Assabet I'll take!

Last Saturday was one of those wonderful days you only get once a season, if you're lucky. I spent the afternoon riding out to Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge in Stow (about 21 miles each way, plus 4 miles of hiking — map). Assabet is covered over with a dense canopy of tall pines, so there's very little undergrowth, and everything is hushed. Every so often a huge, abandoned concrete bunker rises from the forest floor — Assabet used to be a military compound, and the army stored munitions and troops there during WWII. It lends a Lost Civilizations vibe to the whole place. Also on tap: very pretty wetlands (with plenty of frogs), a crystal lake, and twenty-some miles of hiking trails linking it all together.

The ride was perfect — ideal weather, farmland and forest to ride through (once I cleared Waltham), largely downhill on the way back. While planning my ride, I happened to notice that my route would take me within a mile of the homestead of Lorenzo Maynard, whose tomb I photographed at Mount Auburn last week, so I look a little loop through downtown Maynard to see it. On the way home, I passed by a herdlet of red calves just on the other side of a fence, so I stopped for a while to watch them romping and lowing and chewing. I sure do like the flexibility biking gives me.

When I got home, I had just enough time to shower and change and throw some pasta inside me before I had to set out for Davis Square to catch Beaver with kdsorceress. It was a variety burlesque from the folks who bring us the Slutcracker, starring J. Cannibal and satirizing the Tea Party. It was vicious. I was helplessly laughing for much of it — it put me in mind of the National Lampoon in their heyday. The Virgin Mary (Lolli Hoops) did a hooping striptease to Lady Gaga's Judas, then gave herself a Caesarean on-stage and danced with the baby Jesus. Rick Perry was Rickrolled, then encountered an abortion-on-demand vending machine (complete with vacuum noises) in "one o' them godless east coast shoppin' malls." A preacher testified about Christ as Penis. Sarah Palin did an involuntary pole dance, then helped to raise a Pride flag, Iwo Jima-style. It was relentless, crude, uncompromising satire...with boobs. Not something you'll find in the mainstream, and even if I didn't agree with every nuance of their message I was pleased to see artists taking a loud, unapologetic stand.

As an aside, I'm also pleased that I can hike-n-bike 56 miles in a day now and not really feel it. I was a little stiff the next day, but quite functional.