Pre-Tradition Run Tidying

Last week's 5"+ snowfall is gone already, and it didn't make much of a dent in our drought.

Visit # 1055, Saturday 14 January 17, 9:15AM-12:35PM, 5.6 miles.
Temps in the low 30's with mostly cloudy skies.

Thanks to Paul Bernier, who joined me this week in tidying up the route for the Tradition Run on the day prior to the event.

As you probably already figured out, I planned to pick up trash along the route of tomorrow's Tradition Run, so Meriden could look its best for the event. I think Paul and I did a fine job.

Considering Paul and I cleaned this route a mere two week's ago, we collected a considerable amount of trash.

By the time we reached the water treatment plant, we decided to combine our trash bags and leave them there, because they were already getting heavy and we had a long way to go.

As we walked the road north, I couldn't ignore the low water level at Merimere Reservoir despite last week's snowstorm, and this past week's rain.

By the time we reached the north end of Merimere Reservoir, we had to combine another pair of bags, and left it there for the Meriden Parks Department to pick up, hopefully before tomorrow's event.

While walking the road up, Paul and I were surprised to see the city of Meriden was starting to cut down the hemlocks alongside the road which were dying. That's a good thing; Paul was constantly voicing concern that one of those dead hemlocks might fall on a passing car or possibly even a hiker.
The city appears to have reached halfway up the road with their project. The city did a good job; preserving the tree canopy and only dropping dead trees.

Below is merely a sample of the trees dropped.

 

At Castle Craig, we cleaned the parking lot and surrounding area, then headed down to the Halfway House and back toward the park.

Down near the reservoir, I came upon my Find of the Week, a Gigawire Media Player.

Things got even more interesting with Find of the Week #2, a grocery list, and a pretty detailed one, too; they even specify brands and flavors, once you understand the shorthand. Maybe the author sent out minions to do their shopping.

 

Not to be outdone was our winner of the Find of the Week contest, this boxing heavy bag. So heavy was it in fact that I had to drag it back to the park for disposal. You can see my rope attached to the D-ring on the bag.

While I was dragging, Paul carried our last trash bag, which we deposited in the trash can back at the park.

The weather looks good for tomorrow's event, even though a steady but light snow has been falling from late afternoon into this evening.  If not the weather, at least the road now looks good.