November 10th 2013: Exploring Abandoned Tunnels and Candlepin Bowling

I woke up bright and early today to start my sightseeing for the day.

My first destination was the abandoned railway tunnel, located at ~188 Boylston Street in the town of Clinton. There is a small dirt path leading up the hill to the mouth of the tunnel, which is actually really close to the roadside, cleverly hidden by a layer of trees. To think that I passed by this place so many times in the past, and never knew it was here.

The mouth looks innocent enough, the sides all covered in graffiti, and the other end did not seem so far away.

As I entered, the light from the outside helped,

 but as I proceeded onward, it just got darker and darker, and I had to use my torchlight to guide me along.

Being a little scared that something or someone might jump out at me from nowhere, I even started using my camera to flash out the way.

Thankfully, the ground was pretty level, and the place was devoid of any life, so I managed to make it to the other side without any issues.

This end of the tunnel is a little waterlogged, but I was just relieved to be back out in the open.

Unfortunately, the only way back to my car was going back the way I came, so I had to make the trip one last time.

Thankfully, this time it was faster as I was now familiar with the path, and soon I was back at my car.

From here, it was on to other places in Clinton. I did a tiny hike at the Rauscher Farm to see Clamshell Pond. The path I took is shown below in black.

Thew view of Clamshell Pond was pretty decent actually.

One last place I visited in Clinton was the Duck Harbor, which has a beautiful view of Coachlace Pond.

In the town of Stow, the first place I went to was Spindle Hill. The rough path I took here to try to get to the top of the hill is shown below in black.

On my first attempt, I tried to get to the hill via Gates Lane, but the place was so overgrown that I gave up. I then decided to try to head in from the Wheeler Road side instead. I was able to follow the path for a bit, and then got lost on a side trail that led me all the way back to Gates Lane. Determined to get to the top of the hill, I backtracked to the stipulated path with the help of the GPS on my phone. Finding only overgrown paths, I pushed on in the right direction, bashing through the trees to get higher. I did manage to find signs indicating I was on Stow Conservation Land, so I knew I was on the right path. However, there were no views to be had at the top of the hill. Not wanting to go back the way I had come, I happened to notice a tower in the vicinity, and after checking my GPS, I realized there was a path from it leading to Wheeler Road, so I bashed through to it, and managed to walk on the road back to Wheeler Road and back to my car. A waste of time, but what an adventure.

From here, I headed to visit a few other places in town

Fletcher's Pond, 9 Box Mill Road

Minister's Pond, 290 Great Road

White Pond, 581 Sudbury Road

including the beautiful town beach at the Pine Bluffs Recreation Area.

At this point, my friend told me that she wanted to have Bo 7 Mon (7 Courses of Beef) at Pho Le in the Dorchester area of Boston.

After picking her up, we headed to the restaurant, which was right next to another Vietnamese restaurant. There were a lot of Vietnamese families eating here today.

I've had Bo 7 Mon at Pho Hoa in Malden before, but had a feeling that the courses might be different at this new place, and they were a little different.

Beef Salad (Goi Bo)

Beef Fondue (Bo Nhung Dam)

Grilled Sesame Beef with Butter (Bo Nuong Bo)

Beef Porridge (Chao Bo)

from left, Grilled Scallion Beef (Bo Nuong Hanh),
Beef Meatball (Cha Dum),
Grilled Beef in Betel Leaf (Bo Nuong La Lot)

I have to say, all the dishes were exceptionally good, especially with my Vietnamese friend to tell me how to eat them. The Mung Bean Smoothie I got and the Mango Smoothie my friend got were also pretty good.

Mung Bean Smoothie (Dau Xanh)

After a delicious lunch, I decided to go candlepin bowling with my friend, as she had never done it before. We did this at the South Boston Candlepin, a typical candlepin bowling place with manual scoring and resetting of pins.

As always with beginners, they have the luck of winning, but thankfully I somehow managed to win the last game of 3.

From here, we headed to dinner in the town of Stoneham at Melissa's Main Street Bistro, a small upscale restaurant in a small town setting.

We decided to get the Prosciutto and Asparagus in Puff Pastry Drizzled with Balsamic Glaze for an appetizer to start things off.

It was a little burnt though, so we did not enjoy the dish very much.

For our main dishes, I got the Pan Roasted Duck Breast (spinach, mushroom and pecan wood smoked bacon risotto, port wine and fig glaze), and the Braised Beef Short Ribs (Homemade mashed potato and sauteed spinach).

Pan Roasted Duck Breast

Braised Beef Short Ribs

Both dishes were actually really good, the duck going well with the sauce, and the beef being really tender as well.

Overall, a pretty good meal if not for the burnt appetizer.

