October 21, 2020 - Walpole

Welcome to Susan's Bay Circuit Diary! This blog follows my adventures with my dog Sulu hiking the Bay Circuit Trail.  To get new posts in your inbox, please subscribe (see the little "subscribe" oval above). The rest of the past posts can be found using the little menu on the left.  If you are curious how this all started, go here.

From D to E

I was not paying attention, but the last post was my fiftieth post! I am not sure what that speaks to other than perseverance and the sad fact that the pandemic is still with us.  Even at my slow pace I can expect to complete the BCT before “the end” of the pandemic.

And this week, I learned about something that was right in front of me: the interactive map on the BCT website.  Although I often refer to the maps by number (for example Walpole is on Map 10) and the directions that correspond to each map, there is also the interactive map.  I have poked at it a couple of times but just thought it was gimmicky.  Based on Google Maps, it shows motels and restaurants, and lots of points of interest that are of little interest to me.  But what it can do that the regular BCT maps can’t do is zoom in, as close as Google Maps lets you. 

Today for complicated life reasons I thought it would be fun to bring my blind senior mini poodle Benny in his stroller along with Sulu on our walk.  Benny likes a day out and can actually walk along pretty well, but on foot he taps out at about a mile.  Everything is slower with Benny, but I had plenty of time and the weather was supposed to get better as the day wore on.  My keen map analysis on the interactive map indicated it would be 100% road walking, so, a good fit. Well, my bad, it was mostly but not all road walking.  Normally I would cheer the short stretches of woodland that punctuated my journey in Walpole from Eleanor Johnson Middle School to Walpole High School, but on this occasion it was more of a burden than a blessing.

Team Two Poodles about to set out.

It was a comedy of errors getting started. I left Benny’s leash at home and forgot a hat. I was able to stop at a pet supply store and pick up a not-as-cheap-as-I-hoped leash but could not find a hat. In the end it was about five stops for peeing, no hat, no hat, no leash etc.  Hopefully it’s true that you need fifteen minutes of exposure to get Covid because I was in more stores in one hour than I have been in over a month.

I delayed my departure by two hours based on information from the weather app about local conditions but unfortunately the weather did not meet my expectations and it was definitely spitting.

Mine Brook forms a pond here, a few minutes from the middle school.

After the most recent rain it’s officially late fall. Oaks are turning dark reddish brown, many maples have lost leaves and landscape is now a much darker hue.

Somewhere here there's a miniature poop.  It's a hard time of
year to be a responsible dog owner.

Once we reached the administrative center of Walpole, there is a charming park that looked on the map as if there was a sidewalk around Memorial Pond, but it was a definite woods trail.  It doesn’t look heavily travelled either, and there were fallen trees across the path. 

You have got to be kidding me!

I had to lift the stroller (with dog) over these blockades, and drive it like a wheelbarrow on the single front wheel at times to accommodate the rough path.  I resolved not to return this way.

A painted BCT blaze. It takes some practice to spot them!

After about an hour the sun came out as promised now instead of worrying about getting wet I am worrying about sunscreen and being overly warm (no hat!).

Walpole Center.  They are looking in the same direction!

Clark's Pond - the last woodsy stretch before the high school

Once we reached our turnaround point at the high school I mapped a sidewalk-based return route which went much more smoothly. The next leg should be woodsier.

Spotted on my way back through town

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