It's Sunday. For the past two years (well, almost two years) Carol and I have been heading our each Sunday morning to a new area within an hour of the house and going for a hike. We stop before we hike and have breakfast as some local diner near the chosen hiking spot. Today we ate breakfast at a diner in Wareham, Massachusetts called 'The Mill Pond Diner'. As it turned out, this is not a diner we would recommend. The food was not up to expectations and the service was worse. . . Next time maybe we will have more success.
So after breakfast it was off to the Miles Standish State Forest in Carver, Massachusetts. At the forest's Interpretive center we met a Park Ranger named Dan who was very knowledgeable and very helpful. He was also an amazingly enthusiastic ranger, this man loves his job. On his suggestion we selected the blue trail which is a 2.6 mile trail around East Head Pond. Ranger Dan assured us that we would find a variety of wildlife along the trail, including numerous frogs and turtles. The trail is indeed an easy and beautiful path around the pond. No steep climbs or rock outcroppings here, but a beautiful forest with a wide variety of foliage and wild flowers...but not a turtle or frog in sight.
For the first couple of miles we thought for certain that we were the only people in the forest. It was only in the last half a mile that we found others on the trail. We did find a sea of yellow flowers poking above the water in the pond and little white flowers along the trail, ferns unfolding to embrace the spring. Carol's keen eyes spotted a lone Lady Slipper standing proud in the the sunlight along a boardwalk through a bog. Below are some photos from the day. A visit to Miles Standish State forest should be on everyone's list of things to do.
