Borderland State Park, MA

Today started off in Foxboro MA, home of the New England Patriots, Go Pats!,

At the Commons

at the Commons Restaurant and even though it was one of those Sunday mornings where we had to wait for a table we (I) maintained our humor and let the time and worries roll away. Nana and I were served coffee right away by a cheerful waitress, we ordered and the food seemed as though it had been waiting for us on the back shelf..good friendly fast service. (Once we got seated). Nana had the breakfast burrito and I broke from tradition and had a Western Omelet...hmmm... I see why people like these things. I have discovered that some other tiny traditions have crept into our breakfast outings.. I always take a bit of Grape Jam on my toast while Nana is an Orange Marmalade woman...seems to be consistent. I checked out the driving time to the Park I had selected and it was only about 12 minutes away. Once we paid and made one last tour of the restrooms we set off for Borderland State Park, somewhere new as is always the goal. It was an easy drive and SIRI gave us great directions so we arrived in the predicted 12 minutes. Technology is getting to be so good at thinking for us that we will soon forget how to use maps or the Dewey Decimal System -- and I know that anyone reading this has fewer than three phone numbers committed to memory.  To my surprise when, we arrived at the park, there was a fee of $6.00 to be paid and it was a fully automated system requiring 

 

$6 to Park!

me to exit the car and approach an unfamiliar bit of technology and have a conversation with this machine by pressing buttons, declaring statehood and inserting plastic money. It then spat out a receipt and I was instructed to place it on my dashboard in full view so the dashboard police and make sure I am not violating any rules.  All in all a good system, and I don't really begrudge the six bucks, as it turned out that this was a beautiful place for Nana and Pappa to walk. We found our way to the park headquarters and got a free map of the trails and grounds, and made use of the facilities one more time..too much coffee I guess.

At the trailhead.

We started off on the West Side Trail and wandered to the French Trail and by the time we made it to the Granite Rock Trail where we discovered a huge bolder field and the walking had more of an uphill, down hill personality. Not real huff and puffing walking but noticeable. At some point we wandered back toward the lake, then on and on until we made our way to some very large fields on the east side of the lake. Upon leaving the fields we met a couple of guys who were walking several very large dogs. Bothe the men and the dogs were very friendly. I wish I could retain the breed of dogs a couple of them were but I cannot recall what we were told but they were very large dogs - maybe black bear sized dogs - very friendly. We pressed on and the young men told us that it was just about a mile back to the parking area, but also said it was going to 'really rain in about 20 minutes' so we picked up the pace. It never rained. 

The big house

These grounds were made by the Ames's in around 1910-ish  - you can look it up. But the long and the short of it was that they made this place their home and later left it to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts - the name Borderland comes for the fact that it is on the border of a couple of towns - Easton and Sharon, MA. It is quite a beautiful place and they have a Frisbee Golf course and apparently hold public events frequently in the big house. Nice!

Nana and I hike around the whole grounds surrounding the house which is lush with gardens and sculptures and waterfalls. Very nice ending for a day on the trail.  As usual I was completely wet for the walk and Nana had the presence of mind to pack an extra shirt for me to change into so I wouldn't embarrass myself, or her, should we meet up with anyone. As it turned out we were near a Woodcraft Store, and I can't pass one of those, meaning we did stop on our way back home..so thanks Nana for thinking of me. Now a few more pictures.

Bolders along the trail

Special birding spot

Near the big house

Our trek

Nana on the trail

Nice Trail - F. Gilbert Hills State Forest

Hot Coffee. . .

This day didn't start well.. there was a lot of Nana and Pappa stepping all over each others emotions leaving both of us a bit grumpy. We have been experiencing a lot of stresses coming in from external sources. But we made it through breakfast at the Looking Glass Cafe in Mansfield, MA. and then off into the woods. The F. Gilbert Hills State Forest seems a beautiful spot with wide well marked trails that ramble through a forest that is lush and spotted with large solitary boulders and filled with ferns and wild flowers. Once we were well into the woods the stresses began to fall away and our walk became the calming experience we have had in the past. One of the more amazing things we found in the forest was Lady Slippers. The beautiful flowers were along side the trail in several places and always a treat to find. As I mentioned the trail was well marked and even though we took several 'side trails' we were never in fear of loosing our way as the trail markers were clear and the trail map I had downloaded and printer seemed to be fairly accurate if general. Below are some photos of the day.

