The Planets Aligned

A foggy start to Saturday morning's work.

Visit #972, Saturday 12 September 15, 7:45-10:50AM, 6.9 miles.
Temps in the 70's, with high humidity.

Last Saturday I was only able to pick up trash for one-half the distance from Hubbard Park to East/West Peak. I wanted to complete my policing of the road for two reasons.

First, there was a running race scheduled for Sunday and I thought it would be nice to have a clean road presented to the runners. Second, I wanted to admire my work of Labor Day last week, and clean up the West Peak parking lot since I didn't do so on Labor Day as I was too busy trimming trees.

I was really fortunate; Chris Bourdon from the Meriden Parks Department e-mailed to tell me he sent a street sweeper up to West Peak to clean up the broken glass I reported on last week. That saved me some labor. Thanks, Chris!

I walked the road from the park and by the time I reached the fork to East/West Peak I had a full trash bag, so I left it for later pickup.

I walked part-way toward Castle Craig cleaning up some road/some trail and by the time I reached the concrete blocks my bag was heavy enough that I decided to leave it with the first bag, and start a third.

I headed toward West Peak, cleaning up both sides of the road. When I reached the parking lot I policed the perimeter and pretty much expected to fill that third bag. In the process I came across this:

Regular readers of my blog, if there are any (!), would remember I found five similar bottles way back toward the park, on a trail behind the water tank. I wonder if they're from the same thirsty person, and if so, why the change in location?

I also found the second gate surrounding the radio towers has been breached. Since the first one was resecured only with tyraps, I'll bring my own next time and take care of this gate.

I didn't venture beyond the parking lot today but turned around and headed back toward the East/West Peak fork so I could have all three bags in one spot for easy pickup by the Meriden Parks Department. But before leaving, I had one last gaze to admire my handywork sprucing up the West Peak parking lot. It was worth the effort-the trimming, not the gazing!

I dropped off that third bag. As I was doing so, a couple came along and one of them asked "how many more there were in my group (of volunteers)". The look on her face told me she didn't expect to hear the answer "zero".

I headed downhill via a trail and came across my Find of the Week.

Yeah; the box was full but I wasn't about to test the freshness of those flakes.

I returned to the parking lot and dropped off my fourth bag of trash.

On a gamble, I e-mailed Chris Bourdon and asked if he were attending Sunday's running event, would he be able to pick up the 3 bags of trash I left? Although the runners wouldn't be running that far to see them, goers to either peak would, and that would be unsightly. I had no idea whether Chris checks his work e-mail on weekends but figured with the pending event, he might.

As luck would have it he did, and the bags were promptly picked up early Sunday morning. My thanks to the Meriden Parks Department.