Geek!

 Yeah, I might as well admit it.

Visit #1480, Sunday 26 May 24, 6:50-9:50AM, 5.2 miles, 4.0 lbs. of litter.

Temps in the 60s, rising to the 80s, sunny and dry.

I work in the communications industry, and part of my job has me listening to police/fire/emergency services frequencies among other transmissions. I use a handheld scanner to troubleshoot, and have been using mine a lot lately at work. I don't normally listen when I'm not working but I'll admit it's fun when I do.

I got the bright idea to bring my scanner along with me today to see what the reception would be like in a high location such as Castle Craig.

I walked around Merimere Reservoir and hiked the Blue Trail up along the ridgeline.

Good thing I took this route; I found more than one tree down across the trail. I shall return next week to remove them on a Power Tool Weekend®.

Reaching Castle Craig I promptly put the scanner to work and was surprised at the coverage.

Danbury, East Hartford; I was also able to hear Manchester and Waterbury all in under five minutes of listening. If you're a scanner geek, that's impressive!

While at Castle Craig I did clean up the parking lot but quite frankly, I was impressed on how clean it was considering it was the weekend. Unfortunately a passing runner informed me West Peak wasn't so clean. Alas I only had so much gas in my legs and West Peak was beyond my schedule today so I had to ignore the siren call.

Among today's finds were a thin balaclava. This isn't going to Goodwill; I lost my thin balaclava and claim this as my replacement.

Adding evidence to my assertion that people who leave graffiti likely flunked their spelling classes was this find today:

Hiking back to the parking lot, I stopped at the kiosk at the dirt parking area in the northwest corner of Mirror Lake. While I noticed some new flyers announcing cool summer concerts on the Meriden Green, I also noticed some new graffiti on it.

The cover is acrylic/plexiglass so using most removers is a no-no. The Goof-Off I had with me warns against usage on plexiglass but I decided to test on just a corner. It seemed okay so I gambled and went to town on both halves of the kiosk, wiping off the remover immediately. I think I dodged a bullet this time. If you have a better solution that doesn't attack plexiglass, let me know.

Now it's time to enjoy the remainder of the Memorial Day Weekend holiday. I hope you enjoy it, too.