October 26th 2013: Horseback Riding in Princeton

Today, I had an appointment with a friend to go horseback trail riding at the Cornerstone Ranch in the town of Princeton.

Before heading to pick my friend up, I decided to do some sightseeing in Framingham. The first place I went to was the Hop Brook Natural Area. The path I walked while here is shown below in pink.

The water body at end was just okay looking though.

After getting back to my car, I headed to the Cushing Memorial Park in town, which had been under construction the last time I was here. The end result is pretty nice,

along with the fall foliage here.

Lastly, I visited the Framingham Reservoir #2 at ~262 Fountain Street

before going to pick my friend up.

We headed to the town of Sudbury first for an Indian lunch buffet at Soul of India. The decor here is pretty decent,

as was the lunch buffet, which had a pretty good variety of food,

 especially in terms of soups (3) and desserts (3).

After eating our fill, we headed to the ranch, arriving a little early.

We waited a while for the previous group of riders to come back with their horses, and while they were busy eating hay,

the leader matched us to our horses for the day based on our level of experience and size, with the small kid getting to ride on a pony. I was given a female horse named Shiloh.

Using a step stool, we mounted our horses, and waited for the trail ride to start. Soon, it was off into the woods.

At times, I tried to get the horse to go faster, but somehow it refused to listen to my kicks. We would often stop along the trail to wait for everyone to catch up, and the horse would automatically start to eat the grass around it.

The views along the power lines were beautiful, as can be expected of Princeton.

Other than that, it was a nice ride through the woods in the fall.

After getting back to the ranch and dismounting our horses, I decided to bring my friend to see a few scenic places in town, heading to the top of Mount Wachusett nearby, where the views were awesome this time of year.

We visited the Wachusett Dam in Clinton next, where the sun was about to set.

This time, we decided to venture to the other side of the dam, which I have never done before.

The views here are pretty good too.

From here, my friend had to go shopping for a Halloween costume, so we headed to Natick where there is a Party City branch. After she finally decided on a costume, we decided to head to Oga's, a pretty upscale Japanese restaurant located close by.

After a short wait, we were ushered to our table, which was nicely shielded from public view by shutters and curtains.

The shutters did make getting in and out from out table a little more troublesome though.

For food, my friend decided to get the Sake Ishiyaki Don (Fresh salmon sashimi, roe and seasonal vegetables over a bed of rice served in a hot stone bowl),

while I decided to get appetizers only, getting the Enoki Beef Maki (Sliced beef roll with enoki mushroom and asparagus smothered in teriyaki sauce),

the Oga's Clam Chowder (Saikyo white miso, Ume sauce, and wasabi for spice),

and the Foil-Yaki (Shrimp and Japanese mushrooms baked in a foil wrap with sake and butter).

The clam chowder was delicious, especially with the Japanese touch, while the Foil Yaki was interestingly good in taste and presentation. The beef roll would have been good if the beef itself was not dry, while the rice did not have enough sauce, and the fish and roe did not taste so good once they started getting cooked by the hot stone bowl. I guess that is why they never serve fish roe cooked.

We also got Black Sesame Sorbet for dessert, which was actually pretty good as well.

Overall, definitely a restaurant I would recommend.

With that, I dropped my friend off home and headed back myself to get ready for food truck stuff tomorrow.