Outblog No. 64

Monday, May 10, 2004

Lobell Mill Road - Town Hall - Basic Creek Road. It was very hot out that day, and I made the mistake of only bringing two cans of soda. By the time I was returning, I was parched, and quite obviously suffering from Heat Exhaustion. Particularly, the part along Basic Creek Resivour was particularly bad, with the hot sun beating down on me.

Besides the heat, there were not alot of interesting things to note. Things looked a lot different up here, from when I went hiking, along this loop earlier this spring. The leaves on the trees tended to hide things, and make things look different. The road seemed slightly shorter, if only because I was more familiar with it. The many small poor farms along here, looked like usual, with the people living essentially in shacks and animals all over the place. There is a lot of beauty through here, but it is seen in strange ways.

I got up past the Town Hall right at 5 PM, and all of the Town Highway Department employees (and other Town employees) were leaving. I was slightly surpised at the number of people that worked there. A lot of people where outside during this hike, and I said "Hi!" to many of them. I decided not to take any pictures, in part because I was so hot out of it. I really should have brought more water.

Probably the most interesting and frigthening (in a lame sort of way) aspect of the hike was stumbling across a Candian Goose nest along the Basic Creek Resivour road. I was walking along, and a Candian Goose starts honking at me, and another one goes flying along the water, trying to scare me away. I quickly decide to move to the other side of the road, to ensure that I am not attacked. And so I do, I decided to cross over in about 50 ft. from the nest, to be safe with traffic on this narrow section of road with little sholder. The goose is still upset with me, and won't let me over. So I stay on the left for a while longer, until I am a long ways from the nest, and a cross over.

And that's about all I can say about the hike right now—it was just way to hot out there, and I failed to bring both enough water and soda to drink. Total Distance: Roughly 10 Miles. P'Link

Tuesday, May 11, 2004

Leonard Hill State Forest. It was nice weather out, and I wanted to explore somewhere different—although I never expected to end up at Lenoard Hill. It just kind of ended up that way, with my car heading down towards Preston Hollow, and then Cooksberg, and up the hill. At any rate, the intention was to get some nice photo shots going up the valley (which I did get), and then go up and explore a public forest, I had never been in before.

First I parked alongside the main road that runs through the preserve, from Cooksberg to Broome Center. I hiked the slightly ruttedpickup trail to the south, passing a nice camp site, a pond, and a stream. I walked by 3 different ponds/swamps up there, and there was more to be discovered to the north. I eventually made it back to the parking area, and then hiked to the North along an old logging trail, to where I came out between two big ponds, in part dammed up by beavers. Followed that trail for another 1 mile or so, in part push whacking through seemingly heavy and thick brush/brickers at time that was growing up on old logging trail.

The area was so beautiful, and I had a wonderful experience on the way up there. The beauty was remarkable. In the state forest, I was impressed by the lack of human impact (except for a few ruts and old logging roads), and the amount of nature that was around. I heard birds singing in the trees, saw ducks and beavers in the pond, and several squrrels run on by. It was really quite impressive, and I discovered a nice place for the scouts to camp out up there. The plants and wildlife up there were impressive.

I enjoyed myself enomorously, and would like to come up here for further exploration, but I will have to take a wait and see attitude towards that, as it is so far away (roughly 25-30 miles each way—then again, the City is almost that far away from my house). Total Distance: Roughly 4 Miles. P'Link