Nice Trail

Solitary boulders abound

A view of a pond

Nicely marked

Lady Slipper

Our walk - and more trails to explore

Muck and Briars - Freetown Forest

Gina's, Fall River

With rain threatening we set off to Fall River and a place I found on the internet called Gina's Restaurant. Gina's is in a residential area just north of downtown Fall River and it is a very popular place, at least on Sunday mornings. We had to wait for a table, not long but things were hopping, and yet the staff were all happy and very friendly. Once we sat down we had coffee and menus immediately. Lots of good things to choose from the menu. Being Fall River I certainly expect to have at least a couple of good Portuguese foods on the menu and I was not wrong. I had the number 1 special, 2 eggs, home fries, toast and chourico meat..not the chourico sausage (which is what I expected) but rather thin sliced pork in the special herbs and spices that make chourico what it is.. oh my goodness what a treat. It was out of this world good...we will be back here again! Nana had an omelet and pancakes (which I helped with) and we both were pretty full when it came time to pay the bill. So my recommendation is that the next time you are in the Fall River area, Look up Gina's Restaurant on Wilson Road and you wont be disappointed. It is fantastic.

Out front

I had spent some time on the computer looking for new places to explore and found the Freetown State Forest, just a few miles from Fall River and Nana and I agreed that it looked like a great spot. We followed the directions that Siri told us and ended up in Assonet where the Forest is and every entrance was blocked off and had 'No Parking' signs posted. this was discouraging, so we decided to head out in another direction when we saw a sign for Profile Rock...and followed the signs. This led us through the village of Assonet and what a charming old New England village Assonet  is. Assonet is a village within the town of Freetown and was founded in 1659 according to the sign.  After a few lefts and rights we found our way to the parking area of Profile Rock which according to indian legend is the profile of the famous Wamponoag Indian Chief Massaoit. We parked in a nicely maintained parking area and followed a gravel path marked with a blue triangle and were soon overlooking the rock itself. It is a very large rock on a rocky hillside and the profile is very obvious and distinct.

Profile Rock

We watched a young couple scramble down from the top of the hill and began our walk around the rock and through the surrounding woods and within minutes were back at the parking area. This was a nice walk but certainly not a long walk at all so we took off on another trail just across the road from the parking lot, and by the way, that blue triangle that we saw leaving the parking lot was the only trail marker we saw all day. . . but this trail was an obvious trail and was used by motor bikes and ATV's by the tracks left behind. We both commented that there was really nothing distinguishing about the forest here. Most of the places we have walked have a very noticeable personality but his place didn't, the walking was pleasant but, well, just so so. Until... we came to the first bout of muck and running water. As we came around a bend in the trail we began experiencing more and more muddy spots that gave way to large puddles in the path that needed to be negotiated by leaving the path, skirting them to keep dry. We then came to a stream, and although small was not crossable at the path, so we began our first off trail exploration to see if we could find a place to cross. We press on through a lot of briars, this area has a lot of briars, and soon found a spot. Watch the video below.