With that, we called it a night as we were still not feeling well. Time to go back to work tomorrow.

Recommended Places to Visit: Stow

Recreation

Water Bodies
Fletcher's Pond
9 Box Mill Road

Minister's Pond
290 Great Road

White Pond
581 Sudbury Road


Beaches

Pine Bluffs Recreation Area
289 Sudbury Road


Hiking
Delaney Wildlife Management Area
Harvard Road near Delaney Road

Architecture

Monuments

War Memorials
Great Road and Hartley Road

Places of Worship

Union Church of Stow
317 Great Road

St. Isidore Church
429 Great Road

First Parish Church of Stow and Acton
353 Great Road

Town Facilities
Massachusetts Firefighting Academy
1 State Road

Schools
Stow Center School
403 Great Road


Historical Buildings

The Collings Foundation
137 Barton Road

Stowaway Inn
271 Great Road

Restaurants

Highly Recommended:
Breakfast
Nancy's Air Field Cafe
302 Boxboro Road
Recommended Dishes:
Pecan Sticky Toffee Pudding

May 8th 2013: Ice Cream at Cabot's Ice Cream and Restaurant, Newton

Today after work, I had a meetup dinner at Cabot's Ice Cream and Restaurant in Newton to go to. Before that, I decided to go find a natural waterfall, the Danforth Falls, located in the town of Hudson.

After parking in front of the sign for the Danforth Falls Conservation Area at the junction of Lincoln Street near Bradford Road, the rough path I took to find the waterfall and get back to my car is shown below in pink.

Walking to find the waterfall was a pretty easy trek, just making sure that the Danforth Brook was always on my right. When I got to the waterfall, I wasn't sure whether it was the actual falls or not, as it looked more like a series of rapids than an actual waterfall, as you can see from my picture.

My GPS wasn't working properly, so I could not tell that I was at the spot where the waterfall was supposed to be, and I also got lost on the way back as a result, emerging at the Farley School down south instead, and having to walk along Packard Road to get back to Lincoln Street and subsequently my car.

Thankfully, I was able to verify that I had seen the falls from Youtube videos, and I was able to spot the exact same rocks in the video that were in my picture as well.

Overall though, I would say this waterfall is not worth the trek.

On the way to Newton for my meetup event, I passed by a the Assabet River Rail Trail in Hudson,

Stow,

Massachusetts Firefighting Academy,
1 State Road

and Sudbury.

Sudbury Fire Department

Finally, it was time to head to dinner. I ended up being a little late due to being stuck in traffic. Cabot's looks like a retro ice cream cafe, and there were a lot of people here today. After finding my friends, I decided to get the Deli-Style Corned Beef Hash (with pot of Boston baked beans and brown bread) for food, and with the exception of the bread, which was a little too sweet and dark for me, the hash was actually pretty good, especially with the good presentation.

Next, it was time to order ice cream, and we all got fudge sundaes, mine with Moose Tracks and Butter Crunch Ice Cream, topped with Butterfinger crumbs and melted marshmallow in place of whipped cream, which came out dripping down the sides of the cup, solidified, and looking pretty cool.

My Sundae

After a while I could not take the extreme sweetness of my sundae and had to stop gobbling it down. Overall, a pretty fun experience enjoying ice cream with friends.

February 13th 2013: The Harlem Globetrotters at Tsongas Center, Lowell

Today, I was forced to take the day off from work as I had a doctor's appointment in the morning in Lexington, and tickets to go watch the Harlem Globetrotters at the Tsongas Center in Lowell later this evening.

I decided not to waste the day away, waking up early and passing through several towns on my way to Lexington, including Berlin,

St. Joseph the Good Provider Church,
52 West Street

Bolton,

First Parish of Bolton

Trinity Church

Stow, 

St. Isidore Church

The Center School

First Parish Church of Stow and Acton

The Stowaway Inn

Maynard,

Maynard Town Hall, 195 Main Street

Union Congregational Church

Holy Annunciation Orthodox Church

Charles A Welch Lodge, 100 Main Street

Mission Evangelical Congregational Church

and Sudbury.

St. John Evangelical Lutheran Church

Sudbury United Methodist Church

First Parish of Sudbury

After my doctor's appointment in Lexington, I did some sightseeing in town before heading to Arlington to have lunch at the Blue Ribbon BBQ.

Pilgrim Congregational Church

Countryside Bible Chapel

Lexington United Methodist Church

St. Paul Evangelical Church

Trinity Covenant Church

Blue Ribbon BBQ a typical looking BBQ place, though more like a takeout than a sit-in place. Having $15 to spend, I decided to get the Trio Platter with Pulled Pork, Pork Ribs and Beef Brisket, and poured samples of every sauce available to try.

