(no subject)
Have you ever had a day where everything seemed to go wrong...only to discover that, because of how events transpired, your day could not have gone more perfectly..?
Well, here's what happened:
Of the test: I shall utter not a word. Take this whatever way you wish, I'm not mentioning it for another day or two.
After the test: I decided to go ahead with my plans to hike the length of the Blue Hills, a series of low, rounded, and locally prominent coastal hills (Great Blue Hill is the Norfolk County Highpoint, and the highest mountain on the eastern seaboard south of Maine!). This was in spite of my utter and complete exhaustion, the 40% chance of thunderstorms (remember, these hills are higher than anything but a few buildings downtown within a 20-mile radius), and the fact I'd have to carry my laptop and a whole bunch of other crap in my pack. Before then, I grabbed lunch, and happened to run into my proctor. We chatted a bit about orgo, as he had taken the year-long course already.
I got on the red line (luckily, the train I needed was the first to arrive), and proceeded to make the 35-minute trip to downtown Quincy (hi, Miggs!). From the station, it was about two miles of meandering, haphazardly planned roads to the trailhead. Here I thought downtown Boston was bad--but these people don't even seem to understand the concept of street signs! Despite getting off track, I somehow ended up at the right place anyway.
Though it was a warm day, immediately upon entering the woods, I felt cooler. The trail was easy going at first, and as I passed between a pair of ponds, I scoffed at the trailhead sign claiming a 4-7 hour hiking time for the nine miles through the hills...but then, reality check!! I started climbing, often on steep trail and craggy rock outcroppings, and I realized this was going to be a much longer and harder day of hiking than I'd anticipated.
I made it up the first hill all right (and got a beautiful view of downtown and Massachusetts Bay at the top), passing a cool little pond with a stone cliff shore on the way up. By the second hill, though, I was starting to run out of gas. I was sweating profusely despite the lack of intense heat, and I realized my ~2 liters of cubed ice were not going to cut it. And here I had four more of these hills to climb!
But hey, what choice did I have--I kept going, and was relieved to see that the trail markings were as thorough as Quincy's street signs were not. I kept occasionally checking my distance to GBH (the winding trail made that distance artificially short), and keeping an eye on the weather, which looked to be right on schedule to turn to shit when I reached GBH. Ugggghhh...
I staggered on, and when I reached the main road I was sure I'd reached the park hq. No such luck--that road was about another two miles, and two hills ahead. It took me forever to make it up that next hill, but at least this section of trail was relatively straight. Finally arriving at the park hq, I checked the weather again, and the doppler showed rain literally minutes from where I was. Not. Good.
Srsly.
I stopped inside hq, which was actually more of a police station. One of the officers I asked didn't really know the weather situation, but was kind enough to fill up one of my water bottles for me, thus saving me the likelihood of ending up dehydrated. I waited around a few minutes to see if it was going to rain (and to stay indoors for a half hour or so if it did), but nothing happened, and I finally decided, the hell with it, if it rains, it rains...
Another long, exhausting uphill followed. This time I ran into some trailworkers and two gaggles of Brownies(?) on the way up. I breached a beeline distance of a mile to GBH. Got briefly off trail, got back on, went down a few steep saddles, and finally, slowly but surely, made the final climb to the range's apex, arriving less than three hours after arriving at the trailhead.
On top: a stone observation tower, and a few hundred yards away, the oldest continually operative weather station in North America, smack dab on the highest ground. I wandered around both, climbed up into the tower, and was treated with a 180-degree view of the surrounding forests and suburbs--but not downtown Boston, which was only eight miles distant, but receiving heavy rain! It turns out that the weather system moving in from the west had a "slot" a few miles across, directly in my path--I never felt a drop! It was an incredible sight watching individual skyscrapers slowly appear out of the misty rains, one by one, as the storm moved eastward. When it was finally over Massachusetts Bay, I decided it was time to head down.
My original plan had been to walk down the road, which was paved but blocked off to cars; I instead took another, more direct trail down to the Trailside Museum. Since I was there, I decided to pay the $3 and check it out. It was small, but seeing a screech owl and barn owl up close made it pretty much worth it. Outside, there was also a friendly and inquisitive otter who would keep climbing out of the water to look at me, then do a backflip and swim around, only to repeat the process.
At last, only the four-mile walk to the trolley station in Mattapan remained. The sun was shining, and I knew that the threat of thunderstorms had passed; tired as I was, this lifted my spirits enough that the walk went by in almost the blink of an eye. Before I knew it, I was at the trolley station (part of the Red Line of the T, oddly enough!). The trolleys looked like they were straight out of the fifties, and I found the ride a rather enjoyable one as we zipped past overgrown fields and small Boston neighborhoods in the dwindling afternoon sunlight. I watched with amusement as a still-full paper fast-food cup with its lid rolled in complete circles around the feet of an unsuspecting, sleeping young woman. As we changed onto the subway and passed over the Longfellow bridge back into Cambridge over a beautiful evening sky, I realized that this was exactly how I wanted to remember Boston...
Not much else to tell, except that I made it back in time for dinner--the way all adventures should end, really.
