Following the Evidence

Despite the high temps and humidity, it was a good degree cooler and drier on the shaded trails.

Bugs weren't an issue either.

Visit #1259, Saturday 18 July 20, 6:40-9:50AM, 5.1 miles, 7.2lbs. of litter.

Temps in the 70's and climbing to 90 today, very high humidity.

Last week I found graffiti on the Halfway House which needed attention, and the trail leading directly up to Castle Craig was narrowed and overgrown, so today I would trim it back.

In the past I've commented on the number of empty water bottles I find on the trails. In fact, I once devoted an entire blog post to the issue.

With the ongoing Covid-19 work and school restrictions, I noticed a significant increase in the number of discarded water bottles on the trail.  This week I decided to photograph every bottle I found. You count 'em; see if the number makes an impression on you. It's been like this every week since the Covid-19 shutdown began and people started flocking to Hubbard Park to alleviate stay-at-home pressures. And I don't cover every trail each time I hike, so I'm sure there are more bottles out there.

People actually pay upwards of $1/bottle for this stuff, when my faucet mounted water filter will provide the same great tasting water at roughly 1.33 cents per bottle. And don't forget the 5 cents they tossed away with the bottle. Am I missing something?

Now that we have THAT out of the way...

Hiking up toward the Halfway House, I found a newly fallen tree on the trail behind the water tank.

I'll remove it from the trail next week.

Before I began work on the graffiti at the Halfway House, I found Painted Rock #25.

To reach the graffiti, I had to stand on the stone wall. I used brown spray paint to cover it, although I apparently forgot to take an After photo here.

Now, this second piece of graffiti at the Halfway House was higher up, and difficult for me to reach. After thinking about it for a couple days, I came up with a home brew solution.

But before I show my solution, a little background on this graffiti tag.

It first appeared on my radar in May 2020. Earlier this week, I noticed the same tag elsewhere in Meriden, on West Main Street roughly adjacent to each other.

So they are a versatile graffiti artist (I use that term VERY loosely); they work in both spray paint and crayon/grease pencil/whatever. I was concerned the spray paint would not adhere to whatever was used at the Halfway House. And I had to be able to reach it.

I took a length of wood and glued a sponge to it.

I then glued a piece of 100 grit sandpaper to the sponge.

With this widget I was able to sand the markings prior to paint. Done.

I used the rest of my can of spray paint covering over various other eyesores on the Halfway House, including graffiti Cat #7, first appearing in November 2016.

Just prior to turning onto the trail to take me to Castle Craig, I found Painted Rocks #26 and 27.

On the reverse side of the rock on the right, I found this message:

The author obviously knows me and has a (rock) chip on their shoulder. I can rock that. I must be popular. Here's what Dirty Harry would say to me:

Heading up the steep trail to Castle Craig, I noticed last week the trail needed some attention. I spent some time with hedge clippers and loppers trimming the brush. I couldn't capture the results well on camera, so you'll have to go there and see for yourself.

Reaching Castle Craig, I performed a cursory cleaning of the area, and the parking lot. My reward was finding this full can of Sprite! Yeah, it was bulging and dented but it was still sealed.

I hiked the trails down, collecting litter and cataloging all the water bottles. I was getting hotter and steamier as I walked, and I was glad to finish the day under somewhat sane temperatures.

I dropped off my trash for the week...

...then went home and popped open a cold one. Ahhh...

Sticky July

Castle Craig as viewed from the Halfway House on a breezy but warm and humid Sunday morning.

Visit #1257, Saturday 11 July 20, 6:25-10:00AM, 6.0 miles, 18.7lbs. of litter.

Temps in the 70's and rising, sunny with brutal humidity.

Visit #1258, Sunday 12 July 20, 7:45-9:15AM, mileage and litter n/a.

Temps in the 70's, breezes from the south, with rising temps and high humidity.

Last week I received a report of a fallen tree across a trail. On Tuesday I took a mountain bike ride on the trails to see what kind of work would be involved to remove it.

After eyeballing the tree, I rode the trail down to Merimere Reservoir and back to the park. Enroute, I stopped by the hornets' nest I discovered last week to evict the tenants. A can of hornets' nest spray and some social distancing from the hornets was all it took.

 I started early Saturday morning but there was no avoiding the humidity and rapidly rising temperatures.

I recently mentioned the closing hour for road access to East and West Peak have been pushed back from 4:45PM to 5:30PM. The sign makes it official.

Walking the road, I quickly gathered enough litter to leave this one at the water treatment plant, expecting to fill another bag soon.

At the north end of Merimere Reservoir I came upon my Find of the Week.

Somebody must have expected this inflatable ball to float its way across Merimere Reservoir. It didn't go very far.

In order for it to fit in my trash bag, I had to deflate it with malice and prejudice.

Traveling up the road, I picked up Painted Rocks #'s 23 and 24. I'm still not understanding this peculiar trend.

When I reached the fork in the road to East/West Peak, my trash bag was full so I left it for the parks department to collect, and started another bag. I intended to notify them of the bag's location but when I returned to the park by bike on Sunday, they had already collected the bag. My thanks to the Meriden Parks Department.

