Charter Oak Park to Prospect Street, Manchester, Leg

 

So much for summer weather, we are definitely back to normal April weather for Connecticut -- warmish when the sun is shining, coolish when it's cloudy,  and windy as can be.  Good day for a walk on the East Coast Greenway!!  This 1 mile + stretch runs from Charter Oak Park in Manchester (where we walked from in the opposite direction last Sunday) to Prospect Street (where we started Friday's walk). The Map Man joined us, as he's been doing on the weekends, but instead of bringing 2 vehicles for a one-way walk, we looped around to walk back to the park along Hartford Road, bringing our total walk to a little more than 2 miles, although only 1 mile will count towards our Greenway total.  But that's all we needed to connect other segments that we've already walked.

Above and below, a wonderful map mural of the Greenway.  We have walked the entire length of the Charter Oak Greenway (which is a part of the East Coast Greenway) depicted here. (There is a 2 mile stretch in the opposite direction that we still need to walk to complete the full trail.)

After leaving the park, the trail takes a sharp left to cross the highway on Main Street (above) and then travels down to street level along Rte 384 around a long loop (below).

The Hop Brook, above, and a Weeping Willow that grows alongside it, below.

Discarded random art (in a discarded shopping cart -- does that make it cart art?) under a bridge abutment above, below discarded random bread (photo taken expressly for Jeff, because years of him being forced to walk with us during our childhood tells me that this would have been the highlight for him if he was with us).  You never know what you're going to find on the trail.

Above, the end of this portion of the trail.  We walked back across the highway (straight ahead in this photo), which took us to Hartford Road and a small park dedicated to the Cheney Mills, below, where The Man enjoyed reading a history of the Cheney family, while the girl child enjoyed resting in the shade.

Above, our walk back to Charter Oak Park took us past the mill owners' mansions.  This had always been my favorite part of Manchester.  I've always thought I would have enjoyed living in the apartments that now occupy the mills. (Friends I have that have live there assure me that is not the case -- apparently soundproofing is not a thing there.  I'm pretty sure I would be happy living in one of the mansions, though!)

10ish miles down (whoot! Double digits!!), 2990ish to go.