Hot and Hazy: And other Rambles, The Series Ends

That heat wave that washed over us this July has ended, briefly anyway, a new one is moving in although with lesser temperatures. When you rise and say, "Thank you, it is only going to be 95 degrees today," then you know how bad the last one was. But since "the hot one" came in as I started this little series loosely connected to it, it is fitting now that we are expecting a balmy high of 88 to end it.

Over on Tamela's Place  she has posted advice on respect between married couples. The last line of the last paragraph is applicable to us all, married or not, in our relationships to all around us.

"Endeavor to be perfect yourselves, but expect not too much from each other. If any offense arises, forgive it; and think not that a human being can be exempt from faults."

From the book: The Royal Path of Life by T.L. Haines 1876

This is not bragging, because I have too many failures to brag, but honesty. I try to live my live to that admonition. It is a quality that seems to lack quantity anymore. People seem pretty quick to offense over even perceived slights and very unwilling to forgive. And who takes blame for their own actions when there are so many others around to point the finger at? To me this bromide should be the foundation of good character and for a Christian, as an essential item of their spirit as the heart is to their body.


Now having recognized we need to forgive because none of us are exempt of faults, we are going to talk about the faults of others. But it isn't wrong to do this either. We may try very hard to overcome our faults, but how do we know these faults if no one ever points them out? And sometimes people have faults that are dangerous or unfair to others. We may forgive them for this, but it doesn't mean we allow them to continue doing them willy-nilly without comment. Otherwise, why have jails?

A couple weeks ago I was doing my daily walk in a state park and across the creek saw a cross. I don't know who put it there or why. If it is a memorial to someone who died in the river it is a big one. I can't tell if there is I any writing on it.


Is it in violation of anything? I don't know. Far as I can determine it is not on the Brandywine Creek State Park property or any of the land under the Woodlawn Trustees purview. Where it has been erected appears to be private property. Was it erected by trespassers or with the permission of the landowners? Did the landowners' erect it? I have not a clue. 


Certainly that big wooden sign board floating in the creek not far from the cross is a violation of something. It is litter of a large scale and a danger to those who raft, canoe and kayak this water. Again, though, I don't know if it is there by intensional design or accident.  I thought a week later it had been removed, but no, it had just floated further downstream.


Strangely, on the same walk I saw the cross, I did take note of several violations of park policy, some serious, some not so much.


The first violations were a mix of the messy and the menacing. 

As I came back up the path from where I had spotted this cross I saw a bag lying in the grass just off the path. As amazing as this may sound, this was unusual. I see very little in the way of trash along the many trails in these parks where I roam. When I do, it is usually a water bottle, which may have been tossed or accidentally dropped by a hiker or biker. I'm not saying I never find stray paper or plastic, just very rarely and hardly as blatant as this bright bag by this main trail.

Coming to the spot I discovered this miscreant wrapper wasn't alone. That little rise just beyond the brush was littered with more debris. 


Here were soda bottles, cracker boxes and candy wrappers strew about.


There was something even worse. The remains and ashes of an open fire.


It was pretty clear persons unknown had built a fire to make smores. This indicated that three violates of the parks' rules had occurred.

First, this most likely happened after dark, when the park is closed and no unauthorized person should be wandering about here. Second, there was much litter in a place that is a carry in-carry out nature preserve, Third, and totally irresponsible, an open fire had been build. We have been in a long dry spell and the fire conditions are moderate to high. A little breeze, a missed ember, and you could have easily had a wildfire here as they have had in some other states recently.


Is there any connection between this fire, litter and that cross and the bill board in the creek? I don't know, other than they all suddenly appeared in the same area simultaneously.

I didn't have to go much further or much longer to come across another violation of park policy. Unleashed dogs being walked. This may be the most common violation I see and I see it on almost every walk I take. It doesn't particularly bother me, although I understand the reasons for it. However, every time I have come upon such dogs they have been very well trained and behaved. 


Now, I admit, when I come around a corner or over a hill and am confronted by a dog I grow very wary if I see no master about. One never knows what a strange dog might do. I also know that even the gentlest dog can feel the same way upon meeting me. It doesn't know what I am up to either and a sudden move could make it feel threatened, and who knows where that leads.


Frankly, the only dogs that ever really scared me on walks were on leashes. I met two Pit Bulls on several occasions on the Northern Delaware Greenway, always restrained on leads, but every time, baring teeth,  they pulled and tugged on their ties trying to come at me. Each time I prayed their owners had a good grip on those leather straps and nothing broke. This did not seem a good place for these animals to be walked, on leashes or not. There are some walkers with children and children are fascinated with dogs and often run toward them without a care. But hey, I guess that is just me, an old worrywart. 


I'll tell you three recent encounters with unleashed dogs.

I was on this very same trail one morning and came to this bridge. Thinking I would set my Flip on the rocks to the one side and film myself walking across here, I was suddenly startled by a large dog leaping right in front of my face from where I was about to place the tripod.


He had seemed to come out of nowhere and was quite alone. He landed on the path and looked at me and I am him.


"Are you alone?" I asked.


He said nothing.


What do I do now. This appeared to be a stray dog. He had to belong to somebody for there was a bandana around his neck, but who and where were they. Moments went by and then I heard a voice from above.


"He's friendly."


I looked up and there was a lady and another dog high up on these rocks. As I watched she came walking down upon them. I had never noticed there was a path that went up this outcropping of stone.


A second dog encounter was actually an expected encounter, but non-appearance. It was when I dared remove my shirt thinking I was in a secluded place and then this other woman with two dogs came up the path. I met the same lady a second time further down the path, meaning she had circled around (probably fascinated by my manly physique and wanted another look). She was coming just up the steep hill, that I prefer to go down rather than up. One of her dog led the way, but I didn't see the second.


"Aren't you missing someone?" I asked. 


She stopped and looked back. Then she called a few times, but the other dog did not appear.


"She hasn't got lost yet," said the woman and went on her way and I on mine.


I went down the steep hill, but no sign of her other dog anywhere before me as I went. I presume it went down the creek side path in the opposite direction and knew its way home, at least I hope so. But I thought, neither dog was on a leash. She wasn't even carrying any leashes. Now one of her pooches was running free and alone through the paths, what kind of violation was that? What might the fine be if she's caught by a ranger?


My third story just happened the other day. I was hiking up the creek path, which is a narrow trail through the woods. At one spot I could hear sounds approaching from behind and in front of me. There was a little side path on the trail and I stepped upon it just as a large Bulldog bounded around a bush and came to me. At the same time, two bicyclists came from the other direction, then came a man with another Bulldog on a leash. 


The first Bulldog was nuzzling my hand as its owner came up and snapped a leash upon it. One of the biker's said to him, "That's what happens when you don't have them leashed. There's a big fine for that, you know?"


"Are you cops?" the Bulldog man asked.


"Yes, we are," said one of the bikers. (I was rolling my eyes at this.)


"Well, thank you for your service, sir," said Bulldog man and the bikers rode away.


Bulldog man and I exchanged glances, neither believing these bikers were cops. Bulldog man, now with both beasts leashed, walked on down the path.


I didn't need to hear any bikers lecturing anyone about trail violations. Next to unleashed dogs, they are the biggest offenders I run into. They speed up and down these trails often giving no warning they are coming up behind you. Not all, but it is becoming more the rule than the exception, sad to say. Use to be bikers would call out, "On your left" as they approached. Now too many just whizz right pass. You seldom hear them coming until they are upon you.

They also go where they shouldn't. Some trails are marked as off-limits to bikes, but they are there. The photo to the right shows fresh bike tracks up on Rocky Run, one of the trails they are not allowed. A couple weeks ago I was on a guided tour on Rocky Run when a forbidden biker came down the narrow trail up on the high ridge. Not only didn't he give warning, he didn't even slow down. We had some old people and some children in the group. There could have been a disaster; there could have been injuries.

Bicycles aren't the only conveyance people are not suppose to ride on trails like Rocky Run. There is something else banned, horses.


Be careful where you step, friend, for this was left not far from those tire tracks, and believe me, no bicycle left this.

Mystery of the Strange Morning and the Hooded Man: A Frank March Adventure

It was another cold and bitter morning. Frank felt just fine and dandy buried beneath his cover, but he forced himself to fling it aside and step into the chill. He dressed quickly and took care of the morning things, the feeding the cats, getting the paper, etc. It was later than he usually arose. He checked the weather. It was 14 degrees with a wind chill of 5. He was tempted to skip any morning walk.

However they had needs and he had to go out anyway, so he layered up, strapped on his camera and stepped out to move the cars around. He took his son's spare set of keys and backed the boy's car into the street, then moved his own.

In a few minutes he was in the super market. They absolutely needed toilet paper and trash bags, and he wanted to pick up some soda for himself. He bought three six-packs of bottled Coke because they were on sale. So far a not untypical morning about to turn odd. He reached in his pocket for his keys and discovered he still had his son's key. He always took that key back into the house when he moved cars around.

Oh well, he decided, it was his son's spare car key.

Unless his son had misplaced his main key, which was not an impossibility. Frank recalled that his son had knocked on the door when he got home last night. He didn't have his house key, he had said. His house key was on the ring with his car key, so he must have used his spare key.

It probably was all right, because his son had asked Frank to take him to work today at 3:00. He was going to another store to do an inventory and someone was taking him there from his own work place. He wouldn't need his car and probably would still be in bed when Frank got home anyway.

He pushed the cart into a cart station and got back in his car. He suddenly had the feeling he had not pulled his son's car back in the drive. He couldn't remember. Still, if not, it'd be okay on the street for a while. He drove from the market lot toward Bellevue, the nearest state park. He would have his walk cold or not.

But it was deep freezer cold and now he wondered if the soda and stuff might freeze if left for an hour or so while he walked. He decided to go home first and put it away.

As he drove up his street, sure enough, his son's car was still in the street. He pulled along the curb, unhitched his truck and then went and pulled his son's car back up the drive. Now he returned and carried a load of groceries into the house, readying his house key in his hand, which proved a waste of time.

The front door was wide open. What a strange morning this was shaping up to be; what a senior moment. He had not pulled his son's car in, had not returned the key, had not even closed and locked the house door. Where had his mind been? He had come out to move the cars carrying the new insurance proof cards to put in each. Was his mind so intent on that he forgot everything else? He had had some trouble getting his son's glove compartment closed. He hoped this wasn't a start of such forgetfulness as he now headed back to the state park for his walk.

After parking, he decided to keep it short today. He walked down and got on the main path of the Northern Greenway and began. He came along and had to cross the road then go up a slight hill thought a field to the woods.  Where this trail entered the woods it joined with other paths.

Looking ahead he saw a large man in a hood at the juncture of these paths inside the wood. The man appeared to be walking in his direction. The path was splattered with ice patches, and Frank glanced down a moment to watch where he stepped. When he looked up, the man was gone.

Frank hadn't looked down very long, less than a second. The man disappeared very quickly. He probably went up one of the other trails, but Frank was close enough now to see down these trails and there was no sign of the man. Frank paused at the intersection and looked about. The large oval track that circled the center of the park was just a few steps to his right, but looking both ways on the track he saw no one so the man couldn't have gone onto the track. He looked down the path ahead and the one to his left and there was no one in sight. Another path went off the one to the left at an angle, it was the ope where he had once encountered some deer, but he saw nobody on it either and he could see a good deal of it through the bare winter woods.

This was a bit disconcerting. He had been certain he had seen a man, a rather good sized man wearing a hood, but that man had simply seemingly disappeared.

Perhaps he had only imagined a figure. It had been a strange morning with his forgetting things he had done often enough to call them routine. Was there something going haywire in his brain? Had the cold finally gotten to him? Was he losing it?

Frank ambled down the path straight ahead and had gone a little ways when he saw the man. The man was on that wooded path after all. He could see him through the trees and he was just standing there. He was looking off in the other direction, slightly up, but just standing. Why would someone just stand about in the woods on a day like this?

Frank kept an eye on the man while walking. Finally the man began to walk too, going up that wooded path away from Frank. That path would curve away from this one he was on and go out to the garden road. Frank knew these trails well. Soon he could see the man no longer, but at least he was certain there was a hooded man.

Usually Frank would have continued out of Bellevue and into another park, but his hands were freezing. The wind had been blowing across him along this way and the chill went deep into his bones. He decided to go back a slightly different way, but one that would shorten his walk.

The path he was on crossed the garden path and so he turned up it, wondering if he would pass the hooded man coming down it. He called it the garden path because it passed through the center of several gardens on both sides of the path. These are rental garden plots and in the season full of vegetables. This was not the season. This was the heart of winter and the gardens were these scraggly, depressing patches now. Even the snow did little to make them less than forlorn. Yet up at the end garden, there was a car.

