Publicizing my latest book, Finding Easy Walks Wherever You Are, has been taking up a lot of my energy, so it was wonderful to get out on the trail with local grands over the weekend to help them enjoy the temporary Storywalk® posted along the trail at the SNETT in Bellingham near the Center Street entrance to the trail. New storywalks® will be posted each month
This handicapped accessible portion of the rail trail is busy these days, and got busier shortly after we’d finished reading the story when a group of folks hit the trail with the Franklin & Bellingham rail trail committee. Fortunately the trail is quite flat, wide, with extra space on each side of the stone dust trail where we could step off safely as groups of folks passed by. Most walkers wore masks, which we really appreciated.
The grands are both able to read these days, so it was fun to see them taking in the story page by page then rushing on to the next page of the story. They also took in the new signs posted by the rail trail committee, in cooperation with DCR, to identify various tree species along the trail. We got a little practice with our Latin as we walked.
Trolley Crossing Farm, which abuts the trail, has a produce stand next to the trail and local pumpkins were available.
The snag–you have to carry them back to the car with you.
My grands used some ingenuity to figure out a handy way to carry their small pumpkins, or as one said, her “pumpkinette.”
I had been on this same trail just the other day to tape another episode of our new Cable TV show, “Finding Easy Walks Wherever You Are.” We wanted to highlight the storywalk® and learned about more railroad history from the rail trail committee member who walked with us that day.
It’s fun to travel, but it’s also wonderful to slip in short walks right around the corner from where we live. We are so lucky to have this great trail, still under development, available to visit whenever we want. Happy trails!
Marjorie
Marjorie Turner Hollman is a writer who loves the outdoors, and is the author of Easy Walks in Massachusetts, 2nd edition, More Easy Walks in Massachusetts, 2nd edition, Easy Walks and Paddles in the Ten Mile River Watershed, and Finding Easy Walks Wherever You Are. Her memoir, the backstory of Easy Walks, is My Liturgy of Easy Walks: Reclaiming hope in a world turned upside down.
Marjorie Turner Hollman 