<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?><oembed><version><![CDATA[1.0]]></version><provider_name><![CDATA[the feminist librarian]]></provider_name><provider_url><![CDATA[http://thefeministlibrarian.com]]></provider_url><author_name><![CDATA[Anna Clutterbuck-Cook]]></author_name><author_url><![CDATA[https://thefeministlibrarian.com/author/feministlib/]]></author_url><title><![CDATA[Thanksgiving on Middlesex&nbsp;Fells]]></title><type><![CDATA[link]]></type><html><![CDATA[<p> Over Thanksgiving weekend, I decided to take a mini-vacation from Boston proper, and spent a night at the <a href="http://www.hihostels.com/affiliates/hiusa60078.php?country=US&amp;city=a60078&amp;AffiliateID=97060">Friendly Crossways</a> hostel outside Harvard, Massachusetts (the small town, not the University), and then drive to Middlesex Fells Reservation for a hike around the system of reservoirs which supply water for the town of Winchester. Yes! I said drive!  I rented a car and was vehicularly mobile (a word I just made up) for the first time in three months.  It was both extremely harrowing (in the dark) and giddily liberating (in the daytime).  </p>
<p>The hostel was comfortably bare-bones and dark and quiet, in a way only rural areas can be. And Middlesex Fells was beautiful and abundantly populated with people and their dogs. I am not exaggerating when I say virtually every party of walkers had more or more four-legged companions.  One woman even exclaimed when she passed me on the path, &#8220;You&#8217;re walking without a dog?!&#8221; as if it were an alien concept. </p>
<p>The photographs can be seen above or in larger format at <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/annajcook/MiddlesexFells">picasa</a>.</p>
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