It was sitting back from the path near the far corner of that particular garden. Frank could see someone sitting in the front seat, behind the steering wheel. The person didn't move to look his way. Frank wondered why come to your plot this time of year? There was nothing to do. Actually, the person wasn't doing anything. They simply sat very still in that car. Frank could not see any tire tracks through the snow to where the person and car sat.

He walked pass the gardens back into a stretch of woods.

What if the person in the car was dead?

The path that cut through this woods was ahead and he turned off the garden path to it. He would walk back the wooded trail to the Northern Greenway trail, then to his car and leave. But as he turned he saw the hooded man. He was partway down that trail, perhaps thirty yards away and he was just standing there looking into the trees.

Frank decided not to go through the woods. Instead he continued up the garden path, which was at this point really an access road. This took him pass the park office and ranger's cabins out to the entrance, where he cut through a snow covered field to another trail that took him back to his car.

This was one of the very few times Frank ever felt nervous walking through these parks and woods. There was something very strange about the still man in the car by the gardens and something truly spooky about the hooded man hanging about on the wooded path. Why would anyone come into a park in 14 degree weather and stand about on a back trail?

As Frank drove out of the park he passed a man wearing a hood walking toward the exit. He wasn't sure if that was the man in the woods or not, but he wasn't going to roll down his car window and ask.

He just hoped tomorrow's paper didn't report a dead man found in Bellevue Park.


These pictures below were taken up on the Rocky Run Trail at Brandywine Creek State Park early on Saturday morning:

This is far up the trail along the ravine. The footprints are mine from coming up the path. The trail was pretty slippery along here and I had to be careful of not slipping off the edge.

These last two pictures are looking down at the Rocky Run.

Winter Fall

It turns out I guessed right about my left knee when I noticed my pants stuck to the kneecap after my walk. I am rather surprised actually. My skid and fall did not seem all that bad, no big face plant or anything.

I just felt a foot go faster and further than I had intended and then my rear leg crumble like a punctured accordion behind me.

I did a little twist and went forward down like a dog to on all fours.

My jeans are of heavy material and the sidewalk was covered with a couple inches of snow. But here is what resulted as I discovered when I rolled my pant leg up. Pretty, ain't she.

Now the darn thing hurts because it keeps rubbing against the inside pant's material every time I move.

I rather thought skinned knees were past me when I reached 15.

Apparently not!

More Snow

Blimey, mate, it snowed again. Two bloody days in a row. It keeps being sneaky about the whole thing.

What do you mean sneaky, you old fool, they predicted both these blows?


Yes, but it didn't follow their instructions, now did it?

What is it with you and this sudden British accent? 

I don't know. Probably 'cause I'm reading Keith Richard's Life right now. You know I've always been prone to this, like some kind of weird accent sponge. I went to Tennessee for ten days once and it took me six weeks to get rid of the twang. It just happens. If I am in conversation with someone who has a distinct speech pattern I will start speaking the same way. It is embarrassing. I always fear the person will think I'm mocking them. It just happens.

But how I am a speech chameleon has nothing to do with our two days of snow.

Okay, okay, don't go postal on me. Why is it sneaky?


They said on Thursday night we get a dusting in the morning. Okay, no biggie, I have to go to work and there will be a bit of flake across the fields. I was more concerned about coming home, but even there it didn't sound too threatening since the heavy fall was called for late morning. I go major highways and they were saying we'd get an inch.

So there I was happy as a nerd in Twinkie and Mountain Dew heaven, tapping away at the computer when I noticed it was 8:00 AM.  Hoo ha, maybe I better shake a leg rather than tap a finger. I have to feed the birds, take out the trash and bring in the paper, yakety-yak, don't talk back! (Old song reference. Look it up to see why it flashed in my mind just then.)

I walk in the living room to pick up my son's keys, because I also have to move his car to get mine out and, Great Snowballs of Frosty, Batman, everything is white!

Now I am into my coat and gloves and out in it and it is really coming down and I think, "Dusting? This ain't no dusting!" There was three inches of the stuff on the cars, on the drive, on the lawn.

I told the birds to forget it, anything would be quickly buried. I had a number of old things we had decided to put out as trash, but I said forget that too. Last week when it snowed over New Year's the trash truck never showed up that pickup day. I just put out the usual two cans, although they are actually hard rubber, but I guess we still call them cans. They are really fairly large. I wonder why we don't call them barrels?

