Inside HBS » park http://www.insidehbs.com Harvard Business School, MBA Blog Wed, 20 Oct 2010 14:15:52 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 Fort Independence Park http://www.insidehbs.com/fort-independence-park/ http://www.insidehbs.com/fort-independence-park/#comments Tue, 14 Apr 2009 21:38:39 +0000 rob http://www.insidehbs.com/?p=348 Continue reading →]]> The first beautiful weekend of the year!  Weekends like this help me appreciate Boston.  After a long and dreary winter, it’s wonderful to lay out in the sun and feel like you’re in someplace with bearable weather.  Along the drive to Fort Independence, you pass through South Boston (Southie?).  We stopped in at the Sidewalk Cafe which has, quite possibly, the BEST breakfast sandwiches I’ve ever had in my life.  Highly recommended.  Fort Independence itself is a big fort:

The Wind-Blocking Walls

The Wind-Blocking Walls

I can’t really say all that much about the history, but the star-shape offers nice stretches of grassy field that are blocked from the wind!  That’s the essential element for not freezing in Boston.

We lazed around for a while and enjoyed our high-calorie breakfast sandwiches, the sun, and a few cases.  While everyone talks about reading cases on car trips and in parks, as much as I’ve tried, I’ve never been able to do that very effectively.  Regardless, it was a beautiful weekend:

Beautiful Vista of the Harbor

Beautiful Vista of the Harbor

100,000 People Agreed

100,000 People Agreed

Oh, and there was one crazy guy trying to swim.  Seriously, the water must be 32.5 degrees F or something.  Weird Northeasterners…

Seriously, Swimming?

Seriously, Swimming?

]]> http://www.insidehbs.com/fort-independence-park/feed/ 0 Retreat and Great Brook Farm http://www.insidehbs.com/retreat-and-great-brook-farm/ http://www.insidehbs.com/retreat-and-great-brook-farm/#comments Fri, 24 Oct 2008 18:57:43 +0000 rob http://www.insidehbs.com/?p=122 Continue reading →]]> I’m headed off this weekend on a “section retreat” with my 89 closest friends to the VT mountains.  I’m sure it will be 3 days and 2 nights of exciting campfire s’mores and board games. :)   Well, maybe not quite, but it’ll be interesting to see how such a large crowd will fit (and self-organize) within a single mountain resort.  I’ll try to come back with a full report (in-between figuring out how to prepare 15 cases for next week without a weekend break).

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

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:

Dairy Farm at Great Brook

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

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.

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