Manchester Community College Leg

For the second "official" leg of our journey on the East Coast Greenway, we chose the little 1 mile loop of the trail that traverses the Manchester Community College woods in Manchester, Connecticut.  (You can see the campus buildings behind us in this photo.)  It was a gray day, 56 degrees F and quite windy for our mid-day walk, threatening rain.  (And it indeed shall rain, but not until after we finished walking.)

While we are counting this as our official traversing of this leg, it is a trail we have walked before, and in fact was how we initially found out about the East Coast Greenway, so it's a location we hold near and dear to our hearts.

Above, the trail winds through a planted stand of red pines.

Below, the trail runs alongside the main entrance road to the college.

After crossing the road, the trail skirts the campus perimeter.  The strong winds dotted our path with fallen maple flowers.

Above, the trail also takes us past the campus' solar panel array. 

Below, when we walked this trail last week,  we saw a pileated woodpecker feeding on the dead trees in this little stand.  Today it was full of migrating robins, blackbirds and sparrows.

3.5 miles down, 2996.5 to go!!