Family Excursions in the Berkshires BREAK OUT OF HIBERNATION / By Nina Anderson
e have skiing, ice fishing, snowmobiling, and many indoor activities to keep kids smiling during the cold months of winter. But once it starts to warm up we come out of hibernation and start looking around for things to do that are fun for the entire family.
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fishing boats, pontoon boats, and canoes at O’Hara’s Landing. They even have a nice lakeside restaurant that is open for lunch during the season. Sailing is popular on that lake as well so you may wish to charter a mini-cruiser with the Captain from www.nashallasailing.com.
If your kids are into art, a cool place to visit is the Frelinghuysen Morris House & Studio in Lenox, MA. After a short walk (or a ride in the golf cart) through a pineforest and over a stream you come to a wonderful modern building that is filled with cubistic art and even a unique living room floor made from leather. At the end of your tour you will enter the studio and be given a pad and a little drawing instruction to teach you how to draw like the masters. This is always fun for young artists. Fridays are painting demo days outside on the 46-acre estate, with local professional artists demonstrating their techniques and talking about their process.
Nearby in West Cornwall, CT, Clarke Outdoors provides river rafting experiences along with canoe and kayak sales and rentals on the Housatonic River. This section of the river is a mixture of moving flatwater and easy whitewater so is suitable for novice paddlers. The famous Covered Bridge in West Cornwall marks the halfway point of your journey and is a scenic stop for a picnic.
If you want to immerse your family in history, head to the Trustees’ William Cullen Bryant Homestead in Cummington, MA. Here you can go back in time seeing rural New England life through history, art, food, and nature. Family programs, special events, and farm-to-table dinners bring the Homestead’s stories and landscapes to life! The Homestead’s pastoral landscape, largely unchanged for more than 150 years, includes pastures, fields, maple sugar bush (that has been tapped for more than 200 years), and woodlands. Self-guided trail maps are available as well as tours through the Victorian-style home. What about water sports? As the season progresses, the Berkshires have a multitude of lakes and rivers that provide great opportunities to cool off. On Onota Lake in Pittsfield, MA, you’ll find Onota Boat Livery that rents fishing boats, pontoon boats, rowboats, kayaks, and canoes. The lake is terrific for fishing as it is stocked each spring and fall with trout, and you can buy fishing supplies right at the Livery store. A little farther south just over the border in Salisbury, CT, on Twin Lakes you can also rent 6
Spring / Summer 2019 | www.OurBerkshireTimes.com
Travel back up north to Lenox, MA, to find Berkshire Canoe and Kayak Tours for fun-filled guided canoe and kayak trips on the Housatonic River. This is a more tranquil section of the river and they also give instruction to first-time paddlers. Along this stretch of the river you will see abundant wildlife including red-tailed hawks, owls, Canadian geese, great blue herons, kingfishers, and many types of foliage. Beavers, muskrats, and turtles will also delight river explorers. If you have children interested in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), you may want to introduce them to flying. Berkshire Aviation, at the charming Great Barrington, (MA) Airport, gives introductory flight lessons. I gave one to my grandson when he was nine and he took many lessons as he got older. They also have scenic tours if you want to take the family up and get a bird’s-eye view of our beautiful mountains, farms, and lakes. So, to make the summer one to remember, load the kids into the car and start exploring the many fun, family-friendly things to do in our area. ~ Nina Anderson is a retired jet pilot and author of 18 books, www. safegoodspublishing.com. She is certified in neurolinguistics and Reiki II, and is a specialist in performance nutrition as well as pulsed electromagnetic therapy (PEMT). www.nlpberkhires.com