When I backed my son's car out it squiggled all up along the road. Little slick this morning, I will go down our hill in a low gear. Our streets were not great, but once to the highways it was fine.

Now this morning, once again, supposed to be a little snow around seven o'clock, then a couple hours of cloudy sky. I am figuring I can go for my walk if I leave at dawn. They say the heavier falling is coming late morning into the afternoon. The hourly report shows no more snow until ten o'clock. I'll be home by then.

I go into the room and there it is, everything white again and snow swirling all about. Well, now, I have to go out. We are nearly out of cat food and if the snow should get bad... Put it this way, I don't want to be eaten by our cats while we sleep.

I don't have to move the boy's car because he had to be at work at six this morning. I back out and I squirrel a bit. Once more into the breach and once more into a low gear.

Our streets are pretty slippery,but again when I reach the highway it isn't too bad. The roads this morning are fair, not great and I go over one fairly snowed under to get to the store. Beyond that, though, the roads have been plowed and are basically wet. After getting the supplies I need and then a stop at the gas station, because I was nearing empty in the tack, I decided to go for my walk anyway.

I decided to go to Alapocas (which is where the photos on this post are from this morning) because the side road was pretty good and the first parking lot was just off of it.

I arrived and was the lone car to pull into this lot. I backed into a space so I was pointed slightly downhill, just in case I need gravity to help pull me from the undercoating later. (When I say space, I mean I made a space because you couldn't see any lines under the two inches of snow.) From here I walk around the athletic field, then down by the golf course by the second lot and on into the woods.

I was glad to reach the woods with its gravel path. The gravel provided a non-skid surface for on the paved pathway going by the second parking lot I fell.  (Photo on right shows the skid marks of my plunge.) There must have been some ice beneath the snow cover and I was walking briskly and found it. kerplunk, wasn't a thing I could do about it. I went down in a semi-split, then kind of pitched forward onto my hands and knees. I think I skinned my left knee. I haven't yet looked, but my pant leg was sticking to the kneecap when I got home so I reckon there is blood.

I didn't have gloves on at this point and the worse aspect of my tumble was my hands were now wet and my pants were covered in snow.

I proceeded down the hill from the parking lot with less speed. Oh, lets be brutally honest. I walked like a turtle with too tight shoes.

The woods were quiet. I wasn't the first out. There were the prints of two joggers on the trail. They had come from the other direction. I only met one other person, though, a man on a bicycle. Amazing, he was coming up hill on the path when we passed.

I was glad to get the walk in this morning despite the weather. Since I began walking again last fall I have shed weight and reduced my waist size three inches. However, I put four pounds back on over the holidays.

Just too many treats everywhere. The temptations are pretty well consumed at this point and if I keep moving, I should shave off the pounds gained quickly.

I only went as far as the great gates this morning. It wasn't the trail or distance, cold or snow that dictated this as my turn around point. Oh, I suppose it was technically the snow. I was concerned with what it was doing to the highways and byways I had to travel to get home.

I went back and posed before my car for a final shot, which is the first one on this post. My hood was frozen stiff with the coating of snow atop it.

There was one other car in the lot now, parked far down from where I was. A lone snowplow was going along the road.

I had no problem pulling out of the lot and the roads on this end were fairly clean. However, when I got closer to home the snow had recovered much of the surface of roads that had been good when I left. I skidded some when I turned into our development and threw the car down into low gear again because it was downhill from here to a stop sign on a cross street.

Sure enough, I had to fight skids at the stop sign.

When I reached my street, and remember I am up a hill, I discover there was no way the road surface was going to allow my turn. I would have gone right up on the sidewalk if I had tried to insist. I gave up the idea and went down to the next street, which is not as steep and around the block.

It was wheel spin time at the end of that street and I was a bit concerned about making the turn into my drive coming down the hill. I swung wide to the right and made a good arc to the left and made it home unscathed.

Then I went out and shoveled. Better to do two inches at a time.  At this point I do not know if we will get out for dinner as is our usual Saturday evening practice.

Say, you do realize you were talking to yourself early on in this post?


Shut up!

I'll Never Trust AccuWeather Again

Let me say I will never trust AccuWeather again. As I have noted, probably more often than anyone cares to hear, I like to take a long walk on my off days. Today was an off day, the only one, not counting the weekend, I get this week. I expect I may not get any next week, so I definitely wanted to get my walk, but rain has been predicted for these four days.

