I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

 

Visit #1497, Sunday 29 September 24, 7:05-9:45AM, 5.4 miles, 5.1 lbs. of litter.

Temps in the low 60s, cloudy with intermittent light drizzle.

A blog reader asked me to look out for a pair of glasses and a glove they lost while hiking in Hubbard Park. I decided to give it a shot so I asked for and was given vague directions on their route. I was going to wing it and maybe I'd get lucky.

It appears the state of Connecticut finished their repair work on the I-691 underpass through Hubbard Park, with their last task being installation of fencing. Good for another 30 years.

Nearing the north end of Merimere Reservoir I discovered someone dumped a pile of bricks and concrete off to the side of the road. I'll see what I can do to facilitate getting this picked up.

I love Sunday mornings; even from a distance it looks like Meriden is still sleeping.

I followed the Blue Trail to Castle Craig and beyond.

At the I-691 walkbridge, I found Love Lock #8. If you've followed my blog, you know what's going to happen to this one next week.

Reaching the never ending birch tree graffiti duel, I found the latest in the series. This person just doesn't stop! But then again, neither will I. Just like the lock, this will see the same treatment as previous times.

Actually, I already did; I just forgot to take a photo. It's happening so frequently that I've permanently added black spray paint to my standard backpack load.

While cleaning up the dirt parking area in the northwest corner of mirror lake, I discovered this graffiti

I erased it to spare the author the embarrassment of their misspelling.

On the opposite side of the parking lot were Halloween colors in full display. That was not photoshopped!

Checking out the latest offerings at the kiosk in the parking area, I see the Three Peaks Challenge is coming. There's pizza at the end! Are you enough of a hiker to take on the challenge?

I never found what I was looking for. I'll try another route next weekend.

What- No Blog This Week?!

I know you waited by your inbox for the next gripping installment and were disappointed Monday morning when it didn't arrive.

Sorry, but I took a four day vacation at Yale-New Haven Hospital.

I'll be back to my regular self next weekend!

Pounding the Pavement

 The fog over Merimere Reservoir starts to lift as the sun rises over Hubbard Park.

Visit #1496, Sunday 15 September 24, 6:30-8:55AM, 5.5 miles, 6.6 lbs. of litter.

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

I walked around the reservoir just as the sun was beginning to warm East Peak. I was heading up the road, to West Peak.

As I walked, I began to notice Percival Park Road (bet you didn't know the road to East and West Peaks had a name!) has taken a beating in the past few years and is need of repair. Take a look.

What brought this to my attention was watching some early morning cyclists riding down the road. While they exercised good judgment and moderated their speed, some may not be so wise and in for a mess of road rash or worse.

However, one benefit of this rough road is, it keeps down the speed of cars.

I don't expect the city of Meriden to jump right on repairing this road; they've got more important things to do such as their annual road paving schedule. Here's the schedule for the rest of September. And that's just a partial list as they've been hard at re-paving work in August as well.

All those potholes didn't bother a hiker like me. I cleaned up the parking lot at West Peak and continued on my way back to the park.

Crossing over I-691 and on the return trail prior to Sunday, I found this pair of birch trees sullied by pink paint.

There's a history to these trees: Some scofflaw would write something on these trees with magic marker.

I'd scrub it off, shave off the bark, or paint over it with white paint. They would repeat. I would repeat.

This started roughly in March 2022. The pink was the latest from them.

I came back last week and covered over the pink.

Of course that's not the end of it.

This morning I pass the trees and find this...

...which is kind of ironic since they want me to stop yet they paint on the tree.

What's worse is they litter, leaving their paint brush on the ground.

I soldiered on, policing the dirt parking area at the end of the trail.

Upon leaving I noticed the National Kidney Foundation was hosting a fund raising walk in the park.

Graffiti Bloom

 

Visit #1495, Saturday 7 September 24, 7:00-10:05AM, 5.6 miles, 8.3 lbs. of litter.

Temps in the 60s, sunny and pleasant. Showers forecast for the afternoon.

During last week's hike I discovered some graffiti inside Castle Craig, which became a trail of graffiti apparently made by the same person. At that time I tried my usual removal methods but progress was too slow for my tastes. I was going to follow this trail in reverse and address it more aggressively.

I know it's not much but this scribble was the start of the trail as I walked up the road around Merimere Reservoir.

Along the way I found this very tired snake. Dead or not, I'm not touching him!

Nearing Echo Point, a couple on bikes who I've seen before, approached. As they passed, the man said something like "I see you here a lot; you do quite a bit of work.", to which the woman added, "You should be on the payroll!"

I got a belly laugh out of that!

At the north end of the reservoir was the next piece of wayward art which was obviously made with the same crayon.

I walked the road up to Castle Craig, and went inside to remove the graffiti which started all this last week. I tried removing this graffiti then which is why it's slightly dulled. But it was stubborn so my return visit was necessary. It didn't stand a chance against my magic rag.

I climbed the stairs to inspect for more and on the way down found what I was looking for. But I had already packed away the magic rag so I used Option #2. As pal Elmer wrote to me earlier this week, "Two is one, and one is none” its a military saying that means to have a backup plan. The idea is that if you have a mission-critical item, it will likely malfunction, get lost, or break, so you should have a backup."

This was  my backup.

Nearing the Halfway House, I found another playing card like the ones I found last week.

A game of Crazy Eights, anyone?

Hiking down back to the park I met another hiker who showed me a brief video on his phone of an animal he had just encountered on the road to West Peak, asking me what I thought it was.  The two had a brief staredown but the hiker wasn't going to play Marlin Perkins; like I said-the video was BRIEF.

The video was pretty clear. I'm no zoologist but it was either a bobcat or a mountain lion. Had I been able to take the video home to do some searching I could be more certain.

As I neared the park, I was disabused of the idea that I was done with graffiti for as I reached the Soap Box Derby Track, I found this:

The gray paint you see is from my previous work covering over graffiti several years ago. It was a good run while it lasted.

I couldn't let this go. So I returned Sunday morning at the crack of dawn to avoid scrutiny and applied a fresh coat of coverage.

Another hike is in the books.

Put Away Those Whites!

 Time to retire my sweat soaked hat for the season.

Visit #1494, Sunday 1 September 24,  6:45-8:55AM, 4.9 miles, 3.8 lbs. of litter.

Temps in the low 70s, cloudy/foggy and very humid.

This morning's dew point equaled the temperature which made for some sweaty conditions despite the cool temps.

In the past few weeks I was able to inspect and clear most of the trails from recent storm damage. I cheated a little bit and used my mountain bike to inspect one trail yesterday, finding it clear. That freed me up to hike the Blue Trail along the western ridge of Merimere Reservoir this morning.

Along the trail today I separately found these two playing cards, the start of a good hand.

Things got REALLY sweaty hiking up to Castle Craig.

Driving down East Main Street enroute to Hubbard Park this morning, I couldn't even SEE Castle Craig. Once I reached Castle Craig, I couldn't even see Meriden!

Even the castle and the flagpole were in a fog.

I connected to the Blue Trail and continued my hike along the ridgeline.

Passing a log, what I first dismissed as just another white mushroom turned out to be this:

At the north end of the reservoir I stopped to take a drink.

Now to head home to wash and put away my white hat.