How I Spent my Friday

We've had a week of nice weather, so yesterday Chris and I decided to take advantage of the 75 degree temperature and head outside. A few weeks ago I had seen something on Boston.com about The Keystone Arch Bridges in Chester, MA. So, we drove the two hours to Chester to go for a walk.

It was roughly a five-mile walk plus some detours to check out the bridges. These used to be old railway bridges, but the line was changed and most of them are no longer in use. The walk went on an old carriage round, through the woods, and along the old train line. We also took our own detours following the current line.

It was interesting to see how there was still snow and ice in some patches. Definitely felt strange given the temperatures and our attire, but they were primarily in shady spots. And this is New England. It can still be cold here. Actually, I’ve pretty much realized that it doesn’t stay consistently nice and warm until after Memorial Day.

So anyway, here are some photos from the walk.

Here we have the map at the start of the trail. It's a good thing I took a picture of this as well as the part of the sign indicating what the numbers meant as there were no other maps to carry and there were times we wanted to investigate where we were and we were able to consult the camera.





Here is Chris and I on top of the first bridge that we came to. The next couple are all of that same bridge from various angles.









Next we came across this retaining wall. It was interesting getting into places to take some of these pictures. These I was leaning against a tree and if I had slipped I would have gone down a rather high cliff.








Next up was another single arch bridge. This was was about 5 feet taller than the first one. We liked how the stones of the buttresses were going at a different angle. I think you can see that in the picture with Chris.








Here's some of that ice I was talking about.











This next bridge we didn't really get to go see that much. It's not officially part of the walk because you need to cross the active rail line to get to it. What's kind of interesting about it is that when they moved the rail line, in this spot it is very close to the old line. The grass you see in the front of the picture is from the edge of the embankment of the new bridge. The bridge in the back is the old one. By this point we were getting kind of tired and didn't want to have to trek through the woods to get pictures and then have to climb back up again. The climbing back up was really what was holding us back.




One more bridge- this one a double keystone. And as you can see, I'm doing my best to keep it standing up.


And finally, just a mixture of other pictures. Some trees that caught my eye, an old abandoned car, a pile of rusty bolts (actually saw similar piles at a couple of different points), and my tattoo/sock combo.