Here's which Mass. beaches are closed on Memorial Day
Three of the seven closed beaches are located in Central Mass.: Damon Pond Beach in Ashby, Walker Pond Beach in Sturbridge and Lake Quinsigamond's Lake Park Beach in Worcester, according to the dashboard. All three are closed due to bacteria levels, the dashboard reads.
Kings' Beach in Lynn. Rowe Town Beach in Rowe and Tenean Beach in Boston are also closed due to high levels of bacteria in the water.
Walden Pond's Main Beach in Concord is also designated as closed on the dashboard, however, a park spokesperson says that only some access to the beach is restricted because of construction.
A communications official at Walden Pond did not immediately respond to a request for comment from MassLive on Monday.
The state's beach water quality dashboard is updated twice daily — once in the morning and once in the afternoon. The dashboard displays the findings of recent water quality tests at beaches throughout Massachusetts.
When a beach is closed, people should avoid swimming in that location as they could risk becoming ill, according to the dashboard's website.
It is safe to take part in other recreational activities at the beaches.
You can find the full list of closed beaches here.
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Read the original article on MassLive.
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Yahoo
14 hours ago
- Yahoo
True Love on Two Wheels? What Happens When You Motorcycle Around the World With Someone You Just Met on a Dating App
In Sept. 2017, Heather Lea stepped off her BMW G 650 GS in Magadan, Russia, the final stop in a 58,247-mile motorcycle ride through 40 countries. Seven years later, her book about the journey will soon be released, detailing the trials and rewards of embarking on the trip with a man she had started dating only 27 days prior. By all accounts, Lea's life has been one of well-weighed risk versus reward. She says she's 'more inclined to whimsically agree to stuff and then worry about it later,' a way of living that has taken her solo backpacking in Africa and cycling from Paris to Istanbul. Her 2-year motorcycle trip around the world was born in the same way: a serendipitous match on a dating app and a suggestion to ride down to Patagonia — and then keep going. Lea sat down with GearJunkie to chat about the experience, including an excerpt from the book below. 'Riding Full Circle': Excerpt I follow Dave down the dirt track we came up last night, and out onto the logging road, where the morning sun lights up the dust disturbed by his rear tire. We come to a junction and Dave turns left. After crossing a bridge over the St. Joe's River we're back on the Idaho Backcountry Discovery Route. As soon as we hit the double track made for all-terrain vehicles, Dave's off like a flash. He's the only person I know who speeds up when he sees a dirt road, whether he's in a 4×4 truck, or on two wheels. I ride carefully. Ahead on the trail I see two boulders as large as woodstoves that I'll need to squeeze through, but I'm concerned about my hard-case panniers fixed onto luggage racks on both sides of my bike. Am I too wide to fit between them? Slowing to twenty-five miles an hour, I look where I want to go. Just when I think I'm past the rocks, an abrupt impact slams into my body and my motorcycle starts veering out of control. I take in the Ponderosa pines above me, the river to my right, and the ditch on my left. Look where you want to go. Half a second later, I'm stuck under my motorcycle, where it has come to rest in a pine-cone scattered gully. My brain elbows through the last few minutes of memory. I was off-center and hit one of the boulders with the hard aluminum pannier on my right side. The collision was so jarring, it sent me into the ditch. Sound comes flooding back to my ears once the white noise of alarm has quieted. I hear the river and listen for Dave. No sign of my boyfriend. Even his dust has settled on the track ahead, which follows a curved line of deciduous trees dropping golden leaves to the ground. If the stars were aligned any different, I'd be face down in the St. Joe's river right now. Luckily, I'd swerved left instead of right, toward the ditch, not the drop off. A gulping cry-laugh bursts from my mouth. Shit! When Dave suggested we ride our motorcycles around the world, one of my biggest fears was crashing. Now, less than two weeks into a two-year adventure, I'd done just that. Finding my point-and-shoot camera in the tank bag strapped between my handlebars, I walk up the trail for a good perspective of the accident scene. In 20-plus years as a freelance writer, I know a good story is nothing without photos. Snapping off a couple shots, I return to zip the camera back into my bag. It's then a searing pain shoots into my wrist at the base of my right thumb. Adrenaline—nature's morphine—is clearing out and boiling blood rushes up and down my arm. Dizzy and frantic, I sit, cradling my hand. Please don't be broken, please don't be broken. It's September 25, 2015—my 41st birthday. Author Interview: Heather Lea Lea: I had been online dating for about a year and went into my account to actually shut it down because of too many weird experiences. That was when I saw Dave as one of my 'matches.' His profile was different from any of the others I had seen, so I decided to send him an email. And then 27 days into dating, Dave suggested we ride motorcycles to Patagonia together. I said yes before he even finished the question. Yes, and Dave didn't even have a motorcycle yet, but he always wanted one. I hadn't considered getting into long-distance riding until Dave suggested it. We were in his room looking at a big world map, and he said, 'If we're going to ride to Patagonia, why don't we just keep going?' We planned the trip for over a year. We wanted to wait until we took off-roading courses, and I wanted to learn Russian and Spanish, but if we waited for all that to happen, we never would have gone. We actually ended up leaving in September 2015, a year