It was raining when I fed the birds, took out the trash and brought in the paper. But my little weather predictor on the computer was showing just clouds, so I went to AccuWeather to see what was up. What it said was "mostly cloudy with a few showers in the area." Fine, I then checked the hourly forecast and this showed only cloudy until 1:00 PM, when it indicated rain. Further examination of the report found, "Some showers, mostly in the afternoon."

I went outside around 8:00 and no rain. The sky was lightening and in the East even some blue shown. I decided to go for it. I drove out to my favorite park and there was only a fine mist. I parked and started up the hill and it was clear. I followed the twisting paths until I was deep into the woods and the rain came. This was no drizzle, this was a steady downpour. The trees afforded some protection, but it was heavy enough to get through the leaf cover.

What the hey, I was wet now and it was a hike back to the car so I would only get wetter, so I decided to follow the path through the four state parks. The rain continued my whole walk, although by the time I actually returned to my car an hour later it began to ease.

Oh well, in my last post I said I liked to walk undisturbed and in solitude. I got that today. I only met one other person stupid enou...I mean, dedicated enough to be on the trails. This was a young woman walking a rather bedraggled dog, which looked none to thrilled to be in this weather.  I came home, stripped off everything and tossed my clothes in the drier. But I got my walk.

Just a Simple Walk

Life is always springing surprises. It wouldn't be able to do this if we knew everything, but none of us does know everything.  We could be the most cluttered mind in existence among men, the greatest depository of Jeopardy! answers in the history of Alex Trebek and Art Fleming combined and we'd still know less than we don't know.

I learned something this week, which perhaps everyone else would say, "You didn't know that?", but I don't care, I am happy to have discovered it.

It's a trail, like big deal, huh?

A nice trail is a treat to a walker and I am a walker, have been all my toddling days. I sort of sat on my feet in recent days, combination of the pains of age and a medication that wasn't working. I wanted to hike, but I couldn't face the jolts and so I abandoned one of the delights of my life.

And then my Doc switched my pills and I got happy feet again. I began testing them out a month ago. Took little snippets of steps for a while, then went out one day and just hauled off for five miles. And now a couple weeks ago I began early morning jaunts like back in the old days.

I have been going here and there. Some mornings, usually when I am too lazy to move my son's car out of the way of my own, I just amble up or down our street and turn randomly at the corners. (I recently described such a walk in this place.) Other times I would drive to a park here or there.

We have several parks around here, city parks and country parks and town parks and state parks. We don't have a National Park. We have the honor or disgrace, however you wish to take it, of being the only state not to have a National Park. I thought I had heard early this year we finally got one, but I've been Googling like crazy and can't find any evidence of it, so I assume we are still National Park Free.

We got a bunch of State Parks. You've been looking at pictures of one, Bellevue State Park. Consider this the start of this journey, although in reality it was the starting point of my return trip.

Like I said, I learned something new I didn't know, something called the Northern Greenway and it connects a bunch of these state parks. A map of the section we're walking today was at the top of this post. I started out in one of my favorites for walking, Rockwood Museum. I finished up there as well, but since I didn't start clicking off photos until my turn around point in Bellevue we'll pretend we started here.

Bellevue is the largest of these, it has a lot of trails of its own, plus a horse stable, a bandstand, tennis courts and a nice picnic area.


My son and daughters go to Bellevue and play Frolf on its Frolf Course. (I guess technically it isn't really Frolf if it's played on an actual laid out course, but they call it Frolf and so will I. Nitpick if you will. If you don't know what Frolf is, look it up.)

The thing on the right has nothing to do with Frolf. This is along a mile around track in the center of the park. They have several stations where a person can stop and do some physical exercise, like pushups on a log, but I have no idea what that thing is. It has a bunch of chains and hooks. It looks like some medieval torture devise.

I don't know what it is, but here is another one exactly like it out in the middle of this meadow.

What are they up to in Bellevue State Park?

Is this some secret military experiment?

Is there witchcraft afoot?

Will there be crop circles around the next turn?

Let's take a turn and see.

Let's call this a simple walk.

That's right, a simple walk. I'm not into jogging like the lady that sped into my len's range. No, no, no, none of that jarring of the body, that loosing of ligaments, that jolting of the joints, I prefer a more civilized and comfortable brisk saunter through the pathways of life.

