I was on the road, this morning, as early as possible, right after the car-rental opened. My provisional plan was to take US 20 across the lower half of Massachusetts. By pure coincidence, I found, when I looked at my map of Boston, that the street on which my Boston hotel was situated was actually US 20, the very road I wanted. That at least minimized the chance of getting lost before even leaving Boston (my map reading skills aren't the best).

It felt like only five minutes before I was out of Boston driving through a mixture of countryside and small towns with names beginning with the letter 'W': Waterton, Waltham, Weston, Wayland, all right after each other. I was listening to Appalachian Spring by Copland, and the elegiac tones felt just right for sleepy small New England towns early on a Sunday morning. But soon, I was in the countryside proper.

Sudbury River, bordered by the distinctive purple flowers you seem to see everywhere here at this time of year. I'm not one of those gay men who know all the names of flowers, obviously. Nearby Sudbury was incorporated in 1639, though it was hard to find a single building which looked more than fifty years old.

I was in a piping hot mood of discovery, and before long, I'd left US 20 never to return. I'm not sure what's the best form of road-trip; the kind where you have a guide book and plan out the most interesting route - or the kind where you just happen upon things accidentally. But today was definitely the latter type. I saw a road sign for Concord, so decided to check it out, largely because I'd always liked that name, and also because if Charles Ives wrote a piece about it, then maybe it would be pretty. It was a gorgeous drive from Sudbury to Concord, but I didn't see anything in Concord that was particularly worth taking note of, although there was a Starbucks, despite the small size of the town.

I ended up on route 117 heading through a succession of pretty little towns, including West Berlin, no less. Shortly thereafter, I came across the first of the two large Massachusetts reservoirs, Wachusett.

Later, I drove right round the huge reservoir, Quabbin, before I found a good vantage point at Windsor Dam. I started on root 122, drove past the northern tip, then south on 202 to Belchertown, where I found the dam. Quabbin is a man-made reservoir. Two dams were constructed in the thirties, and by the mid forties, the reservoir was full, wiping a large valley and four towns from the map.

On Windsor Dam, at the entrance to the Quabbin Reservoir. This is one of the largest dams in the East, but I had it all to myself, which shows how isolated this part of Massachusetts is.

Massachusetts is really pretty tiny; by noon I'd already driven more than half way across it, despite making numerous stops and never once taking the highway. In fact, I'd gone in anything but a straight line, careening South then North, then South, then North again. After Quabbin, I headed north again, up route 9. I wanted to take a look at Amherst, where I almost went to grad school. It had been a choice between University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia, or University of Massachusetts at Amherst. At the time, I had no idea where Amherst was. In fact, the location of Massachusetts wasn't all that clear to me either - I think I believed it to be in the Mid-West. Anyway, it looks like I made the right choice, for UMass at Amherst is a huge, modern, ugly sprawl.

University of Massachusetts at Amherst. This was the prettiest view I could find of it, I'm afraid. By this time it was 94 degrees.

After Amhurst, I decided I'd spend the night in North Adams, so headed up route 116. Here I am on top of Mt Sugarloaf, another unexpected find along the way.

Before long, I was in the Berkshires, that beautiful, bucolic region of forests, mountains, hills and international art festivals. This composition I'm calling "Pond, Old Tree and Carefully Dilapidated Wooden Shed."

North Adams is rather an unusual place. It was an old industrial town that was practically forgotten about. In the late nineties, somebody had the idea of converting an old factory complex into Mass MOCA, the country's largest museum of contemporary art. It's a fabulous space, with a lot of fascinating art, in a great set of industrial buildings. But there is still a hell of a lot of poverty in North Adams. You just have to drive a block or two away from the complex to see it. I wonder what the old timers of North Adams think of the posh new set with their gourmet food and Saab automobiles.

One of the buildings at Mass MOCA.

An illicit (hence out of focus) photo of one of the shows, which included some huge 30ft tall canvases of mountain scenes by an Austrian named Herbert Brandl, which I rather liked.

When I'd driven into North Adams, I'd spotted a Holiday Inn, and imagined I'd probably spend the night there. But while touring the museum, I picked up a pamphlet for an intriguing new hotel called The Porches, a set of row houses across the street from Mass MOCA which had been renovated and turned into a chic boutique hotel. Sweaty and probably somewhat scruffy in my shorts and tank-top, I walked into the lobby to ask about prices, expecting they'd be upwards of two hundred dollars a night. Ten minutes later I was in a large, ultra swanky room with a king-size bed for only $120 per night. It' VERY comfortable, although not everything quite works, including some of the staff. The first room they gave me didn't have working air-conditioning, then I had to make three trips to the reception desk before they gave me the correct DSL connector and instructions. And I never could get the TV remote to change channels. Still, you can't complain about free DSL, nice bathrobes, hugely luxurious beds, unique and distinctive decor, free standing bathtubs with claw feet, and the best hotel shower I've ever used. I'm sleeping in tomorrow, definitely.

Oh, and one other thing. This is my second trip across Massachusetts, and it's confirmed for me that this is one of the most beautiful states.