Surprises

The daffodils look a little worn out after working overtime for the Daffodil Festival. No surprise there. Time to call it quits and pack it in 'til next year.

Visit #1192, Saturday 11 May 19, 6:40-8:40AM, 2.3 miles, 31.1lbs. of litter.
Temps in the 50's, sunny.

As pal Jeff and I suited up for last week's escapades, he suggested that instead of my weekly trail maintenance,  we clean up West Main Street, west of Hubbard Park, where he noticed a lot of trash. Being a "stick to the plan" sorta guy, and because West Main Street was out of my scope of duties, I declined.

In retrospect it would have been a good idea, because last week was the Mayor's Community Cleanup Day  and we would have fit right in.

So this week I decided I'd honor Jeff's suggestion, picking up roadside litter from the west-most entrance to Hubbard Park up to the small parking area across from Belmont Avenue. Besides; I was on-call and didn't want to stray from my van should I get a service call.

I started early because there was a children's fishing derby scheduled in Hubbard Park on Saturday; I wanted to ensure I would find parking, and by starting early I would avoid the surprise of getting hooked by some back-casting youth a treble hooked lure!

As I made my way up the roadside picking up litter, I was surprised to come upon this landmark tucked in to the brush, but I have no idea WHAT it marks.

I reached the end of the property and turned around to head back to my van. As I walked, a white sedan slowed as it passed by. From the sound I could tell it had stopped. What was going to be my next surprise?

Surprise; turns out it was Mayor Kevin Scarpati! We'd never had a one-on-one meet, so it was basically each person meeting "The Man, The Myth, The Legend". Until then, I'd only seen photos of him in the paper; he might as well have been Elvis or Salman Rushdie in hiding. As for me, he only knew me from my blog; for all he knew I could have been an invention of someone's imagination. In fact, I sometimes think that of myself!

Here, the mayor violates a city parking ordinance for the sake of a photo op! As you can see, he's struggling to lift my trash bag, which is why you should leave the heavy lifting to professionals like me!

We had a great chat, which was cut short when a state trooper drove by, stopped, and asked if we needed help. At least the mayor didn't get a parking ticket.

I returned to the park but hadn't filled out my self-imposed two-hour minimum work session, so I headed to the parking area at the northwest corner of Mirror Lake to pick up more litter.

Enroute, I took a glance up at Castle Craig. I know the picture is poor, but can you see what I see?

 Here; let's zoom in:

Surprise; that's not one but TWO meatheads standing on top of the crenellations of Castle Craig.

I got my last surprise of the day when my work phone rang, beckoning me to a service call in West Haven. Time to leave as the sun was beginning to provide a great day for fishing at Mirror Lake.

This week I brought the bags of trash home with me for disposal.