August 2, 2021 - Bruce Freeman Rail Trail, Chelmsford

 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 E to D, and a ways toward F

Back on the trail again for the second attempt at the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail in Chelmsford. Don't ask where the past few months have gone! In classic style we started out by walking in the wrong direction, but fortunately only .1 mile.

Also characteristically I ended up going north instead of south but as we parked at an intermediate point, either direction was fine. The trail is a dedicated rail trail, so paved, with fences on both sides and about a yard of green space between parking lots in the backs of businesses here in Chelmsford.

It was marginally too hot for Sulu. My weather app showed the air temperature as 75, but with a “real feel” of 82 so I hoped to find some shade here for him. For this adventure it was me and Sulu with Benny in the stroller. Walter was back to his pro bono contracting so not able to join us on this day.

Very difficult to pose a blind dog!

Once out of Chelmsford Center the main traffic on the trail was serious-looking road cyclists. We crossed under 495 by a narrow way and made our way to Lowell. By the way, we did not see one single BCT blaze.

The tunnel under 495

I was a bit mystified by the mileage markers. At first I thought they were metric, but then I realized they might be decimal miles. After 495, we passed under Route 3 on what seems to be a purpose-built underpass.

See the teeny-weeny decimal point?

As we returned through the tunnel under 495 I concluded this tunnel was not built for the rail trail as there are mounting brackets for rail signals on the walls. I didn’t notice anything like that in the metal tunnel under Route 3.

By my great good fortune there was a Dunkin Donuts strategically placed on the road that parallels the rail trail where I was able to nip through a parking lot and on pavement the whole time to treat myself to a iced decaf. The paved trail was smooth enough not to jostle my beverage in the stroller’s cupholder.

Where the trail heads back toward Framingham away from Chelmsford Center they have some lovely historical murals painted by Markus Lewis.

Those murals marked the turnaround point at this end of the trail. We wended our way back toward the car by a charming foot path around these new Grist Mill condos that goes by the babbling Beaver Brook.

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