As you can see we made it across the stream with little trouble. However this is really where the trouble began. We had to fight the briars to get back to the path and by the looks of things on my map the path should join back up with the cleared gas line right of way which leads back to the parking lot, and sure enough within a few minutes we broke out of the forest to the clearing. From here it should be a straight shot back to the car, about a mile of easy walking...so we thought. We soon came to a very wet area, a bog, and very mucky with black mud and lined with briars. I attempted to make a crossing and got somewhat stranded while Nana made her way to the edge of the clearing and began a slow bit of progress along the side. I joined her and the going got very exciting. Technical muck and briar hiking.. we were slowly making little bits of progress and poor Nana had on short pants and her legs were getting sliced up by the briars and feet were getting wet and well it came to an end abruptly when we could no longer make any progress. Frustrated we made the decision to turn and make our way back. Reversing the process, was just as painful, and the frustration was punctuated with moments of laughter at the situation as we really felt as though we were stuck at times. Nana got her walking stick stuck in the muck and it undid itself (we fixed it) and I lost my stick altogether but I snatched it up as it threatened to float away. We made it back onto dry ground and took stock of where we were. I checked and double checked the maps I had (on my phone) and according to the arial view, if we just cut through here we should meet up with the main path. And then there was a path leading off in the right direction..which lasted about 50 feet and just disappeared. Again we were fighting the briars, and although we were on dry ground is was still not he kind of walk either of us wanted to be doing. We gave up again and headed back to the clearing in total frustration and found our way to to path we had originally came in on. The muck and briars had won, we headed back the way we came..which would mean another stream crossing but at least we knew we could do it. When we got to the stream I scouted another route and found a place upstream that had a well placed rock and it was an easy hop across the stream and only a few briars. Now the whole time we were walking it was threatening to rain, and we did get sprinkled on a couple of times, but the rain held off, thankfully and we were soon back at the car where Nana took off her wet shoes and socks and we now know to carry extra dry socks in our packs. All in all I give this walk one star out of five . . . the Profile Rock is interesting but the trails, well they could use some improvement . . even a few trail markers would help. Here are a few more pictures. I wish I had taken some pictures of the muck but I was preoccupied just trying to stay upright.

Base of the hill

Behind the rock

Poor Nana's legs - and this is an early shot...

2.5 miles total - in 1 hour and 45 minutes -slow moving in the muck

My birthday walk - Massasoit State Park

I woke up this morning one year older, not a big landmark year, but still noticeable. As is becoming usual on a Sunday morning, I started off with a cup of coffee and a chat with both of my brothers, who live in Illinois. With all of the world problems resolved with the brothers, Nana and I had our own little celebration with the traditional Huff family birthday cup. Another late start day, which of course was excused because of it being my birthday and all.

OV's in East Taunton -click for larger view

We made our way to a restaurant called OV's in East Taunton - the picture at the right was taken at 11:10 as we walked up to the door. The place was busy but not crowded. We did not get served until 12:05 and we were ready to walk out just as the food arrived. It is really difficult to understand bad service at a breakfast place, and I am sure they would present us with a bunch of reasons why the food was delayed, but the key here would have been to keep us informed of the process as it dragged on. However I will say that the food was good once it arrived..but then again, at that point Nana and I were really hungry. I had my usual fare of two eggs, home fries and toast and Nana went out on a limb and had the Polish Pierogi Omelet which was tasty (she let me have a taste) - and we shared a Carrot

The wait was just beginning. . .

Trail head sign

Pancake, which was surprisingly very tasty. Another good point is that this place is only a couple of miles form the entrance to Massasoit State Park there in East Taunton, Massachusetts. The parking was at a premium when we arrived at the park and people were everywhere..we guessed it had something to do with Spring Fever. The park has lots of trails and as we were looking for parking we passed several trucks with horse trailers, and many cars with bike racks..these are multi use trails. Even though we did not see any horses while we were hiking we could tell they had passed by what they left behind.  We began our hike by the Perry Bogs, cranberry bogs we guessed, and we started following the white trail as you can see in the picture. The signage is at the trail head near the parking lot. Interestingly the white trail as shown on the map has blue markings along the trail.The paths here are wide and well marked and the terrain is easy walking but the forrest is spectacular in many ways. Lakes appear through the trees at almost every turn as the trail winds around. There are small streams with small bridges to accommodate people on foot and in several spot the path turns into a very wide path allowing Nana and I to walk side by side. Nana was quick to spot some beautiful purple little flowers and identified them immediately as Vinca. Of I am always 'Mr Technology so I whipped out my phone which has a flower identifying app and proceeded to take a picture and sure enough Nana was right. She snapped a picture of me looking Vinca up on my phone while sitting on a nearby bench.

Look up Vinca

Looks like my air bag went off. . .

 We found several places along the trail where there were picnic areas complete with fire pits and it looked there are campsite available here, but I don't think the park was completely opened for the season, as several roads had iron gates across them. But for those of us who are content to travel by foot the gates are no obstacle. And this must go for the folks on mountain bikes as several passed us along the trail, and they were all courteous, which is appreciated.
Another phone call this Sunday during our hike from our son Jason who called to wish me a happy birthday but as always what likely started out as a simple happy birthday turned into an hour talk about all sorts of things from finances, new cars, family relationships and stomping about in the woods..always a good conversation...love my boy.

