My Eyes And Ears

A heron stops by Merimere Reservoir Restaurant to see what's on the Sunday brunch menu.

Visit #886, Sunday 27 July 14, 8:00-10:15AM, 5.3 miles.
Temps in the high 70's, cloudy with rain or thunderstorms forecast for the morning.

I rode my mountain bike in Hubbard Park on Saturday. As I popped out from the trail into the parking lot at West Peak, I ran into a couple tires which were abandoned and left in the road. (The photo is from Sunday, hence the wet road.)

This gave me a general idea where I would be doing my thing this weekend.

I rode another trail down to the reservoir and took the road back toward Hubbard Park. Enroute, I came upon a "park regular" walking his dog. Pete said there was some new, very large and ugly graffiti on the spillway at the north end of Merimere Reservoir. These people are my "eyes and ears", keeping me informed of trouble spots, which is extremely helpful because I can't cover every trail every week.

Surprised that I missed it, I turned around to take a look.

Yeah; it's ugly, alright.

In the background you can see my past attempts in gray, cleaning up previous graffiti. Now, between the tires and the graffiti, I've got a route and a plan mapped out in my head.

In the past, I used a paint brush to cover such work, but due to the size of the most recent finding, I didn't want to spend all day with a brush. This was going to be a first for me but I was going to gather up the proper tools and try using a paint roller.

Being low on paint, I wound up buying a second gallon of paint and schlepping both with me when I returned Sunday morning to work. I parked on Park Road, outside the north end of Merimere Reservoir, and entered Hubbard Park from the north gate.

The paint roller, while adding some expense, worked with ridiculous efficiency. I was done in about 30 minutes. While I was rolling away, I was "caught" by someone walking their dog and asked them to take a photo:

The artist, at his canvas.

I neglected to take "after" photos; I'll publish some next week. In the meantime you can trust me when I say it looks pretty good. I took advantage of my roller and covered over some other, longstanding graffiti. I left other older markings for future paint sessions; I'll pick them off one at a time.

Done with art class, I packed up and walked the road toward West Peak, picking up trash as I went. 

Then it began to rain. The showers continued intermittently until I returned to my car.

I could only hope it wasn't going to be heavy or long enough to destroy my work.

I reached the abandoned tires and found a third tire dumped in the woods. I neatly stacked them along with a large bag of trash by the side of the road. I'll contact the Meriden Parks Department to pick all of it up.

Rather than retrace my steps and walk the road back, I took a trail down that parallels the road and joins the road at the bottom. 

I didn't have to walk more than 100 feet before I found my condom of the week. Maybe I should've stayed on the road...

I kept the photo small so as not to gross you out too much, dear squeamish reader.

Anyway, back on the road I returned to my car with a small bag of trash.

Cheers!