August 24th 2012: Poker night at a friend's place

Today, I had a poker game with friends in Boston, so I decided to head to the Sharon area to sightsee for the day. I initially wanted to grab some frozen yogurt at Fresh Froyo in Norwood, but it only opens after 12pm, so I was forced to go to Sharon hungry. 

 After visiting the Islamic Center of New England, I headed for the first hike of the day at Gavins Pond. After parking on an unmarked road on the opposite side of Furnace Street and Gavins Pond Road, the path I took here is shown below in pink.

I first headed down the official trail, but there were no views of Gavins Pond to be had here. I then decided to head to the soccer fields on the other side of the pond to try my luck. I had to head all around to the southern end of the pond in order to find the canoe launch area, which was the only decent view of the pond I had.

 The next place I hiked at was Rattlesnake Hill, the trailhead located on the side of House #372 on Mountain Street, northward of the place. I had a lot of trouble  finding the trailhead, spending roughly 2 hours doing so. I made the mistake of parking my car along Hampton Road, which was pretty far from the trailhead, then leaving my phone in the car, which would have provided me with the much needed GPS coordinates of the hill. Secondly, according to the instructions on the pamphlet, I looked for a path after house #364 on Mountain Street, heading first down the road where the house was. I ended up being chased away by ferocious dogs at the end of the road. Next I looked for a dirt road after the house, but southward of the place, so I went on a walk in the woods, never knowing where I was going, ending up behind house #588. At this point, I decided to head back to my car and drive back to the site for a second try, this time armed with the GPS coordinates of Rattlesnake Hill. Using the coordinates, I first went down the dirt road, realizing that it headed away from my destination instead of toward it. I backtracked and went down the road to house #364 again, getting chased by the same dogs again, and finding no way through. I still decided not to give up, heading northward on Mountain Street, finally finding the right trailhead after house #372. The path I then took from here is highlighted in pink below.

When I finally reached the top of the hill, try as I might, I could not find any good views, except for the marker for the summit.

Extremely disappointed with my day of hiking so far, I decided to head to Norwood for lunch and frozen yogurt, passing by the Norwood Theatre along the way.

I headed for lunch at Lewis' Bar and Grill, a sports bar in the town center area, where I had a Livingsocial deal as always. This place definitely looks like a typical sports bar, with a dark wooden interior. For lunch, I got the Cup and Quahog, namely a cup of Sherried Lobster Bisque and a stuffed quahog shell, which was really tasty. My next dish was even better, being 10 mini chicken wings covered in honey mustard.

Cup and Quahog

Chicken Wings with Honey Mustard

My final dish was the House Marinated Lamb Kabob, marinated in roasted garlic and mint, with au gratin potato and vegetables on the side. I had wanted it rare, but it came out more medium rare than not, making me lose my appetite for it.

Naturally, I decided to have it to go, considering my stomach had hardly any space for it anyway.

As I was feeling full, I had to ponder whether to use my next groupon at Fresh Froyo which was right next door, and decided to do so anyway.

The froyo place was small but pretty decently decorated. The concept for this place is to provide one fixed flavor of yogurt in different sizes, then give you the option of unlimited toppings. They also have fresh fruit smoothies and parfaits. For my $10 deal, I decided to get a medium Original yogurt and and mango-peach smoothie, both of which were really good, although the bits of mango in my smoothie eventually turned me off it when it started getting warm in the hot weather.

Heading into the town of Canton next, I visited the Mass Audubon Visual Arts Center first. This place is a really small museum, mostly of sculptures of local birds and paintings of them. Pictures I took here follow.

The museum is also situated on a conservation area with trails, so I decided to go for a walk in the woods. The trail I took here is highlighted below in pink.

There was nothing much to see here though.

After making it back to the gallery, we headed into town to sightsee a little more before heading for a hike at Signal Hill. Some places of note included the Schlossberg Solomon Memorial Chapel, which has a small waterfall beside it, and the Canton Viaduct, the oldest blind arcade cavity wall bridge in the world, which I feel is what symbolizes this town.

St. John the Evangelist Parish

Schlossberg Memorial Chapel

Waterfall beside the chapel

Canton Public Library

Canton Junction T Station

Canton Town Hall

Canton Viaduct,
Neponset Street and Walpole Street

I did not have a trail map for Signal Hill, located at the end of University Road.Thankfully, there was a map posted at the parking lot. I used this as a guide to view the place, where there were decent views from the top of Signal Hill, which is more a series of ledges then a real hill. There is also river access here to the Neponset River.

The ledges of Signal Hill

View from Signal Hill

Neponset River

The last place I headed to for the day was Ponkapoag Pond at the Blue Hills Reservation, the entrance to it located on the Ponkapoag Golf Course.

Ponkapoag Golf Course

The path I took here as the sun set is shown below in pink.

There were not many views of the pond as I went clockwise around the pond. I tried to look for the boardwalk at the YMCA camps, but it was not there at the entrance to the wetlands, so I hurried along the Ponkapoag Trail, passing by an upside down beetle in the soil trying to get up. After putting it right side up using my map, I continued onward o beat the sun.

At the Appalachian Mountain Club cabins, I turned in to get views of the pond as the sun set.

On my way, I passed by the Fisherman's Beach, where people were hauling their boats up it to go home.

From here, I had to go back into the dark woods for quite a bit before I finally emerged into the open by the side of the pond with relief, back near the golf course.









Finally, I was able to walk slowly back to my car, and then headed off to my friend's place in Boston to play some Texas Hold 'Em Poker. As expected, I soon lost all of my $20 investment to the better players, after which I decided to head home as I had another long day tomorrow.