Zero Dark Thirty

 Visit #1389, Sunday, 9 October 22, 7:00-9:35AM, 5.1 miles, 10.0 lbs. of litter.

Temps in the high 30s to start, warming up nicely by hike's end, sunny.

It was Sunday morning and I beat my alarm clock by an entire hour, awaking at the ridiculously unnecessary time of 5AM.

What to do? If I left for Hubbard Park now, it would still be dark when I arrived.

So I washed and ironed clothes to kill time. Yeah, I lead a wild life.

Leaving for Hubbard Park at dawn and driving west by City Hall, I could clearly see a mysteriously bright, stationary light shining BELOW Castle Craig. An early morning rescue? Someone in trouble?

Arriving at Hubbard Park, the light was gone. Later that morning I met a couple hikers and asked them about it. We thought it might have been an early morning rock climber. Our other thoughts were crazy; UFO/UAP? A drone? We'll have to see if it makes the newspaper.

Anyway, I headed westward along the trails adjacent to I-691, and stopped to clean up the gravel parking area in the northwest corner of Mirror Lake.

From the number of er, wrappers I picked up, it must have been a wild time.

Can you imagine the size of the wallet needed to hold all these?!

You'll be pleased to know I found the wrappers' contents too, but I'm sparing you the evidence.

I collected so much litter I had to drop off my first bag at the trash can near the duck house. And that bag was just for the condoms!

I resumed my hike, cleaning up all the trails between West Main Street and I-691.

At the walkbridge, I found some recurring graffiti, having previously appeared in July.

First, I applied some sandpaper and elbow grease.

The Goof Off then does the heavy lifting. One more pass with the sandpaper and I'm done.

The trails had that autumn glow thing going on. There were a few other early morning hikers enjoying it just like I was.

I returned to the parking lot and dropped off my second bag of litter.

Heading home, I wondered whether I should try and catch up on that lost sleep.