September 25th 2011: Finishing Fitchburg, Lunenberg, Shirley and Harvard

I started off this Sunday hiking again, this time at the Flat Rock Wildlife Sanctuary in Fitchburg.
The parking area for this place can be found at around 500 Ashburnham Hill Road. The route I took is highlighted below in pink.

From the parking area, I headed up the Link Path to reach Flat Rock Road. Here, I turned left to head towards The Bald, hoping to see a good view over there, but it was totally surrounded by trees.

From The Bald, I continued along Flat Rock Road until it meets the path of the power lines, which I then followed all the way back to its junction with the Link Path, which was the way back to my car. Along the way back, I spotted a couple of boxelder bugs on milkweed seed pods.

Done with my first hike of the day, I headed to visit the Wallace Civic Center owned by the Fitchburg State University. There is an ice arena here, and as it so happened, there was a hockey game going on that morning.

The next place I went to in Fitchburg was Coggshall Park at around 65 Electric Avenue. This a lovely park with Mirror Lake right in the middle of it. There were swans and ducks swimming in the lake when I went, and the views were really serene, especially with the gazebo on the lake.

Ducks swimming 

The Gazebo at a distance 

Swan

Views of Mirror Lake

The gazebo up close

I really did not want to leave Coggshall Park, but the day was still young, so on to the Coco Key Water Resort at the Courtyard Marriott I went. This nice little water park had an expensive entrance fee of about $20, but I would think it was quite worth the money, looking at the place inside. Pictures of the various water activities follow.

Views of the hotel

Views of the water park

The next place I went to was the Fitchburg Art Museum, which has a $7 admission fee. Unfortunately, I was not allowed to take any pictures, but that was after I took this one below.

Overall, like all the other art museums I've been too, not too impressed due to the small size of the museum, and once again, it's probably just me.

By this time, I was hungry, so I decided to try out the Gene Collette's Airport Restaurant at the Fitchburg Municipal Airport. This is a quaint little restaurant with great views of airplanes on the airfield, and I greatly enjoyed the Irish Eggs Benedict I had. Who knew that corned beef hash woulld be a great addition to Eggs Benedict?

Fitchburg Municipal Airport

Irish Eggs Benedict

Hot Chocolate

With that, I was done with Fitchburg. The town of Lunenburg was next, with Whalom Park on the shores of Whalom Lake on Prospect Street being my next destination. Although I did not take any pictures of the old leisure park, Lake Whalom itself was pretty beautiful. An interesting sight I saw here was a group of Canadian Geese on the shores of Whalom Lake, when a dog suddenly started running onto the beach chasing after the geese, forcing all of them to flee in a panic into the water, honking loudly in displeasure. The picture I took was just before the dog came along.

They didn't know a dog was coming

 I then went around town to see if there were interesting buildings around, which there were, but only a few.

Lunenburg Town Hall,
17 Main Street

Lunenburg Town Common,
Lancaster Avenue and Leominster Road

Sign,
Main Street and Massachusetts Avenue

St. Boniface Parish

In the next town of Shirley, my first destination was Whitley Park on the corner of Front Street and Phoenix Street, right near where the Shirley T-Station is. Here resides a few nice war memorials, together with the St. Anthony of Padua Church.

St. Anthony of Padua Church

Whitley Park

Shirley T-Station

The next place I visited was Benjamin Hill Park. This place has a lot of recreational areas, including a playground and a small slope for sledding. I also happened to see a really fat earthworm here. For kicks, I ran up the ski slope and took a picture of the park from up there.

The playground

The sledding slope



Fat earthworm

View from atop the slope











Other places I visited in Shirley included the town center on Keady Way and Hopedale Road which was really isolated actually, the United Church of Shirley, and a giant Mohawk Statue standing outside Mohawk Village Motors at 280 Great Road.

Shirley Police Department and Town Hall,
Keady Way

Hazen Public Library

United Church of Shirley

Giant Mohawk Statue

In Bolton, I went to visit Bower Springs, the parking area being at the end of Flanagan Road. The path I took is highlighted below in pink, still within the boundaries of Bolton.

From the parking area, I walked all the way to the larger pond. The ponds here were really nice,

and I spotted several tortoises suntanning themselves on a log.

I walked around the ponds back to the main path and back to my car. The next place I went to was the Fruitlands Museum in Harvard. This place has a lot of outdoor sculptures

along with other small museums as well.

The views from the museum were even better, however.

The museum also has a walking trail, so I decided to see if there were good views in the area. All I got were okay views, a lot of mosquito bites and dead mosquito corpses on my hands and arms, and lost for a bit. The rough route I took is as highlighted in pink below.

I had originally wanted to walk to the very end of the red loop, but I got lost somewhere toward the end, and when I finally found my bearings, I was already on the way back. With the mosquitoes hot after me, I decided to cut my losses and head back to my car. A few views I managed to catch along the way follow.

Another place I visited in Harvard today was the town center area.

Hildreth Elementary School

Harvard Public Library

Town Common,

Ayer Road and Fairbanks Street

Town Hall,

13 Ayer Road

I went to Fort Devens next. One interesting animal I saw while in this municipality was a groundhog at the Fort Devens Museum. I happened to spot a big stone in a field from a distance that seemed to move every once in a while, and as I moved closer slowly, I began to realize what it was. The picture below is the best one I manage to capture before I got too close and it darted into its hole.

Mirror Lake

Groundhog

Devens Common Center

Robbins Pond,
Robbins Pond Road and Barnum Road

Rogers Field,
190 Sherman Avenue

The last place I went to before heading towards dinner was the Oxbow National Wildlife Refuge in Harvard. This is an area mainly composed of natural wetlands, and I parked at the canoe launching area found across the railway tracks on Still River Depot Road. The short path I took is highlighted in pink below.

From the parking area, I headed up toward point 9 along the Tank Road, which apparently had a great view of the swamps. However, when I got there, there was nothing to see. It was getting dark really quickly, and although there were frogs jumping out of my way into the water, I could not capture any of them, so I decided to head back to my car instead, capturing only this picture of the wetlands.

On the way to my dinner at the Le Lyonnais in Acton, I had to pass through Boxborough, and I happened to pass by the town hall itself at 29 Middle Road. After several attempts in the dark of fiddling around with my camera, I finally managed to get a good shot of the place.

Finally, dinner was beckoning. I had expected the restaurant to be more crowded on a Sunday night, but there were only a couple of tables filled when I went.

Oh well, no wait time for me then. I had the 3 course meal set with the vegetable soup,

chicken liver entree,

and meringue with raspberry and vanilla ice-cream.

I must say that I had a very good dining experience here, especially the chicken liver which was so well-cooked and tasty.

With a full stomach, I finally headed for home, and that was the end of my weekend of sightseeing.