The Rails to Trails bike and walking trail of Chestertown is paved and open! This is VERY exciting news. For a small town in the middle of nowhere, this is big. It would be like Mayor Bloomberg announcing that New York had just opened a trail to the moon. I’ve always found it strange that although Chestertown is “out in the country,” there isn’t much public recreational space here. No more! And, I’m pleased to report that it not only exists, it’s also quite lovely.

We headed out for our first trip. The necessaries were gathered.

Sunglasses: check.

Attitude: check.

Turns out, that’s all you need to get on the trail. The trail starts at the old train depot, which makes sense, seeing as it’s a Rails to Trails project.

The kids were concerned that the train seemed to lack a conductor.

Strangely enough, they weren’t concerned that the train seemed to lack tracks to run on anymore. Iggy, on the other hand, spent a good deal of time looking for the rails. Though she’s not the smartest dog on the planet, she knows a train isn’t much good without any track.

The first bit of the trail is somewhat exposed, but runs behind a part of town you’d never know existed, past some marshy woods where I used to play as a kid (where I once stepped in a snake nest of some sort, precipitating a life-long reaction of crawling skin whenever I see a snake). Soon enough it dips into a patch of formerly inaccessible woods between the college sports fields.

There’s even a charming little wooden bridge!

Exciting, but also disappointing. Many a distraught wail rose from the wagon when it was decided that we were not going to climb up the side of the ravine through poison ivy, vines, mud and newly planted grass just to walk across the bridge.

The paved portion of the trail ends at mile 1.25, but a second portion has been cleared well enough that we continued on. Kato claimed he would be in charge of pulling the wagon, but was quickly defeated.

A balloon was found.

A brother was taunted.

In despair, sunglasses were accidentally put on upside down.

Things only settled down when a newer, bigger sort of balloon was discovered.

Kato was mightily displeased when I told him he couldn’t take it home.

And then, the trail ended. I do not envy the crew that has to continue clearing, if, indeed, the trail extends further in the future (rumor has it it will run miles out to the Community Center in Worton somewhere down the line) – it looks quite impenetrable.

The unpaved section clocked in at 1/4 mile. So the round trip was around 3 miles. A lovely afternoon walk with the family, and now a new jogging route for Matthew. What a wonderful addition to our town. Huge thanks to the Town Council and all involved in getting this fabulous project done (Mayor Margo, Bill Ingersoll, Kees DeMooy, Gibson Anthony and everyone else!).

Seriously. I can’t tell you how excited I am about this.

I guess I just did.

EXCITED!