Skyline Trail, Blue Hills, MA

Saturday 5-15-10: A fabulous day of 73 degrees and lots of sun. Sheeba and I started at Shea Rink and walked the Skyline Trail west to the Trailside Museum. A few Daddy Long-legs type insects, bumblebees, butterflies and a chipmunk sighting. Surprisingly hot, and I finished my entire 2L of water! At end, an enjoyable tour of The Mass. Audubon's natural history museum, including a playful female otter, turkey vultures and a snowy owl.

~ 9 miles, unknown elevation gain, 5 hours (lunch and breaks included)
Summits: 6 hills, including Great Blue (635 feet)
Route: Skyline Trail from Shea Rink in Quincy, southern Skyline Trail from Reservation HQ to Eliot Tower, and Red Dot Trail to Trailside Museum on Route 138

Whitney and Thayer Woods, Hingham, MA

Sunday 5-9-10: This meander through the Trustees of Reservations property in Hingham was a delight. Notable sights included colorful blooming azaleas, sensual lady slippers, an American holly grove, a lily-of-the-valley field, a quarter-mile of head-high rhododendrons, and some fiddleheads from newly emerging ferns. Several glacial erratics dot the landscape, including a grouping called Ode’s Den.

Our lunch spot on Turkey Hill gave us spectacular vistas of Boston's skyline and Nantasket Beach.

At the Weir River Farm, we saw a bright-red barn, 4 horses, a camel-colored llama, about 7 black-and-white cows laying in the shade, and a large sooty gray pig!

Thanks to AMC leader Beth Mosais.

~7.5 miles
minimal elevation gain
Turkey Hill = 187-foot high

The secret island getaway

May 1-2, 2010: My friend made me swear not to tell everyone about this wonderfully relaxing getaway near Boston. No restaurants. No bars. No shopping. The only things to do were walk, talk, beachcomb, read, cook and sleep. Not even a TV! A great place for a low-key family vacation or friends' weekend.

The rabbit population was fairly fearless. Daffodils dotted the island. And we listened to the sounds of nature thanks to one of the New Age stations on Pandora via my iPhone.

As it was off-season, the only market on the island was open for precisely one hour -- from 3:30pm to 4:30pm -- on Saturday. There was no fresh fish or meat to be had. So Saturday night dinner consisted of a yummy cheese omelet over wilted spinach, sweet potatoes and black beans and rice. And a nice bottle of Tavel rose which I'd had the foresight to bring over.

What a relaxing weekend! I needed the R&R. Just what the doctor ordered. Oh, ask nicely and I'll tell you where it is :-)

Of Snakes and Carnivorous Plants in the Blue Hills

4-24-10. Walking around Ponkapoag Pond in the Blue Hills (10 miles south of Boston, MA), we spotted several of these vicious-looking snakes, basking in the sun on the rocks at water's edge. When disturbed, one of them slithered into the water and swam quite gracefully away.

Like hundreds of others, we initially mistook this non-venomous snake as a cottonmouth or water moccasin. With a quick check on our iPhone, we learned it wasn't a cottonmouth at all. Later, at home, I discovered it was a common snake, the Northern Water Snake (Nerodia sipedon).

The Northern Water Snake is common in the eastern U.S. It inhabits lakes, ponds, rivers, and streams of many sizes. They are active both day and night, hunting for small fish, frogs, worms, leeches, crayfish, salamanders and young turtles. They also control populations of smaller animals, such as mice. Otherwise, the walk was relatively bereft of wildlife -- no birds at all and only a few chipmunks, butterflies and a bumblebee. But Pam, Pete, Jane and Claire enjoyed the green dot trail, the AMC cabins and the numerous granite rock outcroppings nonetheless.

Claire and I waded out on the Ponkapoag Bog Boardwalk and found ourselves behind a group being led by a Harvard University biologist. Thus we learned about and saw firsthand two carnivorous plants - the pitcher plant and bladderwort. Unfortunately I didn't take photos of either.

The bladderwort, typically found in acidic, shallow freshwater where nutrients are scarce, supplements its diet with an occasional insect or other small organism. It does this by trapping small aquatic creatures in its small oval bladders, which are attached to the underwater capillary-like leaves. When prey touches the trigger hairs, the bladder expands, sucking in the animal. It is then dissolved within the bladder.

Jennings Peak in the Sandwich Range (NH)

3-7-10. Grand views of Mt. Washington and the Tripyramids greeted us when Sheeba and I summited Jennings Peak in NH's Sandwich Range. We could even see Wildcat Mountain in the distance.

It was a great day trip, and the weather couldn't have been better. 40s on the way up and 38 at the top -- with no wind!

The trail was fairly packed down, so we barebooted it most of the way up, only donning snowshoes near the trail junction with Sandwich Mountain Trail. The last stretch to the peak is really really steep!

We enjoyed a leisurely lunch before heading down. I glissaded down most of the steep upper part! Glissading is the usually voluntary act of descending a steep slope of snow. You simply sit down and slide! I admit that sometimes my glissading was involuntary -- the result of a slip and fall where it seemed sensible to continue down that way. Regardless, it's quite an effective alternative to plunge or side-stepping and also cuts down on descent time. More importantly, it's FUN! Fills you with glee.

7 miles, 2,100' elevation gain (3-1/2 hours up; 2-1/4 hrs down)
Summit: Jennings Peak (3,440' high)
Route: Drakes Brook Trail both ways (another hiker warned that the alternate route up, using the Sandwich Mtn Trail and going over Noon Peak, is "brutally steep")

The next U2? Silversun Pickups

Surprisingly, nearly every seat in the massive TD Garden was full for Silversun Pickups, the warm-up band for headliner Muse on Saturday 3-6-10.

They only played for 45 minutes, but their ending salvo of two of their most popular songs -- Panic Switch and Lazy Eye -- had the audience on their feet.

IMHO, this could be the next U2.

Muse - live in Boston

What a fantastic show! Energetic. Extravagant. Exciting. Their music is, to me, a compelling blend of several music genres. I hear Depeche Mode, Queen, Nirvana, even System of a Down. Hearing Matthew Bellamy's sometimes falsetto voice in concert was thrilling.

They delighted the audience by dropping huge balls that were designed to look like eyeballs. After a few bounces around, they popped, spreading red confetti everywhere.

I had spectacular seats in the sixth row, right beside the stage!