As it is only open on Sunday mornings, the first place I visited today was the flea market in Lancaster, the
Lancaster Marketplace. This is a large factory-like building, complete with a food-selling area and a play area for the kids, all under the same roof. I had never been to a flea market in America, so this was an interesting experience. It's pretty much like a garage sale, except that a large group of people are doing it at the same time in the same place. There were all sorts of things being sold here like books, furniture, model cars, and even old laptops and Playstation 2s.
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| Car Parts |
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| Videotape collection |
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| Play Area |
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| Old laptops |
Other places I visited in Lancaster today included the
Dr. Franklin Perkins School and Bartlett Pond along Main Street close to its junction with North Main Street.
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| Dr. Franklin Perkins School |
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| Bartlett Pond |
Done with Lancaster, Leominster to the west was next. My first destination was downtown Leominster. Carter Park on the corner of Main Street and Summer Street has a lot of war memorials and interesting historical architecture like
St. Leo's Parish.
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| St. Leo's Church from Carter Park |
Monument Square on West Street and Main Street is also beautiful, surrounded by buildings like City Hall, the
Public Library, the
Unitarian Universalist First Church, the
First Baptist Church and the
Pilgrim Congregational Church.
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| Unitarian Universalist First Church |
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| Public Libary (Left), City Hall (Right) |
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| Monument Square |
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| Spanish American War Monument |
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| War memorials |
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| Pilgrim Congregational Church |
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| City Hall (Left) and First Baptist Church (Right) |
Barrett Park off Chestnut Street and Barrett Parkway was next. This place encompasses Colburn Pond, with a nice beach on the side. Unfortunately, no swimming is allowed currently. The route I took is highlighted below in pink.
Views of the pond follow.
Other places I visited in Leominster were a few churches and old buildings.
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Kendall Hall,
Hamilton Street and Main Street |
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St. Anna Parish,
199 Lancaster Street |
Finally it was time for my final hike of the day:
Monoosnoc Ridge Trail. More detailed maps can be found at
http://www.leominster-ma.gov/recreation_department_park_sites.htm. This trail stretches all the way from northern Leominster at the end of West Street near Route 2, which is where I parked my car, all the way to southern Leominster at
Sholan Farms on Pleasant Street, roughly a 7.5 mile hike. The route I took is highlighted in pink below.
It started off fine at first, and then I came upon an area with a lot of felled trees. Apparently the trail had been closed for construction. Undeterred, I thought I could find my way through, but I ended up getting lost for about half an hour. I decided to give up at this point after having bashed through the woods in an attempt to locate the trail, but while heading back out, I stumbled back onto the trail by accident, and decided to carry on instead.
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| Start of the trail |
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| While lost in the woods |
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| I was lost in the middle of that |
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| Finally back on the trail |
I was really glad I did not give up, because I soon came upon an amazing view of Leominster, an area on North Monoosnoc Hill where I was not surrounded by trees for once.
Back on the trail, I came onto a clearing covered in rocks, and decided to take a water break here. Little did I know that I would lose my way here, and actually end up going back to the clearing with the great view. Making my way back, I finally found the next checkpoint to know I was going the right way again.
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| Rest Stop before getting lost again |
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| Finally found the checkpoint |
From this point on, I decided to use the GPS on my phone as a guide. I did not have a paper map, but luckily I had taken a picture of the trail, and this I used to guide me the rest of the way, with the GPS telling me whether I was headed in the right direction. Other than checkpoints, other good indicators that I was going in the right direction was when I finally hit the roads, firstly Elm Street, and then Wachusett Street later on. The problem with the roads were that it made it hard to determine where on the other side of the road the trail continued. To make things worse, the construction work and clearing of trees were usually right next to the roads, making it nearly impossible to find my way. Luckily, I was able to do so both times.
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| Finding my way on Elm Street |
Another place with beautiful views was the Haynes Reservoir area. I had to cross a rickety piece of wooden board to the other side of a small stream leading into the reservoir though, when I reach the end of the reservoir.
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| I had to cross that at Haynes Reservoir |
My final leg of the journey was pretty uneventful, although I had to climb down several steep slopes from time to time. I rarely emerged into clearings so I took pictures when I came to them. Another water body I saw was the Fall Brook Reservoir. By the time I emerged out at Sholan Farms 3 and a half hours later, I was so exhausted that I could hardly walk. However, more was yet to come. I had the daunting task of walking all the way back to my car ahead of me, and it was already 4pm.
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| One of the few clearings |
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| Fall Brook Reservoir |
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| Finally done!!! |
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| Dreading the long walk back |
As I slowly trudged along Pleasant Street, I tried my luck at hitchhiking out of desperation and exhaustion. However, even a passing police car would not stop for me. As luck would have it, though, I stumbled onto a family which was just about to leave their house, and after telling them my situation, they finally decided to help me after some hesitation. I soon realized why they were hesitating. It was not because they were afraid I would harm their kid sitting in the back seat. It was because the lady was learning how to drive. Anyway, I had a good conversation with them along the way back to the car. I was so relieved when I could finally blast the air conditioning in my car.
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| Birdhouse while walking back |
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| Finally back to my car |
I then decided to head to
Yamato Japan in Twin City Plaza for dinner. It turns out that the mall I saw from North Monoosnoc Hill was this mall. Yamato itself is quite a nice restaurant, although I did not think the maki design was that artistic, so I decided not to take any pictures. With that, my day of adventure was finally over. From now on, I will print paper maps to take with me whenever I go hiking to minimize getting lost again.
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