Visit #1276, Saturday 7 November 20, 7:45-9:30AM, mileage n/a, litter n/a.
Visit #1277, Sunday 8 November 20, 6:45-9:30AM, mileage unknown, 15.2 lbs. of litter.
Both days: Temps in the 50's, and rapidly rising to the 70's, sunny.
I didn't record my hiking mileage this week because I let a coworker borrow my pedometer. He restores Chevy Impalas from the 1960's, and goes to swap meets in search of car parts. Don was always curious how many miles he walks at these swap meets so I let him borrow my pedometer to find out.
Don reported to me he walked 5.75 miles on Friday and 6.75 miles on Saturday, which confirmed to him why his legs are always sore after these swap meets!
On Saturday I took a mountain bike ride through Hubbard Park for three reasons:
1. To have fun!
2. To see if I could find my hedge clippers, which fell out of my backpack last week.
3. I received an inquiry about the graffiti I reported finding last week. It was inferred that someone might take care of it before I did. I was curious...
So I arrive at the bridge abutment and sure enough, a bang-up job was done covering over the graffiti.
Nice straight edges, good coverage, the works. Now, if they were paying attention and inspected the adjacent face of the abutment...
Of course, some would argue that since it's not seen by the public then it's not an issue. I had actually prepped my backpack on Saturday night to paint over the hidden side, then for a variety of reasons changed my mind. I may return to this. Nevertheless, whoever painted over the visible graffiti did a very good job, and in a timely fashion.
Just a short distance up the road I noticed some graffiti on a power pole. The tag is reminiscent of similar graffiti I've found elsewhere in the park in May and July.
When I returned Sunday morning, I brought some spray paint and covered it up. In retrospect, I should have covered that black, too. I think I'll fit it into next week's plan.
Up at the small brick building, I noticed someone painted over areas I previously painted, while covering graffiti. Admittedly, my gray paint didn't match the building's color at all, and I don't blame them for rectifying the discrepancy.
But if they were paying attention, they would have inspected the other sides and not missed this one spot on the rear of the small building.
In the interest of not making the same mistake twice, I ahem, "borrowed" a flake of paint from the wall and brought it to my local paint store. There, I grabbed some paint swatches, which I'll tape to the wall and find which matches best, then buy some to cover this.
I rode my mountain bike up the road and stopped at the spots where I thought I might find my beloved hedge clippers but came up empty handed. And the replacements I bought last week- they weren't EXACT duplicates and it was bugging me. So I returned them and ordered the correct ones.
After I discovered them missing from my backpack last week, I ran into a hiker and as we spoke, the subject of my hedge clippers came up. He promised if he found them he would leave them on the backside of the water tank. I took a detour up there, and while I didn't get reunited with my hedge clippers, I did find more graffiti, with many of the tags copies of graffiti I've seen and covered before in Hubbard Park.
Like the pink graffiti on the I-691 abutment, it's not visible to the public so I'm torn as to whether to address it. I had previously painted over graffiti on the water tank. The water department apparently took exception to my work and within a week covered my gray with their appropriate blue paint.
I e-mailed the water department to get an official ruling before I go all Rembrandt on this. We'll see what they say.
So I rode my mountain bike up the road and took a trail down. Along the way, I discovered two newly fallen trees which need to be removed from the trail.
It was while photographing this second fallen tree that I removed removed some cycling clothing to put in my backpack. In the process I took off my watch and forgot to put it back on. Leaving the trail to get back on the road, I looked at my watch and only saw wrist hair.
This was a problem.
Now, in the last two weeks I:
Damaged my camera and had to replace it: $$$
Lost my hedge clippers and had to replace them: $$
I wasn't about to buy a new watch: $
So I pushed my bike back up the trail to the fallen tree and unlike my hedge clippers, found my watch.
On Sunday morning when I arrived at the park, I had one pressing task to perform before I began my hike. I recently read a book which had received a glowing review somewhere.
If I ever remember where I read that review (if I was paying attention), I will burn down their headquarters and torch the ashes, too.
I was going to drop the book off at the Friends of the Meriden Library Bookstore but I wouldn't want to see ANYONE pay a penny for this bound toilet paper. So I dropped it into the Little Library at Hubbard Park. Let someone suffer without spending any money for the pleasure.
I chose to walk the road toward East/West Peak on Sunday because, after walking DOWN the road last week and picking up so much litter, I expected the roadsides to be relatively clean this week. My mountain bike ride on Saturday made me wonder whether I was paying attention last week when I was picking up litter, or if it's just the change in direction the enabled me to spot more litter.
In the end, I didn't prove either theory, but I certainly picked up a lot of trash.
I reached the top of the road and took the Blue Trail down. It was on this trail I saw sticky fingers couldn't leave alone the log I placed in such a fashion to enable me to remove three trees from this trail.
Here it is in September when we cleared damage from Storm Isaias.
And Sunday.
I recovered from that trauma and hiked the White Trail toward the Halfway House. Along the way, I came upon a "widowmaker". It was hanging low enough that you had to duck underneath it or go around it. I trimmed it to make it passable.
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