Bleah.

Trail Conditions: All clear

Repeated sweeping, Earth Day volunteers, and a stiff breeze have all helped make the trail about as clean as it ever gets. There's no construction or maintenance in progress anywhere from Mill Street to South Road. These are the best conditions you'll ever see.

Today: 18.5 miles. This year: 137 miles.

Trail Conditions: Twiggy

The trail is clear of the trees and branches that came down in the storm, but teeming with twigs. Lexington sent out their sidewalk sweeper to clean up -- it's not a perfect solution.

Near Woburn Street, Lexington

Trail Conditions: April Showers

The rain and wind brought down everything from twigs to whole trees. Just off the trail on Mill Lane, a hole in the bridge shows the gushing Mill Stream underneath.

Westbound at Lowell Street

Westbound near Park Avenue

Upstream from Mill Lane

Downstream from Mill Lane

Sonik Art

Cambridge artist Caleb Neelon / SONIK posted paintings along the trail years ago. Now only this triptych near Valley Road survives, and this article at the official bikeway site.

"My Maps" @ Google

On Thursday, Google introduced My Maps, a new map markup feature of Google Maps. Here's an overview of the trail with entrances and crossings marked.

If the map doesn't load automatically, refresh the page. It loads promptly for me in Safari, but not in Firefox.

Milestones

Your progress along the trail is marked by literal milestones, engraved in Roman numerals of a sort.

Milestone VIII, near I-95 in Lexington

These Roman numerals run from top to bottom. The numeral I lies on its side and V stands upside down. X is the same any way you look at it. There are no prefixes: four is IIII, not IV.

Westbound distances start from Alewife Station in Cambridge, where the trail entrance has no distance marking, and end at Bedford Depot Park with milepost X. Eastbound distances start with mile I at the Depot, so the two sides of each post always add up to XI.