A beautiful day to be out

Well, spring is finally here! As it was such a nice day outside, I decided to do two geocaches that were a bit of a hike. The first one was MA Ghost Town. This is in the Quabbin Reservoir area, which was originally the site of several towns, until they evacuated them all to make room for Boston's water supply. A good site for the history of it can be found here. The walk in was great, with the warm sun, the snow melting, and a pleasant stroll through the country. The cache itself was a virtual, which, technically, they cannot list anymore, so the hider placed a physical cache with the coords to the final (and other areas) in a can, that you can log after you make it to Dana Common.
Walking up this old road, one has time to ponder (it IS a 2 mile walk, after all) how much effort it must have taken these people to build towns back then. All that was made was done by manual labor; the rock walls New England is famous for, old cellar holes, dug by hand, foundations, with stones weighing more than the people moving them, even the wood was gathered locally. I cannot begin imagine how all these townfolk, from all the towns they were forced to abandon, must have felt to be relocated from what they built with their own hands. There were churches, schools, cemetaries, inns, as well as the farms & dwellings. There was even an old railroad that ran by here. But, their sacrifice has given us a beautiful place to walk, a controlled area for both forestry & wildlife, and has probably spawned more than a few ghost tales.
The second cache I went after was Harvard Forest. A more complete history of the forest can be found at this website. The walk, again, was about 2 miles one way, but well worth it. The route takes you around the pond, following a road. The road was a mix of dry forest floor, mud, slush, and combinations of the last two. This one also took about 2 hours to complete, but, I am a slow walker, and paused for several pictures.
Well, thats about all I have for now. I decided to take the day & do some caching instead of homework, so, now, I am once again behind. I am thinking that, this week, I will compare my two gear setups (ultralight & bushcraft) and post them here. So, until then, get outside!