The Sauces

Trio Platter

The meat was actually really fresh and good, with the ribs just falling off the bone easily. Some of the sauces were a little too spicy for me though.

After my lunch I resumed my sightseeing, passing through Winchester,

First Church of Christ, Scientist

and Stoneham.

All Saint's Episcopal Church

In Stoneham, after taking pictures of the places I had missed out on before, I decided to grab my pizza dinner from Amore Pizza in town, ordering the Italian Cold Cuts Pizza, consisting of provolone, hot ham, mortadella, and salami, the Spicy Sausage Roll-Up, containing garlic, pickles and tomatoes, and the Coated Skinny Fries, all to use up my $15 groupon.

Italian Cold Cuts Pizza

Coated Fries

Spicy Sausage Roll-Up

All 3 were just so-so from a typical pizzeria.

From here, I headed into Burlington,

Fellowship Bible Church

St. Mark's Episcopal Church

Wilmington,

St. Elizabeth Episcopal Chapel

Grace Chapel

Billerica,

Community Congregational Church

New Colony Baptist Church

North Billerica Baptist Church

and finally Tewksbury,

John F Ryan School

Tewksbury Public Schools

Tewksbury Police Headquarters

Tewksbury Public Library

St. William's Church

Tewksbury Country Club

First Baptist Church

Tewksbury United Methodist Church

Lowell Assembly of God

before heading into Lowell where the Harlem Globetrotters would be playing.

First Church of Christ, Scientist,
195 Andover Street

Kittredge Park,
Chestnut Street and Park Street

St. Michael's Church

5th Street Baptist Church

Centralville United Methodist Church

Spanish Church of the Nazarene,
51 1st Street

Dick Lepine Real Estate

Finally, I decided it was too dark to take any more pictures, so I headed to the Tsongas Center within the campus of UMass Lowell to go see the Harlem Globetrotters.

I managed to find free parking nearby, thankfully, and headed into the building to collect my tickets.

Tsongas Center at night

Picture of Paul Eftemios Tsongas

Inside the Tsongas Center

The Concession Stand

When I entered the basketball arena, there was already a basketball game going on between 2 sets of kids, and they were pretty good actually (much better than me, at least).

After the game ended, I decided to head down where they were selling Harlem Globetrotter merchandise, and I decided to get a Harlem Globetrotters Basketball for myself.

Soon after, the event started. The announcer mentioned that the trophy on the sidelines would be awarded to the winner of the game, which would have different new rules added to each quarter in the basketball game to make things more interesting.

The mascot of the team, Globie, first came out and performed a "magic" trick, where he had 4 people sit on chairs in a tight circle, and after getting them to lie down on each other's laps, he removed all the chairs until there were none left, and the people still stayed in position. Pretty cool stuff.

Globie

Starting the Magic Trick

Time to pull out the chairs

No Chairs!!

Pulling out the last chair

After that, it was time for some cool breakdancing moves, with Globie pretending he was Michael Jackson.

Michael Jackson impression by Globie

Soon after, the Globetrotters themselves arrived on court and introduced themselves, doing cool basketball tricks all the while.

The game then started, with the new rule for the first quarter being that people could shoot 4-point shots from 4 spots on the court far beyond the 3 point range, and the players were actually pretty good at that. Other funny stuff included the players climbing up the nets and disrupting play and aggravating the referee.

Hanging from the basket

Doing a funny walk

Handler's Signature Pose

Free Throw Time

During timeouts, there would be entertaining performances as well, sometimes including the audience.

Girl Twirling a ball

An especially funny part was when a large balloon mascot, Big G, came out and started breakdancing.

The second quarter had every shot points doubled for the entire quarter. One player climbed up the net and stayed up there regardless of the referee asking him to come down, which was pretty hilarious.

They also tore the clothes off an opponent.

The new rule in the third quarter was to play with 2 balls for the first 2 minutes. The players were actually pretty skillful at manipulating and playing with 2 balls sometimes my themselves and scoring as well. The balls were pink to symbolize the fight against breast cancer as well.

Other antics followed.

During another break, the players got the audience to dance to the cult song YMCA.

After that, they got a kid to mimick the players' moves in order to win a T-shirt, and he actually did a really good job. The guy he was trying to mimic could not resist laughing after a while. They gave him the shirt of course.

The game soon ended after that, the fourth quarter having 4-point shots like the first one. It was then time for autographs, which I decided to get on my ball from Globie, since that name was more significant than the players' names.

Moose Signing Autographs

Globie Signing Autographs

My Signed Ball

With that, I headed home, happy that I finally managed to get to watch the Harlem Globetrotters. They were very funny, although towards the end, their basketball antics kinda got a little old.