Chance Encounters

It was a peaceful Saturday at the north end of Hubbard Park. With the road still closed and the Daffodil Festival in progress at the south end, I had the better part of the park pretty much to myself.

Visit #1072, Saturday 29 April 17, 10:00AM-12:45PM, 4.5 miles.
Temps in the 70's, sunny and calm.

There was no way I was going to park in Hubbard Park proper this week, with the Daffodil Festival in full swing, so I entered the park through the north end.

We had quite a bit of rain this past week; from the photo above it looks like the reservoir has almost returned to full capacity.

The spillways reinforce my observation. There's some trash floating in them, but that will have to wait until the spillways dry out.

And so I headed up the road.

My first chance encounter was with a Find of the Week. Why does someone choose to discard a pair of insoles THERE, beside the road, and THEN.  I'd love to hear the logic behind that.

And the road continued up.

Near the fork in the road to East and West Peak, while collecting some trash off the side of the road, I had a chance encounter with a garter snake.

Then I encountered a series of graffiti. I had conveniently packed some grey and brown spray paint this week just in case, and was glad I did as it saved me a return trip.

It was about at this point I intended to turn around and take a trail back down to Merimere Reservoir. But as I was covering the graffiti, a Meriden Fire Department vehicle passed by enroute to Castle Craig. This gave me an idea; I would ask the fire department employee to take my trash bag which was getting full and heavy, and I would be able to open another bag and pick up more trash around Castle Craig.

So I stopped John Strillacci from the Meriden Fire Department and asked him if he would take my trash bag and drop it off so I could open another one. No sense in leaving it at the parking lot where it would be an eyesore for the weekend and possibly get opened by wildlife.

His answers-"I'm not leaving for 5 hours. I'm not the garbage guy."

Huh? I'm not sure what "...5 hours" has to do with it, and apparently I can be the "garbage guy",  picking up other peoples' trash but since it's not in his job description, he's not gonna put forth the effort as a representative of Meriden to take one lousy trash bag with him.

To put it mildly, he didn't represent the City of Meriden or the Meriden Fire Department well.

Needless to say, we had a terse exchange.

So I cleaned up the Castle Craig parking lot anyway, and filled up my 13 gallon bag. And since taking the trash bag was outside the scope of Mr. Strillacci's "duties", I transferred my trash to a 30 gallon bag and lugged it the MILE AND A HALF back to my car, all the while continuing to pick up more trash.

But lest you think I have a chip on my shoulder regarding the Meriden Fire Department, and lest you think ALL members of the Meriden Fire Department are so lacking in public relations skills, I would like to refer you to this encounter I had with the Meriden Fire Department back in May 2013.

Heck; they even took my trash!

I hiked a trail down toward Merimere Reservoir. Enroute, I encountered a fallen hemlock. I couldn't clear it completely from the trail, so I'll have to return with the chainsaw next week to finish the job.

Farther down, I encountered more work of mountain bikers who continue to build ramps and jumps on the trail. I dismantled what I could but ran out of time. Along with the fallen tree, I'll dismantle the rest next week.

Note the rocks I placed on top, so they'll stop and look rather than go full speed ahead.

This will have to wait until next week.

I returned to my car with the trash bag that caused too much of an imposition, because I'M the garbage guy and they're...? (FYI: I later weighed the bag-12lbs.)