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I took a break from visiting the 1,000 Great Places in Massachusetts and ended up south of the border. The family visited the Mystic Aquarium.

It was a great place so I figured I would share it with the larger GeekDad audience. You can read more about our visit on Wired’s GeekDad: GeekDad Visits the Mystic Aquarium.

Yes, that’s sea lion poo!

From 2010 Mystic aquarium

I don’t think anyone is surprised that Harvard Yard appears on the list of 1,000 Great Places in Massachusetts. It’s the centerpiece of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher education in the United States. The Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony voted to establish the institution in 1636.

It was named after the College’s first benefactor, the young minister John Harvard. When he died in 1638 he left his library and half his estate to the institution. A statue of John Harvard stands today in front of University Hall in Harvard Yard. Rubbing his foot for good luck is long standing tradition. (You can see how shiny his foot is from all the rubbing.)

I stopped by early in the morning. Under the dawn light, there was only one other person around. That young student had the dazed look of not knowing whether it was very early in the morning or very late in the afternoon.

Voyager 2 and Neptune (Combination of images from NASA)

Of the many great things that happened today, Voyager 2 made its closest approach to the planet Neptune in 1989. To celebrate, I made a guest appearance today on Wired‘s This Day in Tech: .

One of the reasons I’m continuing on my quest to visit each of the 1,000 Great Places in Massachusetts is to introduce the kids to new and fun places. A new discovery was Davis Farmland in Sterling. I’ve passed by the place during the Climb to the Clouds, but never visited.

So I decided to drag along The Son and one of his friends. When presented with the choice of Davis Farmland or Davis Mega Maze, they chose the maze. So we took a right-hand turn instead of a left hand turn. We will have to come back another day to visit farmland.

We had such a great time at the Mega Maze that I decided to turn it into a story for GeekDad: Lost in a Cornfield Maze.

The Wachusett Dam in Clinton puts a stopper the Nashua River creating the Wachusett Reservoir. In 1897, the Nashua River was chosen over Lake Winnipesaukee, Sebago Lake, and the Merrimac River as the new water source for Boston to deal with the rise of indoor plumbing.

Six and 1/2 square miles were flooded in the towns of Boylston, West Boylston, Clinton and Sterling when they began filling in water behind the dam. When it was completed in 1905, the Wachusett Reservoir was the largest public water supply reservoir in the world.

The reservoir’s water is conveyed by the Wachusett/Weston Aqueduct to Weston Reservoir and then by pipeline to the Chestnut Hill and Spot Pond Reservoirs.

In my youth, we would stop at the dam after picking apples at a nearby orchard. The steep, downstream river banks were great for rolling down. and rolling. and rolling. There is a great fountain at the bottom of the imposing stone structure, in an idyllic stetting for a picnic.

At least it used to be.

The top of the dam has been mostly closed since 9/11. There is a fence restricting access to the great downhill rolling area. PCBs were discovered in the dam’s caulking in 2007, leading to broad restriction on access.

The setting is impressive enough to get it on the list of 1,000 Great Places in Massachusetts.

The Bacon Free Library was established in 1880, sitting next to the flow of water over the Natick Dam on the Charles River.

Feel free to insert your own joke about the banning of pork products in the library. Bacon refers to the Bacon family that used to have an extensive farm and a large family in Natick.

This building was a gift to the town by Oliver Bacon who died in 1878. The Natick Historical Society is located in the lower level of the Bacon Free Library.

You can find out more at the website for Naticks’ Bacon Free Library.

The library is of the two dozen libraries on the list of 1,000 Great Places in Massachusetts.

The Massachusetts Audubon Society put together a great wildlife sanctuary along the Indian Brook as it enters the Charles River. Broadmoor’s nine miles of walking trails ramblethrough a variety of field, woodland, and wetland habitats.

The highlight is a quarter-mile boardwalk along the wetlands. It offers a great opportunity to look for turtles and frogs. The Boardwalk has a railing on one side, but not on the other. The openness urges you to lay down and look hard at the marshy water for signs of water life.

The frogs are tough to see. The green of their skin is a close match to the green algae coating the surface of the water. The frogs were willing to sit there for a long time, staring back at you, while you stare down at them.

The turtles were much more shy. We could here the plop as they splashed into the water when they heard our footsteps approaching. They quickly gave up a sunny branch for the murky water of the marsh. If we lingered quietly long enough, we could see the gentle stirring of the water as the turtles probed the surface to see if they were once again alone. An amphibian head would poke up, look around, catch a glimpse of us staring back, and retreat into the murk.

I was familiar with the wonderful boardwalk. I did not pay attention to trail map. (or bother to stop and pick one up.) I was unaware that there were nine miles of trails. I became aware, as our short visit turned into a much longer trek wandering all the way out to the Charles River.

Broadmoor is a great place to visit and one of the 1,000 Great Places in Massachusetts.

In the winter of 1691/92, girls living in Salem Village began to fall into fits, and their parents tried to discover what was causing their distress. The village doctor concluded that the girls were being afflicted by witchcraft. The girls named three witches: Tituba, Sarah Good, and Sarah Osborne.

Then on March 19, 1692, the girls named the 71-year-old matriarch, Rebecca Nurse, as one of their tormentors. When informed of her being accused of practicing witchcraft, Rebecca exclaimed, “…as to this thing, I am as innocent as the child unborn, but surely what sin hath God found out in me unrepented of that He should lay such an affliction upon me in my old age?”

On March 23 constables arrested Rebecca and took her away from her homestead. In June, Nurse’s trial took place with 40 of her neighbors signing a petition commending her exemplary character. Nurse was at first found innocent by the jury. When the afflicted girls renewed their terrifying torments, the jury reversed its decision. Rebecca was finally hanged on July 19, 1692.

I was quite surprised to learn that her homestead was largely preserved. I assumed the property of a hung witch would have been seized and re-purposed.

You can read more about the history of the site on the website for the Rebecca Nurse Homestead. Or you can just visit the site. It is one of the 1,000 Great Places in Massachusetts.

The original Gothic style library was built at Peabody Park in 1869. The purpose of the new library was “the promotion of knowledge and morality in the Town of Danvers” according to its founder, the American banker, philanthropist, and Danvers native George Peabody. That building lasted until July 2, 1890, when a fire destroyed the library building.

A new building was dedicated on October 19, 1892. The Boston architectural firm of Little, Brown and Moore designed the building with local architect Lester S. Crouch doing the bulk of the design for the building.

It’s a spectacular building in a beautiful setting along side the water of Peabody Park.

Who says a library can’t be a great place. I already visited Boston’s Athenaeum in my ongoing tour of the the 1,000 Great Places in Massachusetts. There are almost two dozen libraries on the list.

Glen Magna Farms is a historic country estate currently owned by the Danvers Historical Society. The estate began during the War of 1812 when Joseph Peabody, a leading Salem merchant, bought a 20-acre propety. The estate eventually grew to 330 acres. In 1893, Ellen Peabody Endicott, his granddaughter, hired the Boston architecture firm of Little, Browne and Moore to expand the house to its current form.

The Danvers Historical Society purchased the central 11 acres of the property and the main house for restoration and preservation. Most of the remaining 165 acres of the estate is now Endicott Park.

Unfortunately, the estate was booked for a wedding (a very popular use of the estate) when I came to visit. It was easy to see the beauty of the property and why it is included in the list of 1,000 Great Places in Massachusetts.