During our recent four and a half month house and pet sitting assignment in Western Massachusetts, we basically lived in the middle of the woods, in one of the hill towns of Pioneer Valley. The town center of Heath does not have a store and the closest settlement of Charlemont has a small and expensive general store, that we rarely visited. The ten minute drive there – or anywhere further on – offered a couple of picturesque photo opportunities.
For our bi-monthly grocery shopping extravaganza, we had two directions to go on Route 2 from Charlemont: drive another 35 minutes west to our most favorite of two supermarkets in North Adams, or drive east for an extra 30 minutes to the equivalent store in Greenfield. Both options offered attractive scenery along the way!
Views along the drive to North Adams:
Views along the drive to Greenfield:
How long do you drive (or bike or walk) to get to the grocery store? Are there any views along the way?
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September 10, 2016 at 09:08
Dinghied for groceries. Windy. Soggy chips. (Sorry, no pix, our dinghy is now deflated due to a leak.)
September 14, 2016 at 09:20
Aaah… the boat life. Going to the grocery store sure is much easier (and drier) on land! 🙂 Soggy chips suck! I hope you can fix, and more importantly, find the dinghy leak.
September 10, 2016 at 11:04
What a beautiful drive! I wouldn’t say we usually get any good views to the store. Usually it’s just concrete. We usually go to the grocery store once a month, and search marina listings for courtesy car offerings to make it easier. Every once in a while, a grocery store will have “Le Petit Ecolier” chocolate biscuits/cookies; this gives the store high marks and really makes my day!
September 14, 2016 at 09:29
Oh my, Lucy! You will love the Leader Price stores in the French Caribbean Islands. They have their own brand of Le Petit Ecolier and everything is so cheap and yummy in those stores. The ones with the dark chocolate are my favorites. Good idea about picking marinas with a courtesy car in the US. Stores with dinghy docks in the Caribbean get high marks as well and windless days for dry rides in the dinghy home! 🙂 Going to a grocery store once a month is impressive. As long as you can find some fresh produce elsewhere…
September 10, 2016 at 13:13
Houses, businesses, schools, cars… it’s not a very scenic drive to the grocery store here! I think if I had views like on your drive, I might never reach my destination!
September 14, 2016 at 09:31
Haha, Janis. That is a great way to look at it! Although, I’ll take houses, businesses, schools and cars above the scenery if it means a short drive there and back. 🙂 Or, even better, if one could just walk to the supermarket!
September 10, 2016 at 18:45
Your trip is much more scenic than mine! Though I do pass a park so it’s not entirely unattractive. The big advantage is that it only takes 5 minutes to get there.
September 14, 2016 at 09:33
Yes, yes, yes to the five minutes to get there. Now, if only you could just walk or bike through that park and then buy the groceries you need, once or twice a week. That would be attractiveness to perfection! 🙂
September 11, 2016 at 07:13
I usually drive 25 mins or so to the Walmart a couple of times a month to stock up. There’s an IGA in town which has a reasonable selection, but higher prices, which I go to the rest of the time for milk etc. in between Walmart runs.
September 14, 2016 at 09:36
There was a little IGA in Kent, CT when we were house sitting there and the prices are indeed pretty high, so we only went there for “emergencies”. The other day, we set foot in a Walmart again after over a year or so and I was surprised that their prices for certain groceries are not that cheap anymore. It is a good place to stock up on non-fresh goods, paper products and pharmacy items, we find.
September 13, 2016 at 12:29
Very pretty! I love scenic places. We live in a newer development with a whole ton of shopping and amenities going in within a mile…soon, but for the two years we’ve been here, I have to drive 15 minutes to get to a gas station, and more 20 to get to the store. I’m going to miss the quiet of our area once the shopping is in.
September 14, 2016 at 09:39
A double edged sword, right? We have experienced the same… It is so nice to live in a quiet area, but that comes with the inconvenience of having to drive far for amenities. Being able to walk or bike everywhere will be so great for you, but the trade off is more noise and traffic, probably. That’s why it is so nice to move about and test different waters once in a while. 🙂
September 15, 2016 at 03:16
We can walk to the shops and it sometimes takes a while because of all the people we bump into who stop and chat or invite us in for a cup of tea!☺
September 17, 2016 at 09:40
Such a remarkable area you live in, Xenia. Scenery wise and atmosphere wise. It sounds like a relaxed way to live and shop. 🙂
September 17, 2016 at 14:35
I wish we had a scenic drive like this! Our local store is usually too expensive for monthly shopping, so we have to drive about 20 miles through corn and soybean fields to get to Walmart, Jewel, etc.
September 17, 2016 at 14:40
That sounds a bit boring and pretty long of a drive, unless you can use the highway. Do you manage to shop for a couple of weeks at a time to reduce the driving?
September 17, 2016 at 18:18
Your photos are making me homesick for New England. When our daughters were babies we lived in a small town in New Hampshire. We had a small convenience store not too far away and a great farm stand close by in the summer, but it was a 25 minute drive to the closest grocery store. There was also a Walmart and all the usual big box stores there too. I tried to go out as little as possible because once I got the car shoveled out, one of the girls would need to taken out of her snowsuit and fed or changed. When we did venture out, the views were amazing. We would take the long way around and drive along the ocean for a few miles before we drove home.
September 18, 2016 at 11:43
New Hampshire is quite picturesque as well. That snow and cold weather would drive me crazy, though! Mark and I spent one winter in New England – and it was a mild one – after a decade in the tropics and we are heading to California for the next one. 🙂