Greetings from the Blackstone River

Sunday was a gorgeous warm day. We thought about going to Sturbridge Village, which was having a battle reenactment, but after how far we drove Saturday, we decided to stay closer to home and went to several parks in Worcester -- first Blackstone Gateway, which has a new visitor center with a museum about local history and culture, plus a long boardwalk through the wetlands from which we saw frogs, turtles, ducks, a bunny, and the dreaded spotted lanternfly, then Worcester Common, which encloses City Hall, has a cemetery of patriots who died in the American Revolution, and features several war memorials plus a Celtic cross commemorating the Irish immigrants to the area. 

We stopped at Cool Licks for ice cream since we had to pass by it to go to Institute Park, where we knew there were a couple of swans but didn't realize that they also had two cygnets who came within a couple of feet of us in the water. We also saw the Canada geese we met as goslings a couple of months ago, a big flock of ducks, a couple more bunnies, and a great blue heron. We stopped at Shaw's on the way home for food for the week and got home for the end of the innings played in the terrible horrible Orioles game, plus the very end of the Mariners walk-off win. Now we're watching the end of this season of A Good Girl's Guide To Murder, which has a bit too much hysteria but remains interesting.