Vote for Turtleboy Sports for best local blog 2015 by clicking here. 

Like the Free Turtleboy Facebook page to follow our posts when our other page is arbitrarily suspended. If we ever get shut down for good, this will become the new Turtleboy Sports main Facebook page.

Want to have your business advert viewed over 2 million times per month? Email us at Turtleboysports@gmail.com for more information, and check out our website about types of advertising we offer.

 

 

What better way to spend this holiday 420 than with a Tour de Turtle bone ride? We were overdue. Just for the record we will be going to all 351 towns and cities, ranking them on a master list as we go along. When we’ve hit them all we will be doing a bone ride bracket challenge. We will be selecting the 64 dumpiest towns and cities, and seeding them 1-16 for each of the four regions. Turtle riders will vote on each and every matchup until we have selected the dumpiest in the entire state. Let’s see how today’s towns looked. We hit up the following locales in this order: Paxton, Rutland, Hubbardston, Barre, Oakham, North Brookfield, New Braintree, Hardwick, Ware. 

 

1. Rutland

Turtleboy enjoys civilization. The TB clan wasn’t cut out to be country folk. We also like newer looking places. And a lot of these towns look like they did back when the Pilgrims were there. Not Rutland though. Rutland is a great town, and easily the nicest on the bone ride today. The pictures speak for themselves. The Rutland lifestyle, is the right lifestyle. It’s a little hilly, but it will get your ass in shape.

 

2. Paxton

Paxton and Rutland were the only two towns we visited today that resembled civilization. There’s nothing wrong with Paxton, it’s just not quite as spiffy looking as Rutland.

 

 

3. North Brookfield

So the next 7 towns are all the boonies. North Brookfield was the closest one to resembling an actual town. There were some newer looking homes:

Unlike a lot of the other places we went to, there are actual streets and neighborhoods, as opposed to megafarms and Unabomber style shacks.

But…..downtown makes you feel like the British might attack at any given moment.

And then there’s tons of run down looking crap lying around town.

 

And the roads are in tip top condition.

But if you’re the type who likes to get away, but still have a couple stores, parks, and neighborhoods, then you’ll like North Brookfield. Just don’t go there in the winter because the plowing is infamously craptacular.

 

4. Hubbardston

One thing we really enjoyed about Hubbardston on this bone ride was the fact that you can drive really fast there. The whole town is like a wide open freeway.

But like I said, the second you leave Rutland you’ve officially entered the middle of nowhere. Everything looks old, there’s farms everywhere, and neighborhoods don’t exist. But there’s some nice looking parks, and lots of land. So if you hate people, then Hubbardston might be the right place for you.

 

5. Oakham

Oakham makes Hubbardston look like New York City. As usual, everything looks old, run down, and beaten up by God. Everyone once in a while a nice new home appears, but for the most part no one in town has done any updates to their homes since the Gettysburg Address.

 

6. New Braintree

There is absolutely no reason for New Braintree to exist. None. Well, unless you’re looking for a place to do a bone ride and don’t wanna see any cops. It is a pass-through town with no identity. This is what the center of town looks like:

Not even kidding. Downtown New Braintree. Even Goddamn Colrain has a downtown. If Colrain has things that you don’t, then you have no reason to exist. There can’t be more than 1,000 people who live here, and some of them keep up their property better than others. All in all I can safely say that Turtleboy won’t be going back to New Braintree any time soon unless WANDA rolls something up for us.

 

 

7. Barre

Barre is far away, old looking, and boring. And downtown is normally a nice looking common area, but right now it’s just a clusterfuck.

Once again, there’s not really any neighborhoods like you imagine in the burbs. The only people with neighbors are those who live on the main roads.

Nothing wrong with that. But South Barre is a horse of a different color. There’s some rally magical places in South Barre.

One thing we’ve noticed when we go from town to town like this, is that if your neighbor has a school bus parked in their driveway, you’re probably in a dumpy part of town.

The other tell tale sign that your neighbors bookshelf has been converted to a mini bar are the “We accept EBT” signs in the only market for miles.

 

8. Hardwick

So Hardwick is a big town carved out by the Quabbin Reservoir, which means lots of room for people. So there’s a lot of this going on:

As you can see, it’s pretty old looking, there’s plenty of room, and not much to do. So as a result this is what a good time looks like in Hardwick:

This is what downtown looks like.

But the vast majority of the population seems to live in a really dumpy part of town called Gilbertville. Gilbertville is kind of like Colrain and Charlemont. It’s a phenomenon that I don’t understand and can’t figure out. Why do you wanna live in a place that looks like Webster Square, but is smack dab in the middle of nowhere? I mean, we have plenty of filth out here in Worcester. But at least if you’re stuck in Webster Square you can walk to Moe’s or Dunkins or the 7/11. In Gilbertville you’re just stuck in Gilbertville. And the entire economy seems to revolve around the Cumberland Farms.

So yea, that’s why Hardwick is ranked so low. If it weren’t for Gilbertville it would probably be a lot higher.

 

9. Ware

Obviously. Ware is in the running for a 1 seed in our dump bracket challenge. It seems like a great place to live, especially if you’re saving up money to go to the Monster truck rally. As you can see, the lawns and property are all well maintained:

There are some great views:

Thriving businesses

Majestic allies

Parking lots of broken dreams

State of the art shopping centers

Non-racist people waving the flag of an imaginary country that never existed and declared war on the country they currently live in:

Trump converts:

Breathtaking neighborhoods

And people standing around, ripping butts, and wearing what we like to call “Ware-wear,” which is mainly pajamas and cut off t-shirts, and/or tapered jeans.

God have mercy on Ware.

Anyway, it was a great way to spend 420? Did we get this list right? And where should the next bone ride go to?

 

We urge you to support the Turtleboy Sponsors by doing business with them. Without them none of this is possible. Click on any of them to check out their sites or Facebook pages.

Liberty Tax Preparation, Greenwood Street, Wormtown Brewery, Union Tavern, Scavone Plumbing, Bennie’s Cafe, Craftech Restoration, JJM Insurance, Smokestack Urban Barbecue, Attorney Michael Erlich, Smitty’s Tavern, Julio’s Liquors, Solarreviews.net, The Gun Parlor Range, Attorney Anthony Salerno, 

Want to have your business advert viewed over 2 million times per month? Email us at Turtleboysports@gmail.com for more information, and check out our website about types of advertising we offer.

Follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook