I hate you, Myles Standish. 5-11-2013

We had plans for today. We really did! We were going to hit Myles Standish tomorrow... still early in May, but warm enough for things to be happenin'! Rainy and cool. But today's plans fell through, so we decided to try our luck at Myles Standish today instead. It was supposed to be a bit warmer than tomorrow, so... why not?

Of course, this place is our worst nemesis. After some luck (and some alarmingly bad luck) on our first visit here (read all about that harrowing day here), we have never written this place off, even though we have grown to despise it!

Still, hope springs eternal and we got to our first stop there at about 10AM. It was cool and drizzly, but we thought that was to our advantage. Unfortunately, the vernal pond at our traditional first spot was dried up so, after an hour poking around, we came up empty.

Our next stop, Electric Toadland (a power-line cut that has been toad-centric in the past), got us a Redback Salamander.

OK- and we're off!

The College Pond lot was closed, but we wanted to look around some of the ponds across the street from there, so we parked just off road and peeked around. All of the ponds were low. Still, some Painted Turtles were out basking.



We made our way down to the water of that pond and it was filled with Toad tadpoles, or Toadpoles for those of you who  like to save syllables.



This Bullfrog was sitting there the whole time, enjoying our presence.


This Painted Turtle stayed alert but in the open as we got closer.


OK! Not too bad! On to the next spot!

We went to the "Bike Path", one of the few places to park. We headed up "3 Corner Pond Road" to hike. And hike. And hike. For two hours. We saw nothing, just like on the trails on the other side of this parking area. Plus, deja vu... there was no water around! Myles Standish has 13 fucking ponds! Where were they?! This exploratory expedition backfired.


This little bastard looked so happy with our misery.

It should be noted that it was raining on and off too. I put my camera away. I didn't seem to need it anyway. We got back to the car after 2 hours of nuthin', starting to think that we'd dump this place from our list!

So, we drove around for a while, when we suddenly saw a moist area with some boards to flip! When we got out, we saw roofing tiles too! A small frog jumped out of our way, but the tiles and boards came up empty. But still, this was better than a dusty, long walk!!

We got to the "Headquarters" area, a place we had often looked for but never found. There was parking (a real rarity here!) and a trail along Reservoir Pond!!!! YAYYYY!! We headed in and saw some rocks on an incline going to a stream. I slipped, fell on my ass and somersaulted, landing on my back on the rocks with my feet in the air. Andrea, silly girl, was concerned with my health and missed the picture.

I was OK... banged up shoulder and I got winded, but we carried on, on a trail in between a pond and a slow moving, sandy-bottomed stream. Beautiful, but no animals.

We took the Reservoir trail, flipping all the way, even as the rain got harder and the wind chillier. It should be noted that neither of us even had our cameras out at this point. This would be a great walk on a sunny day but it had gotten cold and rainy. We struck out.


So, we were here for 5 1/2 hours. We saw no animals for the first hour. We saw no animals for the last 4 hours. In truth, we see no reason to drive 45 miles to see nothing. Either we drive further for better conditions of just go down the street to see Painted Turtles and Bullfrogs.

To sum it up, fuck you, Miles Standish.