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.
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| 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
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| The wait was just beginning. . . |
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| 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.
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| Look up Vinca |
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| 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.
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| Nana on the shore of Lake Rico |
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| A large 'puddingstone' rock along the trail |
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| Nana walking below as I went looking for a bush |
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| Vinca |
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| Middle Pond |
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| 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. . .
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