On The Hunt

Saturday was a perfect day for a hike, and we weren't the only ones to figure that out.

Visit #1069, Saturday 15 April 17, 9:00-11:30AM, 5.6 miles.
Temps in the high 50's, sunny with a chilly breeze.

My thanks to Paul Bernier, who joined me this week.

I hadn't been up to West Peak in MANY weeks so our journey today would take us there to clean up the area. We would be on the hunt for trash.

But first, I had some opportunities to ride through Hubbard Park this week and check on the status of the uptick in graffiti as well as put some miles in.

Last week I spied a tag on the fence surrounding the retention ponds. I carried a slip of sandpaper with me and polished it off.

As I left and rolled around to the road, I spotted some graffiti which was surely there last week, but I must have missed-poor quality control on my part. So I returned on Thursday with a can of spray paint to cover it.

Bonus: In this week's report you get to see my complete stable of bikes!

Anyway, Paul and I hiked over I-691 and up the trails to West Peak, where we policed the area and the parking lot. This resulted in a couple full bags of litter.

Paul and I then followed the road to the trails, down and to the Halfway House. Unfortunately, when we arrived we discovered it had been tagged with graffiti within the past week or two. More on that later.

We also found the obligatory condom there. I hope this wasn't going on during daylight.

Paul and I hiked down to Merimere Reservoir where we found fodder for next week's blog, a fallen tree.

We returned to the parking lot and dropped off a second pair of trash bags.

But the graffiti at the Halfway House needed to be dealt with. Seeing an opportunity to combine a bike ride and tackle the ink, I packed up the Camelbak and rode on over.

I packed spray paint, but was hesitant to use it on the Halfway House because it would discolor the stone. I had the forethought to pack a wire brush as well and decided to give it first dibs.

I'm not sure what the star in the circle represents-a search on the Hate Symbols Database web site didn't provide an answer. A similar symbol, the letter "A" with a circle around it, is used by anarchists; maybe these anarchists weren't paying attention in class. They were probably daydreaming about conforming to society...

This was a good shoulder AND aerobic workout. I think it was also a good result.

I couldn't figure out what this represented.

Carrying the spray paint wasn't a total waste. The "star in the circle" thang was painted on the wood pillar. Some brown paint took care of that quickly.

Done at the Halfway House, I bombed down to the Soap Box Derby track because our "Bomb" tagger had painted the road again.

Passersby must have thought I was nuts taking a wire brush to this.

To close this week, I want to tell you the local newspaper, the Record Journal, has begun a campaign to decorate a wall in their conference room with commemorative bricks. I bought one on behalf of  the blog. We'll see where this leads. Stay tuned.