So, I had the opportunity to ride in daylight for once, heading off on the Minuteman in the mid-afternoon. Atypically, I picked up the trail from a gated right-of-way off Orvis Road...
... and headed East, also atypically...
Turned around at Alewife Brook, and headed West. There was method here: I wanted to see just how many of the Dimmit Dammit signs had been posted. I found the first opposite Thorndike Field, facing the Westbound lane.
Turns out there are a total of 4, all in Arlington: at Thorndike Field and Russell Place, Westbound, and at Bow Street and Swann Place, Eastbound. None in Lexington, none in Bedford. So the mystery deepens, but it seems to be a mystery specific to Arlington.
This was a lovely ride on a cool day that was thinking about becoming colder than that, temperatures in the low 40s to start, dropping to the high 30s in the cold spots by the time the ride ended and darkness closed in. The low sun cast sidelong shadows that were kind of fun.
We've got to the bony end of Autumn.
No green was to be found in Arlington's Great Meadow.
I nodded at the prayer flags, flying like so much tantric laundry at the usual house in Lexington, and threw in an extra mantra for good measure.
The horse has his own mantra.
I was saddened by this scene when I got to Wiggins Ave., Bedford. The old farm, abandoned for some years now, has been bulldozed, presumably to make way for development. Back in the 70s, I worked a block down from this farm, which even then was no longer a going concern, but rather home for the retired farmer and whatever family, including a retired horse, surrounded by newly developed light industrial properties (including the one that housed the company that employed me to break minicomputers with my brain). I used to have short conversations with the horse on my way to the sub shop/nursery at the end of Wiggins. Since, I've watched the life drain out of the place, the weeds grow up in the remaining fields, like some maudlin bluegrass song about dead parents. And now it has reached the end of its string, and will persist only in memory.
On a happier note, the bogs at Depot Park are still open (and heated!).
rod