2012-02-29 42 -71

Failed hash in Newton, MA.

Location

Probably on someone's driveway
Near Lost Pond Reservation
Border of Newton, MA and Brookline, MA

Participants

Phyzome plans to attend -- poke on IRC or userpage to coordinate!

Plans

Phyzome: I plan on taking the Green Line out after work, maybe starting around 4:30. I'll either walk from there or take bus 60 to get closer. If I walk through the woods, I can shave 0.7 miles off the walk from the Green Line. Will bring chocolate.

Expedition

Phyzome:

I left work at around 16:45 EST (dusk), taking the Red Line to Park Street, then the Green Line (D/Riverside) out to Brookline Hills. My planning was kind of terrible, so my photos of Google Maps (which I use in lieu of a proper streetmap-integrated GPS) did not include how to get from the T station to bus 60. By the time I figured it out (using a map I still had loaded in my browser on my laptop) I had just missed the bus, and had to wait for about 20 minutes. The bus dropped me off in some commercial mall-hell thingy, and I wandered down to "Boylston St", which is a highway in its own right at that point, and started west. My old, crappy GPS didn't see much in the way of satellites, but I knew my turn-off to the south was Dudley Rd.

As I walked west, I noted the fence running down the middle of the divided highway. I really should have paid more attention to that. I only encountered one crossing, halfway to Dudley Rd... *including* Dudley Rd. Oops! Backtrack, cross, walk west again. Finally.

The second photo of the gallery is there to commemorate my learning two lessons:

Cross highways as soon as possible, you may not get another chance
Dial down the flash when photographing retroreflective materials

Dudley Road had some pretty fancy houses on it. I must have looked pretty out of place, walking at night in the snow along the road. I finally found the field I had forgotten to look for and wandered up the shared driveway... and damn, rhododendrons. A big pile of them, covered in snow, at night, in front of someone's house. I wasn't going to stomp around, breaking plants and getting covered in slush and maybe freaking someone out, so I called it a night and trudged back the way I had come. And you know? It was really pretty out, with the light snowfall -- I hadn't noticed so much on the way to the hashpoint.

The walk back to the bus was uneventful, other than seeing it leave about a minute before I got to the stop. Sigh. Another 30 minute wait. I've posted a photo of fliers attached to the bus stop signpost -- the MBTA is threatening fare hikes (annoying) and service cuts (bad!) due to budget shortfalls. This bus route might get eliminated entirely! Ew.

Bus 60 to Kenmore, Green Line, Red Line, walk home. 21:30 EST. Even though I didn't reach the point, I'm glad that I attempted it. It has been a while, and the new surroundings were a refreshing change.

Photos

Waiting for the bus
Hasher-Proof Fence (2 lessons learned)
Rhodo-blocked
And "no trespassing"
Not making it: The tracklog edition
At least it was snowing
Stupid sneaky bus
Should I write in about the expedition? :-P


Wed 29 Feb 2012 in 42,-71: 42.3129303, -71.1794689 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox