Tag Archives: exploring

Finally a Sunny Day

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Take full advantage of it, a sunny, blue sky day high 50’s maybe even 60’s. Of course it rained the next day but still it’s a taste of things to come. That was last Tuesday.

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I couldn’t waste a day like that so I decided to go exploring. You’d think after all the years I’ve been “exploring” that I’d have found everyplace but not so. Last summer I heard about a place in Wrentham, MA that I just have to find.

It’s not an Audubon Sanctuary and most of my sources just scratch their heads. Maybe they are really just keeping it to themselves?

Anyway I poked around on the internet and finally found a brief reference to Wrentham Conservation. That was it. I dug and poked some more and finally got a street, That was enough. It was supposed to be off RT 140 on the left so I’d just follow RT 140 until I found it. Sounds good right?

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I passed through Norton, MA . I stopped in Foxboro because I spotted a pretty , white church steeple. I just love those white New England Church Steeples especially when I can get an angle without  tons of utility lines blocking the view. Foxboro 005a copy

After my brief photo stop I moved on past the Foxboro office. As I approached the northern side of Foxboro I stopped at a DQ Restaurant for a $5.00 lunch special. A price like that’s better than McDonald’s. Then back on RT 140, still looking.

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Finally I found the left turn I was looking for. The road soon split. The right hand fork went to a Quarry and a Sand and Gravel company. The right fork meandered past nice homes on a lake. Of course the lake is still frozen right now but I bet it’s pretty there in summer.

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At the end of the road was a DPW building and there was a worker by a truck. I pulled in and started to ask him about the area and he knew right away. I’d just gone a little too far. He was really enthused about the location. He said it was marshy and loaded with beaver and Great Blue Herons.

I turned around and found the cut off. Hard to believe Wrentham still has so much snow. The trail dipped down a little hill but I was in sneakers and the hill was ice and packed snow. I was sliding with every step. Rather than break my neck I decided that it would be better to wait a little longer. Let spring thaw a little more and return with boots and hiking stick because by then it won’t be snow and ice, it will be mud!

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Can’t wait to really check it out!

All Good Things Must End

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For my last night in Florida I headed north to Lake Okeechobee. This is the largest fresh water lake in the state of FLorida and the 7th largest freshwater lake in the United States. Thinking of little Lake Enola in Orlando I assumed there would be some scenic places to get sunset shots. Since I do not know the area at all I was left with just driving around to try to find someplace, a park or preserve or recreation area.

Because of the direction that I approached the lake from I found myself on the southern end. Along this the southern edge of the lake, the wetlands built up the layers of peat rapidly enough (reaching 4-to-4.3-metre (13 to 14.1 ft) thick) to form a dam, until the lake overflowed into the Everglades. At its capacity, the lake holds 1 trillion gallons of water and is the headwaters of the Everglades. But tonight with sunset approaching I wasn’t having much luck.

I followed one side road to a boat ramp. Although the road led up a steep embankment before dipping back down to a parking lot, there wasn’t much to see here. I kept seeing signs for trail heads but I couldn’t find a way to get to the trails. The guide-book says The 30 m wide (100 foot) dike surrounding Lake Okeechobee is a part of the Florida Trail, a 2,250 km (1,400-mile) long trail that is a National Scenic Trail. There is a well-maintained paved pathway along the majority of the perimeter. It is used by hikers and bicyclists, and is wide enough to accommodate authorized vehicles.

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I didn’t find it. Eventually I headed back to the hotel to pack and prepare to leave in the morning. Although my flight wasn’t until 12:45 I was meeting my cousin at Lester’s Diner for breakfast and there’s no telling how much we’d get talking. I haven’t seen the Florida branch of the family in a long time so we had a lot of catching up to do.