Day 62 - Auburn to Lowell - Two Far 2022 - Reunion Bound (the long way around)

June 10, 2022

Day 62 - Auburn to Lowell

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Yesterday's rain cleared out and we had a beautiful, sunny day for our ride. We even had a tailwind almost all day!

There were a few busy urban miles leaving Auburn, but most of our route today was through small towns.

In North Grafton, we rode past Tufts University veterinary school.

The Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine

Chairs set out under the trees look inviting for academic discussions or just visiting with friends.

This view to the west shows some of the hills we hope to be soon leaving behind.

We were lucky and had no detours and no unexpected unpaved roads today. The closest we came was passing this driveway paving job in progress. It smelled terrible!

As Bob Distelberg commented the other day, stone walls are ubiquitous in New England. The large property had a sone wall all along its road frontage and then some large stones placed in the middle of the lawn.

Some significance? Pointing the way to the house?

At the top of one of today's big climbs, we went past the Nashoba Valley Winery. We didn't stop, as we had something more tempting on the horizon.

The Nashoba Valley Winery is in a beautiful setting.

Near Littleton, we saw this architecturally unlikely house. I looked it up online and found that it is known locally as the "Acid House".

When Kerry was stationed at nearby Ft. Devens in 1976, we used to visit a dairy in Westford for great ice cream. Kimball Farm sold ice cream from windows in what I remember as looking like an old barn. The scoops were huge. Parking was across the street in a dirt lot. We visited again today. The place is huge now with a "seafood shack" grill and numerous family activities. The ice cream is still great and the scoops are still huge. We got the Kimball Special and when the girl told is it was three softball size scoops, she was right. We looked at all that ice cream and knew we could never eat it all...

Kerry waves the spoon in defeat before it is quite all gone.

We were pleased to find a rail trail to take us into Lowell.

A lush green trail runs right into the city.

Once we got off the trail, we had less than three miles to our hotel on the UMass campus. We had to negotiate some busy streets, but it wasn't bad. The hotel here is very nice and it is an easy walk to the museums we are planning to visit tomorrow.

Today's ride: 53 miles (85 km)
Total: 2,132 miles (3,431 km)

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