Until then, in the spirit of weekends past, I thought I’d share some pictures from a couple weekends ago.  We headed out to Great Brook Farm State Park west of Boston for some biking and icecream.  It was surprisingly difficult figuring out where to go.  From a first glance, the NE seems very different than most other parts of the country… there aren’t as many state / national parks here.  I guess all the land was already owned (and occupied) before the government could acquisition it.  Anyway, Great Brook is essentially a bog:

Trail at Great Brook

A bog with nicely landscaped trails, a thousand visitors a day, and a trillion mosquitos: we biked around for about 15 minutes and dashed back to the car with red welts all over our bodies.  There’s also a functioning dairy farm within the park:

Mooooooooo...

Some good (overpriced) icecream there, but the excitement of watching cows sleep and eat made it all worth it.  We went out and sat down in the sun by the pond to enjoy the calories:

Pond at Great Brook

Nice hardcore biking trip with lots of exercise, right?  Honestly, it’s just hard to do anything in Boston.  I thought it would be easier with all the people packed in, but all it means is that it takes 2 hrs+ to get to a tiny crowded park less than 50 miles from the city.  Ok, enough complaining — it was a gorgeous weekend, and as I get ready for the retreat this afternoon, I’m sure I wish I could go back and add another 40 degrees to the thermometer.