Today I did a ride that was new for me. In fact, I've rarely even driven in some of these places.
Met our friends in Harvard center (we drove there, as we didn't want to do 75 miles today) and headed out through Bolton, Berlin, and Clinton. The first part of this ride was the same as a ride we did before we went to France, but it is quite rural and almost Vermont -like. Lots of hills. There was one kinda scary left turn onto a busy state road, to climb up to a viewpoint at the Wachusett Reservoir. I had done this once, but so long ago, I was riding my first road bike, and definitely took an easier way to get there. We stopped and took pictures, as DH had never seen this. Then, on to a ride around the reservoir, or part of it, actually. It's really pretty, but we spent a lot of time on 2 busy roads, mostly with good wide shoulders. It stayed cloudy for this part of the ride, thankfully, after a hot and miserable ride yesterday. We rode through the towns of West Boylston, Lancaster, and back to Bolton. First, we stopped at the town green in West Boylston and had a snack/porta potty stop, and then headed to Bolton Orchards, a lunch stop on a lot of our rides. After that, we only had 7 hilly miles left, where we took the scenic route, going up by the Fruitlands Museum, back to Harvard center. We rode about 40 miles, with 3K ft. of climbing. It always amazes me how rural Massachusetts gets, not too far from where I live. And, what's sadder, so many people who live in greater Boston never see any of this.
It's raining out now. Very glad we left at 9 AM and were back home by 1:45.