After the eclipse on Monday, a friend and I decided to make the most of the nice weather. We took a walk through the trails in the woods at the back of campus. Neither one of us had ever been before, but both of us had been looking forward to trying them since we heard of them this winter. While the trails were not exactly what we had expected, we agreed that they were a much-needed way to reconnect with nature and get away from campus for a while.
We entered the woods off of the main drive leading to the dorms on the “White Trail” that took us along the slope closer to the edge of Worcester. Although the plants are not fully in bloom, we were able to see a bud here and there, which made us much more excited to come back later in the season. Unfortunately, the trail seemed to be leading us towards the street so we switched onto the “Purple Trail,” which led us behind a house—where a very large dog began to bark very loudly at us.
I have to say, this is definitely a far cry from the nature trails in my own town which lead along the coastline of a bay, removed from any residential or commercial areas. However, when we made it out of earshot of the dog, the path opened up and we came up to a small grassy hill behind the sports fields. We laid down on the grass here and listened to the birds chirp– until we were rudely interrupted by the horns and whistles of a lacrosse game. We took that as our cue to leave, and decided to return when—hopefully—no sports games are going on.
All in all, the trails were the perfect escape from campus and the busy environment there, despite them being somewhat noisy themselves. Since coming to Holy Cross and living in Worcester, I have found it much harder to find the time or space to walk, relax, or do activities in nature, but now I feel as though I have found something new to remedy that.