Diverging from the road I discovered another tree which needed removal as it was leaning low into the trail. Good thing I had the chainsaw with me.

This took no time at all to clear from the trail.

I finally reached my main objective for Saturday.

Obviously, this took more work than the other tree, but it was not particularly difficult.

At this point I reversed direction and headed toward Castle Craig, then followed the trails down.

Entering the Halfway House, I found much new graffiti. Fortunately, it was written in chalk, which should be easy to remove. This photo is from Sunday when I returned on my mountain bike to remove it. There was much more but it was sort of pointless to display here.

Heading back to the parking lot, I found this painted nip bottle. I can't imagine a child would paint a nip bottle, so why would an adult bother to paint it and to reference someone? What's the boat reference?

Walking underneath the I-691 bridges over the Soap Box Derby track, I found this hat formerly belonging to a CT DOT worker. At least there was no head underneath it.

I dropped off my last trash bag for the day, intending to return on Sunday to deal with the graffiti.

So I returned to the Halfway House on Sunday via mountain bike, armed with the tools to remove the chalk graffiti. Fortunately, being a graduate of Meriden's parochial school system, I was highly trained in dealing with chalk, having cleaned my share of blackboards back in the day. The nuns at St. Stanislaus School would have been proud that I had retained my know-how after all these decades.

A spray bottle of water and a scrub brush, with hardly any scrubbing.

This was a little bit more difficult because I'm so short and even standing on the wall, reaching it was well, a reach!

I don't know what COVID-05 was but it couldn't be as bad as Covid-19 because I've never heard mention of COVID-05 and you probably haven't either.

So I McGuyer'd a solution, using a bicycle tube, and taping the brush to my bicycle pump. Momma didn't raise no dummy! She did however, raise a short son...

There's some remaining graffiti that will have to be dealt with differently, but I'll leave that for next week.

I'll leave you with this week's collection of Covid-19 masks. There was apparently a Covid party here, behind this bridge abutment. One of the masks was ahem, creatively used as toilet paper... I don't make this stuff up.

July 4th Weekend

It was a steamy day out there Sunday, one I tried to avoid...

Visit 1256x, Friday 3 July 20, 4:50-5:00AM, mileage and litter n/a.

Visit 1256, Sunday 5 July 20, 9:40-11:25AM, 3.3miles, 7.6lbs. of litter.

Temps in the low 80's, sunny and very humid.

Earlier in the week I rode my bike through Hubbard Park to scout out some graffiti I'd recently spotted. Since it was in a frequently traffic'd spot, and I didn't want to draw attention to myself, I thought I'd arrive at the park VERY early, paint over it, and be outta there in minutes. The paint would dry before anyone walked on it. Or at least that was my plan...

Could you believe I arrived at the park on Friday BEFORE 5AM and I wasn't the first person there?! My plans almost went to poop.  I stalled a few minutes while a couple exited their car and began walking up the road toward Merimere Reservoir, then I went to work.

The graffiti was near the gate across the road. Similar graffiti was found by me at the end of May, at the opposite end of Merimere Reservoir.

I came already dressed in coveralls, so all I had to do was open the paint can and dip my brush.

I briskly marched up to the water department building by the retention ponds to address the other graffiti. This is the sixth time I've found this tag since 2016.

I used Goof-Off and a toothbrush.

A swipe with a rag and it was good enough for government work.

To show you how brave I am, while I was scrubbing, just a few feet to my left under the window sill...

Thank goodness they were sleeping, which is where I should have been.

I planned on returning to Hubbard Park early Sunday morning to avoid the heat, and I thought I might try to clean up around the park itself after any July 4th celebrations.

But I was on call, and while driving to the park early Sunday morning, I received an after hours service call, which scuttled my plans. When I later arrived at the park, a Parks Department crew was already driving a golf cart around picking up litter, and they later assured me they covered the entire park.

I headed west toward the I-691 walkbridge. Along the way I found Painted Rock #22.

I keep finding car parts along a trail far from where any dumping of car parts should occur. Sunday was another case in point.

I reached the trail end across from Belmont Avenue and found another car part, which I placed in a conspicuous spot for the Parks Department to pick up later after I notified them.

I returned to the park, rolling my tire to the dumpster at the Parks Department dumpster, when I met Parks employee Dave.

While chatting with Dave I mentioned the car part above and he said he would drive by and pick it up. Sure enough, when I left the park and passed by the parking area, it was gone. Thanks to Dave of the Parks Department crew for such a prompt response.

Freed of a heavy load, I opened another bag and walked a loop to the south end of Merimere Reservoir and back to the parking lot via the Soap Box Derby track.

When I ended at the playscape, I discovered it has reopened after Covid-19 precautions had closed the playscape several months ago. Children will be thrilled to have the opportunity to slide, swing, climb, and scrape their knees again.

I was informed this week by a frequent hiker in Hubbard Park of a fallen tree across a trail. Next week will be a Power Tools Weekend®!