I found myself with a little midday riding time on Thanksgiving Day, and took the Rawland for a
26-mile loop around Hanscom Field, through bits of Arlington, Lexington, Bedford, Concord, and Lincoln. Took the Minuteman out to Depot Park, noting (not for the first time) that it was busier than Mass. Ave. had been, so I took Mass. Ave. home on the return. That gave me a chance to check out the just-finished Complete Streets makeover in East Arlington, something that I'd driven and walked, but hadn't ridden.
Arlington Center, late morning: not much doing.
The
big game between AHS and Arlington Catholic drew a crowd on the Minuteman.
Contrasting aesthetics on Virginia Road, Concord: a front yard sculpture park with pieces assembled from recycled
objets trouvés...
... gave way, after a few dozen pedal strokes, to Xmas kitsch on an ambitious scale, complete with a small P.A. playing "Walking in a Winter Wonderland"...
... for some reason, the culturally-heterogeneous clusters of figures in that second front yard--here the Holy Family, there Mickey Mouse, etc.--reminded me of a
StarCraft scenario, and I left before hostilities broke out.
Hanscom had been busy that day, bizjets coming and going at a good clip, and the cloud-crowned sweeping rise opposite the SW edge of the runway purged any lingering toxic effects of exposure to the Plastic Wonderland from my system.
I noted the low water at the N end of the Cambridge Reservoir; I suppose this is the dark side of so many good riding days over the last few weeks.
Robbins Cemetery, 462 Mass. Ave. in East Lexington, is a pocket-sized 18th Century gem.
Mass. Ave. was empty. I was thankful.
The East Arlington project included a needed complete repaving, a reduction of lanes from 4 to 3 (should have been 2, but local oral tradition has it that somebody panicked about back ups at the merge and slipped that change in too late in the process for adequate review, tsk...), bump outs and islands at key pedestrian crossings, more lights, and new bike lanes that appear to have adequate offsets (but time will tell). As with all traffic calming measures, it makes some folks frantic, but I like it fine.
Rolled home on the eerily depopulated Mass. Ave., ran a short errand to feed my travelling son's cat, and accompanied Ellen to her brother's house for a tasty and cheerful Thanksgiving dinner.
rod