School vacation is meant to be spent in the outdoors; River Bend just around the corner.

Byline: Susan Spencer

William and Susan Zujewski of Grafton were considering taking their four children, Annie, 13; Matthew, 11; Jonathan, 8; and C.J., 6, to Aruba during February school vacation week. But like many in this recession, they're cutting back on spending. So instead, they'll visit family in Connecticut and entertain themselves locally.

Tammy Gilpatrick, her husband, Robert Clark, and 5-year-old daughter, Sarah Clark, of Uxbridge, plan to spend school vacation time with friends, playing in the outdoors right around them.

For families like the Zujewskis and Gilpatrick-Clarks, the Blackstone Valley offers lots of open space with scenic trails to discover, ponds to skate on and terrain to cover on sled, snowshoes or cross-country skis. Parks and conservation areas are open year-round to the public at no charge.

River Bend Farm Visitors Center, 278 Oak St., Uxbridge, is headquarters of the 1,000-acre Blackstone River and Canal Heritage State Park. The former dairy farm that straddles the Blackstone Canal offers miles of hiking trails and wide-open fields. The visitors center, open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily, has restrooms and a historical exhibit, "From Farm to Factory."

In winter, cross-country skiing and snowshoeing are popular on the Lady Carrington Tow Path, running one mile between the visitors center and the former Stanley Woolen Mill on Route 16. Park staff clear a 40-by-200-foot swath of ice on the canal for skating. The slope that serves as a seating lawn for the summer Concerts on the Canal series becomes a sledding hill under a blanket of snow.

"I like to sled down the steep, steep hill and bail off," said Sarah Clark, a kindergartner at Henry P. Clough Elementary School in Mendon.

Mr. Clark, who teaches seventh-grade geography at Miscoe Hill Middle School in Mendon, said his family visits River Bend Farm for recreation and educational programs year-round. They like looking for otter tracks and observing waterfowl.

Two towns upstream from Uxbridge, Grafton has a well-established network of walking trails and open space preserved by the private nonprofit Grafton Land Trust, the Trust for Public Land, Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University and the town's Conservation Commission. A new Web site developed by the Grafton Land Trust...