earlier than planned. It started when I was 12 years old. My dad had a motorcycle, and it always scared the shit out of me. But he was selling his bike, and said, 'This is your last chance to ride,' so I went with him. I was blown away and thought, 'This is amazing. I love this feeling!' But my mom worked in emergency rooms, and because I was a 'good daughter,' I put off getting a bike and just had that one ride until later in life. When I was turning 40, I decided I wanted to do something really cool for my birthday, so I learned how to ride. My dad had another motorcycle at that point, and I thought he and I would ride around together and maybe take some trips. But I really loved going out on forest roads and camping, so I knew I needed a different bike than the Harley cruiser-style bike my dad had. After passing my license, I got a Kawasaki Super Sherpa, and then eventually a BMW G 650 GS. The trip began in Revelstoke, British Columbia, in September 2015. I ended up crashing my bike 1,000 miles into the trip and breaking my wrist, which caused a 3-month delay. After that, I met Dave in Arizona, and we were in Mexico by December 2015. By April 2016, we had traveled from Mexico down to the southernmost road accessible point in the world in Ushuaia, Argentina. In May 2016, we went back to Canada and then rode to the Yukon and Alaska. After that, we had to go back home until January of 2017 to wait for our Russian visas, because you can't leave your country without a passport. Finally, in February 2017, we flew ourselves and the bikes to Cape Town, South Africa, and traveled up through Lesotho, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania, and Kenya. In May, we headed for Europe and rode from Scotland to Ukraine. By June 2017, we were in Russia, and dipped down into Kazakhstan and Mongolia before ending the trip in Magadan, Russia. In 2016, we rode through 15 countries. and in 2017. we rode through 25 countries, totaling 58,247 miles. Dave sold his house, and I sold my business. We really wanted to not have strong ties to anything back at home that might be distracting. After talking to some other long-distance moto travelers, we budgeted about $75,000 total for the trip. Which equals about $18,000 per person per year, or $100 per day. Some days we blew through that, especially when we did off-bike excursions, like boating around the Galapagos Islands or hiking up volcanoes. I fell off my bike 2 weeks into the trip, and I broke my wrist. It felt like such a big deal because I'd been getting all these comments online, mostly from men, about how my bike — the G 650 GS — was too big for me. So, in my head, I'm thinking, 'Everyone was right. I'm too weak to muscle this bike. I can't even get 500 miles from my house. How am I going to get around the world?' I had to go home for 3 months until it healed. Dave stayed out and did some riding on his own, and then I met him in Arizona, where my motorcycle had been trailered to. The first time I got back on my bike after the hiatus, I was scared shitless. What if it happened again? What if this time, I broke my leg, or worse? I didn't want to just stick to paved roads, but that was where I felt safest. Riding off-road terrified me, but the places we wanted to go — mountains, beaches, Baja, Mongolia — none of those were paved. I had to dig deep and basically become an entirely different person who didn't care what people said and could control my inner thoughts about fear and failure. It was a huge challenge. I am clear in my book Riding Full Circle: What the World Taught Me About Motorcycles, Risk, and Someone I Barely Knew that my relationship with Dave was rocky in the beginning. I felt he resented me for taking 3 months away from our trip to heal a broken bone. He felt like I was too stuck in fear to advance in my riding. I was so slow, he often had to wait for me to catch up, and I felt like he was too fast for my comfort level. At times, I wished he were more sympathetic, but eventually, the road ahead helped us start accepting each other. We had to if we wanted to achieve this goal together. Along with the incredible scenery and places we got to see, the top highlights of our entire trip were the people we met. When I broke my wrist, an older couple whom we'd just met for a few minutes at a gas station in Idaho invited us to stay on their ranch for part of my recuperation. More than once, we were given free fuel from people at gas stations who heard what we were doing and offered to fill our tanks. People who had no clue who we were offered to let us stay in their homes. It seemed every time we were having a bad day, someone would come out of nowhere with such genuine kindness and make us smile. You just don't get that in everyday life at home. I wanted to write a book that told the truth about traveling as a new couple doing something extremely hard but also beautiful together. Riding Full Circle was what we called ourselves online for social media. Originally, it was because we were going to start in Revelstoke, British Columbia, and end up back there 2 years later, completing a circle of sorts. But after I got home and started writing this book, I realized the trip had brought me full circle back to myself. A self that — at the beginning of the trip, with all the insecurities that come from dating someone new and dealing with extreme physical and mental challenges — started to get lost. But because of those experiences, at the end of 2 years, she was back and stronger than ever. You do not need to even like motorcycles to enjoy this book. There's far more to it than that. Anyone with a partner will resonate with the experiences we had on the road while getting to know each other, both the good and the bad times. Riding Full Circle was successfully crowdfunded and will be released soon. Reserve your copy at The Best Motorcycle Helmets of 2025 Solve the daily Crossword
Los Angeles Times
a day ago
- Los Angeles Times
This hidden rural oasis makes for a splendid day trip — and it's just an hour from L.A.
