On my way back home from my Dad’s birthday gathering in Upton where we visited Northbridge, I had a little bit of daylight left and thought that I had enough time to actually visit another town before it got dark. In looking at my route home and figuring out which towns I hadn’t visited yet, I set my sights to go through Hopkinton and visit Ashland.
I managed to find the town center, as it’s not on a numbered route, and found a really cool town clock/sculpture that was in the middle of town. Just as I was about to take my picture with it, the railroad crossing signs started flashing and ringing, and a huge train came through town. You can see it in my picture behind me. It wasn’t a commuter train, but an long haul working train. There was a cool little train station that had been converted to doctor’s offices, so I can image a time when the trains came through and stopped for people. I don’t know if you can still get a commuter train into Boston from here, but I’m pretty sure that somewhere in Ashland the MBTA has a stop.
It was a nice downtown, with a lot of while buildings. Not terribly busy on a lazy summer evening at dusk, but you had your standard pizza shop and municipal buildings. There were kids riding there bikes, and while there was a decent amount of traffic, it didn’t seem that busy. Again, this was a town center that was not on the main route to somewhere else. Next to the library, there was a cannon and a monument to a time capsule that they had buried at the town’s 150th anniversary in 1996. It was to be reopened on the 200th anniversary in 2046.
So, when have you planned for the future that you don’t think you’ll see?