I'm tired beyond belief. But this time, it's a good kind of tired.
Well, here's what happened:
Of the test: I shall utter not a word. Take this whatever way you wish, I'm not mentioning it for another day or two.
After the test: I decided to go ahead with my plans to hike the length of the Blue Hills, a series of low, rounded, and locally prominent coastal hills (Great Blue Hill is the Norfolk County Highpoint, and the highest mountain on the eastern seaboard south of Maine!). This was in spite of my utter and complete exhaustion, the 40% chance of thunderstorms (remember, these hills are higher than anything but a few buildings downtown within a 20-mile radius), and the fact I'd have to carry my laptop and a whole bunch of other crap in my pack. Before then, I grabbed lunch, and happened to run into my proctor. We chatted a bit about orgo, as he had taken the year-long course already.
I got on the red line (luckily, the train I needed was the first to arrive), and proceeded to make the 35-minute trip to downtown Quincy (hi, Miggs!). From the station, it was about two miles of meandering, haphazardly planned roads to the trailhead. Here I thought downtown Boston was bad--but these people don't even seem to understand the concept of street signs! Despite getting off track, I somehow ended up at the right place anyway.
Though it was a warm day, immediately upon entering the woods, I felt cooler. The trail was easy going at first, and as I passed between a pair of ponds, I scoffed at the trailhead sign claiming a 4-7 hour hiking time for the nine miles through the hills...but then, reality check!! I started climbing, often on steep trail and craggy rock outcroppings, and I realized this was going to be a much longer and harder day of hiking than I'd anticipated.
I made it up the first hill all right (and got a beautiful view of downtown and Massachusetts Bay at the top), passing a cool little pond with a stone cliff shore on the way up. By the second hill, though, I was starting to run out of gas. I was sweating profusely despite the lack of intense heat, and I realized my ~2 liters of cubed ice were not going to cut it. And here I had four more of these hills to climb!
But hey, what choice did I have--I kept going, and was relieved to see that the trail markings were as thorough as Quincy's street signs were not. I kept occasionally checking my distance to GBH (the winding trail made that distance artificially short), and keeping an eye on the weather, which looked to be right on schedule to turn to shit when I reached GBH. Ugggghhh...
I staggered on, and when I reached the main road I was sure I'd reached the park hq. No such luck--that road was about another two miles, and two hills ahead. It took me forever to make it up that next hill, but at least this section of trail was relatively straight. Finally arriving at the park hq, I checked the weather again, and the doppler showed rain literally minutes from where I was. Not. Good.
Srsly.
I stopped inside hq, which was actually more of a police station. One of the officers I asked didn't really know the weather situation, but was kind enough to fill up one of my water bottles for me, thus saving me the likelihood of ending up dehydrated. I waited around a few minutes to see if it was going to rain (and to stay indoors for a half hour or so if it did), but nothing happened, and I finally decided, the hell with it, if it rains, it rains...
Another long, exhausting uphill followed. This time I ran into some trailworkers and two gaggles of Brownies(?) on the way up. I breached a beeline distance of a mile to GBH. Got briefly off trail, got back on, went down a few steep saddles, and finally, slowly but surely, made the final climb to the range's apex, arriving less than three hours after arriving at the trailhead.
On top: a stone observation tower, and a few hundred yards away, the oldest continually operative weather station in North America, smack dab on the highest ground. I wandered around both, climbed up into the tower, and was treated with a 180-degree view of the surrounding forests and suburbs--but not downtown Boston, which was only eight miles distant, but receiving heavy rain! It turns out that the weather system moving in from the west had a "slot" a few miles across, directly in my path--I never felt a drop! It was an incredible sight watching individual skyscrapers slowly appear out of the misty rains, one by one, as the storm moved eastward. When it was finally over Massachusetts Bay, I decided it was time to head down.
My original plan had been to walk down the road, which was paved but blocked off to cars; I instead took another, more direct trail down to the Trailside Museum. Since I was there, I decided to pay the $3 and check it out. It was small, but seeing a screech owl and barn owl up close made it pretty much worth it. Outside, there was also a friendly and inquisitive otter who would keep climbing out of the water to look at me, then do a backflip and swim around, only to repeat the process.
At last, only the four-mile walk to the trolley station in Mattapan remained. The sun was shining, and I knew that the threat of thunderstorms had passed; tired as I was, this lifted my spirits enough that the walk went by in almost the blink of an eye. Before I knew it, I was at the trolley station (part of the Red Line of the T, oddly enough!). The trolleys looked like they were straight out of the fifties, and I found the ride a rather enjoyable one as we zipped past overgrown fields and small Boston neighborhoods in the dwindling afternoon sunlight. I watched with amusement as a still-full paper fast-food cup with its lid rolled in complete circles around the feet of an unsuspecting, sleeping young woman. As we changed onto the subway and passed over the Longfellow bridge back into Cambridge over a beautiful evening sky, I realized that this was exactly how I wanted to remember Boston...
Not much else to tell, except that I made it back in time for dinner--the way all adventures should end, really.
I'm tired beyond belief. But this time, it's a good kind of tired.