Like I said, my goal here is to update the blog regularly with travel or other “new” experiences, regardless of whether I’m hiking or what. So I’ll start with a short writeup of our trip to the Southeast earlier this month. My nephew, who just turned 18 on Christmas, was graduating from the USMC Training Depot on Parris Island, in South Carolina. Last time we were in SC, my brother-in-law was the one graduating. It was nice to get a chance to see his youngest son follow in his footsteps. ...

I was working on some content for my professional blog and realized I hadn’t posted on this blog in almost a year. Our “Saturdate” hikes were certainly less interesting in 2016. We often found ourselves with other obligations, and spent some of our free time getting errands done and sharing a fine lunch at Sturbridge Seafood instead of exploring new hiking trails. Our hikes, when we went, revisited familiar trails and didn’t yield the kind of experiences I felt deserved blog posts. ...

On the first Sunday of the New Year, Evie and Jess made a last-minute decision to cheer on a friend at a gymnastics event in Western MA, and I made a last-minute decision to revisit the Sibley Farm / Burncoat Pond property with the intent of walking a portion of the Midstate Trail. I’d hiked here with Jess twice before (1, 2) and both times we had mostly ignored the Midstate Trail. Looking at the map, I realized I probably had enough time to hike the trail from the parking area up to Route 9 and back. ...

It seems a recurring theme that we don’t have as much time to explore the trails on our Saturdays as we used to. Real life conspires to sap away even our protected time. And so last weekend we again found ourselves looking for a close hike which wouldn’t take up too much of our time. We ended up driving towards one trail and stopping at another; we saw a parking area on Holland Road in Sturbridge with a Friends of Sturbridge Trails sign on it, and decided to see what it was. It turns out, it’s a somewhat new extension of the existing Grand Trunk Trail. This section walks along the Quineboag River to the East Brimfield Dam, and will eventually connect into the Brimfield section of the trail. ...

I last wrote about Rock House in November of 2014. On that day, we went for a long hike in the rain. This time around, it was a shorter hike, but the weather was much more pleasant. I started the day by pitching in at a town cleanup of a vacant lot, and spent several hours doing the kind of physical labor I went into engineering explicitly to avoid. So while we still wanted to hike, I wanted something a little less taxing. We picked Rock House because we know the trails well (map here), it was close, and we knew we could do a shorter loop and still get some fall scenery in. ...

Over the summer, our hikes were tough to manage. Without gymnastics blocking out the time, we either had to hike as a family, or hike when Evie was otherwise occupied, which wasn’t often. Given the heat and the bugs, we didn’t get out nearly as often as we had hoped. But Fall is here, and with it comes cooler temperatures, fewer bugs, and a renewed presence in gymnastics for our little bundle of energy. ...

Summer vacation means more family time, and we used that time at the start of July for a hike at Wells State Park in Sturbridge. I’ve written a few posts in the past about hiking here; it’s a massive property with fairly long trails, and it’s possible to get over 6 miles of hiking in a day fairly easily as I demonstrated in a prior post. But this hike was a shorter journey, with our daughter dragging her feet a bit (perhaps because nothing is quite as fun as exploring Purgatory Chasm!). ...

Our family feet have been eagerly dashing around, but not anywhere that was worth blogging about. This weekend, summer officially began in our household as Evie’s gymnastics schedule changed and Saturdays are officially free for the whole family. We celebrated by heading somewhere where Evie could explore and adventure – Purgatory Chasm State Reservation. This was not a hiking trip, it was an exploring trip. Our goal was to let Evie climb rocks, wriggle through caves, and feel the freedom of summer. It was a clear success. ...

This Memorial Day, we took a long weekend trip to Smugglers’ Notch, Vermont with some friends. Vermont is a great state; they’ve really figured out quite a bit about what makes New England great (other than, I guess, beaches), their mountains are more inviting and approachable than New Hampshire’s, and they have some of the best beer in the country. On Saturday, we had breakfast in town and then browsed at a farm store across the street. Our friend Sean talked up someone selling local honey, and found out about a nearby short hike that would lead us to a waterfall. We made it our next stop. ...

This “Saturdate”, my wife and I hit up a local asparagus festival (no pictures, sorry) and power-washed the house (no pictures, you’re welcome). We hoped to get some time outdoors as a family on Sunday, however. My daughter likes to think she wants to go canoeing with us. She oohs and aahs over pictures my wife and I have taken, and says it sounds like fun, plus there can be fishing involved! ...