On another note it is amazing how much water likes to pass through my system. Now I know this is not necessarily great blogging material and may be a bit off color, and I know I drank a lot of water and even more coffee, but it all started to make itself known almost as soon as we hit the trail and did not let up. I bet I had to 'go find a bush' about a half a dozen times during our walk. I am glad that most of the walk was in a secluded area...but as we neared the car there was just no 'bushes' to be had . . .maybe it is an age thing.. in the end it all worked out with no public embarrassment. When we arrived back at the car our apps almost agreed, they both read 'almost' five miles. My app said 4.93 miles, Nana's app said 4.85 miles.. it's now almost 11:00 Sunday night and my app says I walked a total of 7.9 miles today. Not too bad of a day. Nana and I had lots to do after the walk, stopping at a car dealership, putting gas in my car for the week and a trip to the big box home improvement store for a new toilet seat. Then we off to our daughters house for a birthday celebration with the family ..thanks Meg for everything. And I will put a few pictures below of some of the sights along the trail.

Nana on the shore of Lake Rico

A large 'puddingstone' rock along the trail

Nana walking below as I went looking for a bush

Vinca

Middle Pond

Along the blue (white) trail

It will be interesting to see if I get a hike in next Sunday as I am having surgery for an abdominal hernia on Wednesday...but until we chat again, keep putting one foot in front of another. . .

A few photos - 3/17/16

Roaring Brook - Click image for larger view

Today I was walking a bit without Nana. I try to get out early before work and make images, today I was making them with my camera. I discovered this place yesterday morning when I was sketching and thought I would return with my camera to catch the beauty of the falls and the stream through the woods before the foliage gets too dense.

Toward the bridge - Click image for larger view

I didn't really walk very far, but it was good just to be out in the woods so early in the morning, it was like everything around me was waking up too.  The sound of the water, hushed by the woods and the morning fog, was like a distant song somewhere far away, accented here and there with bird chirps and little noises of the day coming to life.

Under the bridge - Click image for larger view

On the technical side, I was playing around with exposure to get the motion of the water. I had my camera set up on a tripod and stopped way down and I was shooting around 3 second exposures. All of these images were shot with a 50mm f1.4 lens.

Forest floor - Click image for larger view

I wish Nana was with me this morning as I know she would love this place and the quietness of it all. Hopefully we will get in a good hike this coming Sunday and find a place as interesting. . .

Lincoln Woods - a busy Sunday - 3/13/16

Nana at Shanna's Country Kitchen 10:40 am

Today started off like most Sunday mornings, I was up first while Nana slept in making up for the lost hour last night (the daylight savings thing). Soon, though, Nana was up and she always takes her coffee and sits outside to reflect and read some meditations. I on the other hand was reading news on my phone and just as I was just starting my second cup of coffee my older brother called. We chatted for quite come time covering hobbies, politics (a very confusing subject these days) family and speculated about the future... a lot of 'what ifs'.

We got a few chores done after we both had our fill of coffee, as today was to be action packed and time was getting compressed rapidly. We new our hike today had to be nearby because in the afternoon we had an art opening to attend, and today is my daughters birthday. Even knowing all of that, we got a late start. I had chosen a diner called Shanna's Country Kitchen in Lincoln, Rhode Island, solely on it proximity to Lincoln Woods, our chosen spot to hide today. It's near by and always a fun place to hike.

As we were approaching the diner, my younger brother called and we ended up sitting in the parking lot for 20 minutes chatting before entering the diner. Nana and I both agree that it best feature is the proximity to Lincoln Woods... service was slow and we finally had to flag down a passing server to inquire on the status of our breakfast. It shouldn't take a half an hour to cook an egg no matter how busy you are. Once the food arrived, it was pretty obvious that it had been sitting for a while.

Let's get walking

The entrance to the woods was only 5 minutes from the diner and we were off on a walk on a wonderful early spring day with temps in the 60s. If you have never been to Lincoln Woods you are missing one of the easy to reach wonders of Rhode Island. This is one of those State Parks where you really cannot get lost and there are many many trails to follow. Having said that, the scenery here is pretty spectacular, not on the wide vista out west kind of way, but in a way that gives you pause about what it must have been like for the early colonists when they first saw the land. A land so full of rocks and hills that they likely wondered aloud how they would ever clear enough land to grow anything. The walking here is up and down with a great deal of topographical variety but can be done at an easy pace. The woods are mostly hardwoods, oak and maple with some pine stands. I can't wait to come back when things are starting to bloom.