Ask a random Angeleno to find Piru, Fillmore or Santa Paula on a California map and odds are they'll shrug and give up. Blame it on location, location, location. Collectively known as the Heritage Valley, these small towns hidden on the stretch of Highway 126 are often ignored and bypassed by L.A. travelers bound for Ojai or Ventura. But if you take the time to stop in this rural oasis, you'll find miles of citrus groves, heaps of history and truly tasty Mexican food. Yes, there are more tractors than Tesla Superchargers in this region — that's part of the draw. This, you realize, is what Southern California looked like before suburbia moved in. Heritage Valley was previously known as Santa Clara River Valley, which is what the locals still call it. In 1998, a committee was assembled to help bring in tourists, and the new, jazzier label was coined. It was an improvement over an earlier, clunkier nickname, Santa Clara River Valley Heritage Trail, which sounded more like a hiking path. It wasn't the only title created for the sake of marketing. The town of Santa Paula has always proclaimed itself 'the citrus capital of the world' for its abundance of lemons and oranges. Fillmore, not to be outdone, picked a gem: 'The last, best small town,' which inspired a play of the same name that's set there. Piru was already born with a compelling handle when its devoutly religious founder proclaimed it as 'The Second Garden of Eden' in 1887. Today, it's better known for its popular outdoor recreational area, Lake Piru. (After 'Glee' actress Naya Rivera drowned in the lake in 2020, swimming was temporarily banned. It's now allowed, but only in designated areas between Memorial Day and Labor Day.) If you go back hundreds of years before Lake Piru was created by the construction of the Santa Felicia Dam, you'd see Chumash villages dotting the valley. Then came the Spanish expeditions in the late 18th century, followed by ranchos that used the land for sheep and cattle. Soon the railroads arrived, and then an oil boom. The valley's eventual transformation into an agricultural mecca was hastened by a Mediterranean climate that proved ideal for crops — first citrus, then avocados. But along with the bounty there were disasters, both natural and man-made, including the 1994 Northridge Earthquake and the catastrophic flood from the 1928 St. Francis Dam collapse. Numerous fires also have made the valley live up to a Times article that called it 'among the most dangerous wind and fire corridors in Southern California.' Yet through it all, the population has steadily grown and more travelers are discovering the area for its lively gatherings (the Santa Paula Citrus Music Festival took place last week), new attractions (check out the 17-mile Sunburst Railbike experience) and stunning hikes. Here's where to go on a road trip along Highway 126.
USA Today
4 days ago
- USA Today
Despite hiccups, airlines are performing pretty well this summer
When your own flight is delayed or canceled, it can feel like the entire aviation network is in a conspiracy against you. As summer travel peaks and crowded airports coincide with unsettled weather, many travelers feel like the system is in a constant state of melting down. Although it's cold comfort in this hot weather, so far this summer, airlines are actually performing pretty well. According to FlightAware, there have been more than 1.8 million flights scheduled in the U.S. since the Friday before Memorial Day – May 23 this year – and of those, just 30,390, or 1.6%, have been outright canceled. Meanwhile, around a quarter of the flights that did operate have been delayed, at an average of about 60 minutes. Summer storms cause travel headaches every year, but these numbers are not unusual. In the same period last year, airlines canceled about 1.9% of flights, and 26% of flights were delayed, slightly more than this year. Delays still averaged about 60 minutes last summer. The numbers were similar in 2023, and slightly higher in 2022, when the aviation industry was still more directly recovering from the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic. What you're entitled to if your flight is delayed or canceled If you're one of those unlucky few whose flight is canceled or delayed this summer, it's helpful to know your rights. When airlines cancel your flight for any reason, including weather, you're entitled to a full refund, even if you purchased a nonrefundable ticket, if you choose not to travel on an alternative itinerary offered by the carrier. If your flight is delayed, the regulations are alittle more complicated, because the cause of the delay plays a big part in determining what you're entitled to. Generally, airlines don't have to compensate you if the delay is out of their control, caused by weather or air traffic control issues, but they are on the hook for more if the delay is caused by mechanical, staffing or other issues that are more directly in the company's charge. The Department of Transportation has a dashboard outlining its regulations and each airline's policies.
