Weirdness

The only thing that wasn't weird on today's expedition was the serene view from the north end of Merimere Reservoir.

Visit #1085, Sunday 25 June 17, 7:05-10:30AM, 5.8 miles.
Temps in the low 70's, sunny.

During last week's drive up to West Peak, I decided some of the foliage on the road side needed trimming so it didn't encroach on hikers and walkers as they followed the road. So this week I would tackle one side of the road, trimming for a little headroom.

It didn't take long after I started my hike to run into my first of many weird finds of the week-Annie Scott's college homework and expired internet credentials.

 

By the time I reached the water treatment plant I had collected enough heavy trash that I decided to leave the bag there.

But as I did, I spied more weirdness.

At first I thought those planks near the brook were placed there for a purpose. But the more I thought about it, the less clear that purpose became. So I gathered up the wood and left it with the trash bag.

When I reached the south end of Merimere Reservoir, as a habit I checked the lock on the gate and found it missing. That was weird. ATVers are prone to cutting off the lock and as a result of my request in April 2016, the Meriden Parks Department installed a shroud around the padlock to prevent vandalism. I had previously demonstrated that cutting the lock was still possible and assumed that's what happened.

But as my instincts led me to look inside the post adjacent to the gate, look what I found.

Either someone from the parks department brain farted and forgot to reinstall the lock, or someone else has a key. I re-secured the lock and will keep an eye on it as I check it every time I pass by.

I hiked up the trails, past the Halfway House. Further on along the main trail I found what appears to be Colorado'd Tree #17.

Luckily, today I brought along my seldom used pruning saw, which rectified the situation just fine.

I turned up the trail and headed toward the road. Enroute, I found these rocks which were weird because someone painted them white. I'll hopefully remember to paint over them next week.

At the top, I walked the road down, pruning as I planned to do. I also found more graffiti, which I'll attempt to address next week as well.

At the very bottom, I continued finding weird things.

Since these car parts were found adjacent to a stone wall, I can only assume the car met the wall. The car parts were kind of large but fortunately they weren't heavy to carry.

I followed the road back toward the park and, upon reaching Echo Point I did a little pruning and ran into the Ultimate Weird Find of the Week.

Whoever discreetly hid this bird cage behind the rocks at Echo Point had the forethought to tie open the bird cage door so Tweety could fly the coop.

I carried the bird cage, along with the car parts, as I walked the road back to the park and picked up trash. Reaching the water treatment plant for the second time, I added the car parts and bird cage to the other trash I left their earlier. The Meriden Water Department must LOVE me...

I continued on back to the park where I dropped a bag of not so weird trash.