Bay Circuit Diary

Welcome to Susan's Bay Circuit Diary! This blog follows my adventures with my dog Sulu hiking the Bay Circuit Trail .  Feel free to 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 . Departing the Market Basket (obtaining the shady parking space I had scoped out when last there), I had one of the most dispiriting walks of my journey. My first thought was “Well the pandemic must be over” because Saturday traffic seemed back to normal.  Market Basket is on Route 126, a bust but fairly narrow commercial road with all the modern conveniences like auto body shops and paintball.  I followed the route into Sherborn, denoted by the trail description as “Where the sidewalk ends, enter Sherborn”. I thought, well, that’s a fitting “f you” as we enter the sidewalk-less elite suburb.  People think elm trees are all gone, but there are plenty (sawtoot...

Welcome to Susan's Bay Circuit Diary! This blog follows my adventures with my dog Sulu hiking the Bay Circuit Trail .  Feel free to 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 . Sulu was at the groomer’s today, but the weather was cool and conducive to getting outside, so I decided to do the no-dogs-allowed Walden Pond loop that would complete Map 7 .   I   (so weird not saying we) parked at the visitor’s center and used the free electric car charger as we did before.   Since it’s officially the Season, we had to pay the $8 parking fee.   A boring walk up the road led me to the trailhead, closer to busy Route 2 than I remembered.  It’s the continuation of the Emerson Thoreau Amble (see May 3 and May 5 ).  Walking up the well-blazed trail, I encountered Thoreau’s bean field , wh...

Welcome to Susan's Bay Circuit Diary! This blog follows my adventures with my dog Sulu hiking the Bay Circuit Trail .  Feel free to 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 . We did not make it out of Ashland today, but we did make it to Market Basket.  I parked in Montenegro Square in Ashland Center, named after a late town worthy, not the country.  Thank you Ashland for providing free electric car charging in the shade!  We passed the quaint Victorian rail station (now repurposed as a doctor’s office and headed for the cemetery.   Wildwood Cemetery is Ashland’s answer to Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge (kind of), dating from Victorian times with memorials in a park-like hilly setting.   I did not discover that dogs are not allowed in the cemetery until my return trip....

Welcome to Susan's Bay Circuit Diary! This blog follows my adventures with my dog Sulu hiking the  Bay Circuit Trail .  Feel free to 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 . The Bay Circuit Trail journey is full of surprises. Just when you’re braced for a boring road walking afternoon, it sends you to a cul-de-sac, down behind a house and onto a cool green trail that exits unceremoniously behind the DPW salt barn.    The view from the side of the salt barn Crossing the extremely utilitarian campus (featuring the Ashland dog pound) then led to the beginning of the completely charming Riverwalk .    The Riverwalk goes alongside our old friend the Sudbury River (is it the freaking Nile of the greater Boston area?) for about a mile.   It’s paved in grit and is wide, flat, and smooth (...