It’s been awhile
It's been awhile since I've posted. During the winter I tend to get unmotivated with my photography. With no leaves things tend to be on the bland side. Don't get me wrong, there is plenty of photo opportunities in the winter if you want to chase them. For me, I just can't seem to get motivated. Hopefully my hiatus is done now.
Took advantage of the nice weather this weekend and headed out. With the warm weather we've had lately, blooming is about a month early. Here are some dogwood trees at Doyle Field.
I then made my way through Lunenburg and found myself near Flat Hill Orchards
The apple trees looked amazing as seen below
I've read that there is some concern that because everything is blooming early, there is a chance that crops could be damaged if a heavy frost happens. Lets hope that is not the case.
We eventually made our way to the Nashua River Rail Trail. We usually park in Nashua, but this time I wanted something different and choose to park in Pepperell.
It was a busy day at this section. What I like about this rail trail which happens to be 11 miles long is that it is paved. Knowing this Ashley and I brought our roller blades.
Today was a busy day on the trail with a lot of roller bladers as well as bicylist. Even so I was able to capture a few pictures without any people in them.
As always Ashley is ready to strike a pose
Norwottuck Rail Trail
For today's adventure, we ventured out to the Norwottuck Rail Trail. This trail starts in Northampton, MA and ends 10 miles later in Amherst, MA. The rail road was created in 1887 and was used until the year 1979. In 1993 the rail road was developed for recreational use. Pictured above is where we started right at the Elwell State Park.
The view from the old rail road tressel crossing the Connecticut river was impressive. The river was running strong after the recent rain we had.
In all we did a total of 5 miles. A few things surprised me during this walk. First of all it is amazing how flat this area is. Being flat, we saw a lot of farms and fields like this corn field pictured below.
The next thing I noticed was that there were a lot of abandoned things such as houses and old vehicles. Here is what is left of a pickup truck.
It was easy to imagine this area in its heyday. There were a few "track" side buildings along the way. This one here has been left to ruins. It looked like it had a platform of some sort that either allowed passengers or freight to access a stopped train.
Another building that I did not get a good photo of was a multi-tenant building that had a bike shop that you could rent bikes from. Also in this building was a restaurant that sold food, beverages and ice cream.
All in all, this proved to be a nice trail to walk and I can see my family and I doing this again.