Most of the trails are wide and easily navigated and we passed several spots where you can stop and eat at a picnic table. There are also may spots along side the trail that would do nicely for a lunch stop. We crossed a couple of streams and walked along the shore of Olney Pond, the main attraction in the summer. There is a great public beach here, and it has been utilized many times through the years as a summer destination for our kids and grandkids. It is a nice wide sandy freshwater beach, one of the few freshwater beached around, we are the Ocean State you know.

In total we only walked two miles today, in about an hour, as we really took our time. We saw lot of folks out enjoying the woods in their own way. There was a great number of dog walkers. We passed one group and that were being pulled along by golden retrievers, six golden retrievers. We saw lots of young folks on mountain bikes and many rock climbers either assaulting the rocks or hiking along with their huge pads on their backs.

It was a great walk, an easy walk, on a beautiful day with Nana, again taking the time to slow down and take a look at nature, the world and life. Lots of good conversation, some compelling and some mundane... even a bit of complaining about bad service at diners.

I would certainly recommend Lincoln Woods to anyone in the area to come and explore or rediscover this great spot that is so easy to get to, right off of Route 146 North... literally 10 minutes from Providence. You know you have no excuse. . .

 

Me and Walter

Later in the afternoon, after showers and a bit of clean-up, Nana and I went back into Providence to go to the opening of a show of my dear friend Walter Feldman's wonderful paintings. Walter became a very close friend when I was working at Brown University and remains so today. Walter is 91 and still paints for 5 hours a day. His show, 'Memorial' is a  visual representation of his emotions after returning from a trip to Normandy - Walter is a World War II veteran and his service has added meaning to his life as it does to all of us who have served. Thanks Walter for your service and thanks for years of friendship.

It's great to have a friend - Blue Hill - 3/6/16

Hiking Blue Hill near Boston

Nana and I have been together over 46 years. We married early, I was 20 and Nana was just 19. Like any marriage we have had our ups and downs, but here's the thing, I married my best friend. Over the years we have tried just about anything from building our own house, no really we hammered every nail, to sailing across the Atlantic to kayaking in Baja and doing stuff like getting college degrees, having kids and trying to be responsible adults. (that last part is the hardest)

So far it seems to be working out. This year finds us without a boat for the first time in about twenty years and to take it's place we have begun a weekly activity of finding new trail to hike here in New England. A routine has begun to develop. We agree on some place interesting, within an hour or so of the house, and then we immediately find a nearby restaurant so we can have a Sunday morning breakfast. The internet is our friend, and and get all the planning done well before we ever walk out of the house. So far we have hiked 24 consecutive weekends, excluding a few when we were in the Caribbean for a couple of weeks with friends. But we did plenty of walking there too.  So each Sunday morning starts off leisurely, packing up a few essentials (trail mix, water, cameras, maps and hiking sticks) and heading to a new restaurant. This is always a good time of the day. 

At the Sunny Side Cafe near Blue Hill

Nana and I actually have some time to sit and catch up on all that has happened in the past week. We also have something tasty. . . breakfast never disappoints. Nana tends to like omelets and I am a 2 egg and home fries guy and we always leave full and well caffeinated. Last Sunday we hiked Blue Hill near Boston for the first time. We took the blue dot trail from the Park Headquarters to the first summit which we thought was 1175 feet up but apparently it is only 635 feet up. The sign proclaiming 1175 was some sort of weird trail marker, denoting intersections of trails. You can imagine our disappointment. But the climb was rigorous enough to make me wheeze a bit and enough to make Nana's fear of heights show up. Nana was a good trooper thought and press on up right through her comfort zone to the very top. The views were worth it. We could look south well past the Patriots stadium and Boston harbor was visible to the north. We followed the trail back down the far side, meeting up with a very wide and well used trail back to the headquarters and the parking lot. We didn't walk all that far but we did have a good time. We both enjoyed our time together and had another small Sunday adventure. It is so good to be able to spend a fun day with your best friend.