Northampton, MA (July 15, 2025)

We had a fun day in Northampton, after first stopping at the Camping World store to replace an item we needed for setting up the RV. 

One thing we do on our 2-3 week trips is to visit presidential libraries. Well, to our surprise, Dan found out that the Calvin Coolidge Presidential “Library” is a room in the Forbes Library, the public library in town. It was one of those lovely old buildings and on the second floor was the Calvin Coolidge historical room. Coolidge had been unexpectedly added to the Republican ticket with Ohio’s Warren G. Harding, and he unexpectedly became president when Harding had a heart attack and died at age 57.

While Coolidge was what brought us to the library, the library itself was a real treat. Adjacent to Smith College, I’d mistakenly thought that it was a college library but was confused with so many displays that just shouted “public library” to me!

The stairs up to the main library from the children’s part of the library.

The front desk

The stairs to the Coolidge collection

 

Northampton is very LGBTQ-friendly with over 10,000 lesbians living in the area. Many have chosen to stay after attending one of the five colleges in the area: Amherst College, Hampshire College, Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Stacks

These two photos show a diorama of a bookstore: “Madwimmin Books”. I love the detail, including the dog tied up outside.

Calvin Coolidge portrait in his Presidential Library room.

A display on creative bras made for the “Show Us Your Bra!” auctions (begun in 1994) to raise money for women who survived mastectomies but who are uninsured or underinsured and who can’t afford properly fitted breast prostheses and post-mastectomy bras. The Breast Form Fund folded in 2013 and was folded into the All4One Alliance, but did help raise awareness about breast cancer and the challenges faced by survivors.

A bit of a pilgrimage to this iconic yarn store. The largest footprint of any yarn shop I’ve ever visited. And all I bought was….wait for it….a book of one-skein patterns!

I’d just about gone through the retail portion of the shop up front and then Dan asked if I’d been in the warehouse already—wait?! WAREHOUSE?! Oh baby….

Back in the warehouse there were yarn bins with specials for odds and ends for $15-2.50 per skein.

The spinning wheel try-out area. (I really like that chair!)

The loom room!

The cute li’l “welcome alpacas”. 

Rails to Trails, Northampton

Lunch at Fitzwilly’s in that old-fashioned Northampton downtown

Tomorrow: downtown Springfield, MA. Stay tuned!