June 18th, 2011: Embarking on a Journey of Discovery

I have always wanted to travel to different places, but have always been deterred by the costs and the time required. I have lived in Central Massachusetts for over 2 years now, and still have little idea about the place I live. People often say that there is nothing much to do out here, and when friends come over, I only have a handful of places that I know of to take them for meals, or we just go to Boston. Taking all this into consideration, I finally came up with a solution. I decided that it was time to embark on a personal mission to explore the state that I currently live in by driving around. I do apologise for the several backdated entries that will follow, but I have only decided to start this blog now after having started this little mission of mine 3 months ago.

Hence, on this day the 18th of June, my journey began. I did a bit of preliminary research about the towns surrounding my hometown, henceforth called the First Circle, and made a list of potentially interesting places I should go visit, mainly compiled from the town websites, Yelp! and Uptake. Being an early riser, I decided to start off early in the morning at 7.30 am with a walk in the Hassanamesit Woods in Grafton, the entrance to which can be found on Salisbury Street close to its intersection with Keith Hill Road. This being my first day, I did not print out a copy of a map of the area, and went ahead not knowing what to expect, wearing a pair of white sneakers. What a mistake that turned out to be.

Things started out fine at first, and I started to take my first pictures, the first of many I would take today.

View of the power lines

 

Starting on the path into the woods

It had rained last night, and many parts of the trail were muddy as a result. I had gone too far in by then to stop, and ended up stepping into several muddy puddles, and my sneakers and socks came out the biggest losers.

Mud on my sneakers and jeans

To make things worse, mosquitoes and flies swarmed me with every step I took, and my lack of insect repellent protection clearly showed me how inexperienced I was at this exploring activity.

Bitten and dirty, I managed to make it out of the woods 30 minutes later at 8 am with the help of well-marked trails and a makeshift picture of the area map on my camera which I had taken prior to the trip. All in all, not a very good experience for the very first place I visited, with not many good scenic views or animal sightings. Below is the route that I took in the woods, highlighted in pink.

At this point, I decided to make my way back home to clean up a little. The day was still young however, and I was not about to let my bad experience deter me from accomplishing my goals for the day. Next stop, Westborough. The only place I found for today's trip was Lake Chauncy, which has a public beach. I decided not to enter the beach area along Lyman Street, but there was a spot beside the beach that had access to the water's edge, and that's where I took this picture.

Lake Chauncy

There are a few nice restaurants that reside in this town, namely Sapporo Korean BBQ and Sushi Restaurant , which has the best and most artistically designed Volcano Sushi I've ever had, and the Avocado Ball dish, which is basically a mound of spicy tuna wrapped in a layer of avocado slices, placed in a bed of corn chips is really an original yet delectable creation I have not seen elsewhere to date. Another good Korean restaurant in the area, which is surprising for Central Massachusetts which hardly has any good Korean food, is the Westborough Korean Restaurant, a simple, small restaurant which serves tons of side dishes and lots of good entrees too including the kalbi and fried rice, although other dishes seem a little americanized, with loads of vegetables like carrots and cabbage.

Next, it was off to the Tower Hill Botanic Garden in Boylston. I would say the $10 adult admission was well spent. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Near the entrance

The Orangerie

Views of the Central Fountain

Views of the Garden

Views from Tower Hill

Dragonfly on the rocks

Frog Pond

Pavilion near the frog pond

The moss steps

The views of Wachusett Reservoir in the distance from Tower Hill were not good enough, so I decided to drive closer to the reservoir itself, and found a spot along Route 140 (West Boylston Street, Boylston) that was right next to the water. Some views of the reservoir follow. The little beach here is beautiful, but only hiking, fishing and cross-country skiing are allowed here.

I did not find an interesting place in West Boylston with my initial research, so for such towns I decide to just visit the town center. At this moment, it seemed the best way to do was this by heading to Main Street, which ought to be in every town, and should be where the town center resides. Once again, the mistake of an ignorant beginner in sightseeing. A good thing about West Boylston was that while driving along the Wachusett Reservoir toward Main Street, near the intersection of Beaman Street and Sterling Street, I spotted this interesting building standing all alone on the shores of the Wachusett Reservoir, and it turned out to be the Old Stone Church in West Boylston. Not only is the building quite beautiful architecturally (although it is abandoned), the open field it stands on seems like a great place to have a picnic with a view of the reservoir, although to be honest I don't recall if there were any signs saying that you can't do that. Some pictures of the church and its surroundings follow.

 


I did not find the town center on Main Street, so that was it for West Boylston for the day. My last destination was Worcester. My first stop was the EcoTarium. Some of my friends have always wanted to go there, so I thought I would give it a shot. Little did I know that it was more child-oriented, teaching them to better appreciate nature, but I decided to pay the $5 admission anyway. Some pictures follow.

The Main Building

A modified sundial

Wildlife both wild and captive

The $10 canopy walk sounded interesting, so I decided to try it out, but it turned out to be just walking along short bridges between 3 platforms in the treetops with not much of a view anywhere, although it ended with a short ride down a zip line to the forest floor, which was probably the most exciting part of the walk.

Canopy Walk

 
All in all, the EcoTarium would probably have been interesting if I had been a kid, and its pretty ok as a place to bring the kids to. By this time, which was around 3, I was feeling pretty tired after all the places I've been to today, so I decided to call it a day.

There are still more places I wish to visit in Worcester, but I guess it'll have to wait till tomorrow. Finally, the end of my first post.