… I was in a new town and had some exploring to do! I enjoyed a great meal at the Barrington Brewery which is apparently the first solar powered brewery on the east coast. While I was eating I heard back from one of the people I had contacted… a little woman named Big Lu who runs the Bearded Woods Bunk & Dine with her husband, Hudson. We arranged for her to meet me in the morning at the parking lot at Shay’s Rebellion Monument on Sheffield Egremont Road and shuttle me back to Housatonic River Road where I’d ended my short hike today. I felt pretty good about having been successful throwing all this together at the last minute. Now… to find somewhere to sleep! I opted for car camping and after scouting a few locations I ended up in the parking lot of a local motel and called it a night. There’s no hotel quite like a Subaru Outback!
Wherever I May Roam 