By the way, she took a sudden turn off that mile long track I mentioned and down a side trail among the pines, right across my vision as I depressed the shutter button. Now she has her moment of fame on my Blog, lucky lady.

Gonna let the lady jogger jog on her own way. I'm not taking a turn around the track either. Many more joggers that way, been passing me in little herds. I want to get away from all that panting. I head off into the landscaping.

Whoa, am I having a near death experience. Don't those people who claim they kicked off and got kicked back always speak of a tunnel with a light at the end?

Maybe I'm confusing them with those who say the light at the tunnel was an oncoming train, which would be a near-miss experience or real death.

I can do without either right now. What I need do is get on with this little walk. I didn't come here to wander about Bellevue all the live-long day, do-dah, do-dah.

To get you all oriented, take a glance at the map at the top of this scribbling. I am over in the big dark green square to the middle right, walking down that red line from where you see a dark blue oval. Those dark blue lines are trails wandering around in Bellevue and the oval is the track I told you about.

I've made my turn about and am going to walk back to where I started following the red line to the left. I really don't have a lot of alternate choices right now, not good ones anyway. I could keep walking the red line to the right off into the sunrise and eventually drop from exhaustion or dehydration or I could sit down where I am and rot away in the heat of the day.

I chose to go left through this gateway to the West and out of Bellevue State Park.

Here I pause momentarily.

Not just to snap a picture of the walls and posts and fences, but because this chicken has to cross the road and traffic goes by pretty fast here, never mind the signs saying, "people crossing" and yield to bicyclists and pedophiles...

I mean pedestrians. There may be pedophiles, but it'd probably be a waste of their time. I never see any kids our on these trails, except ones in jogging strollers being jostled along by fitness-freak parents. If there are any pedophiles crossing the road, you don't have to yield for them. Park on a pedophile is always in season.

This is Marsh Road, a main thoroughfare.  If this weren't early Saturday morning the traffic wouldn't look so sparse. It'd be backed up nearly to here with cars waiting to turn on to I-95. That overpass yonder is the infamous interstate.

I double time across while the double-timing is good.

Now I am entering the first of those lighter green blotches on the map.

This is Bringhurst Woods Park.

First thing you get as you enter here is a map of the Greenways. Actually the map looks a bit intimidating with all these blue dots covering its surface. Shows you how extensive this trial is, though, and what to see as you go. It's nine miles long so maybe you wouldn't want to do a lot of wandering about its edges sightseeing. I'd like to walk the whole thing some time, but I may do it in chunks. I think I could walk the nine miles maybe, but making the other nine back to where ever I parked, I doubt. I walk this thing one end to the other, I'd have to get a motel for the night. You don't want some of the motel choices around some of the end points. Too many rent by the hour, if you get my drift.

You don't need a map to find your way in Bringhurst Woods. There isn't much here but trees, accounting for the "Woods" as its middle name. My path, that red line, which hugs the upper border, which in turns hugs the shoulder of another road, is the only route.

Before entering the "Woods", I linger long enough to snap this old stone house and guard shack. I had to linger a bit because just as I raised my camera a bus pulled up to unload. Despite the length of time it took, only one woman de-bussed and then slowly ambled pass the stone wall.

The house has some historic significance I am sure; I just don't know what.

Turning back to the path ahead, we bravely journey into Bringhurst.

They said bring Hurst, but brought a lot of wood to the woods instead. You get a lot of wooden fence along this trail in here.

Gives it a nice finished look, don't you think. It kind of invites you to come in and see what this fence is protecting you from.

Is there a deep chasm on either side this barrier is protecting you from, not going to let you fall over the edge?

Yeah, that's probably it.

But you don't go far and suddenly you are on this doubly fortified bridge.

 Oh man, is this Jurassic Park?

Is that the Tyrannosaurus Rex cage down below?

How deep is the canyon? How far away is the beast or how deep the gorge or strong the current of the mighty river you are being so protected from?

With fear and trepidation we approach the railing and prepare to peer into the mouth of doom.


And there, there it is!

A quiet little stream, still and as smooth as a mirror and a whole lot of rocks.

Nothing particularly scary here, it isn't even up a great height.

Oh well, we can go on pretending danger still lurks in the silent deep of the still water, slithery monsters or mutant crocodiles kept at bay by the reinforced sides of the little foot bridge.

Hey, I'm an old horror story writer, I gotta have something to believe in here. What's the fun in an idyllic scene off a Hallmark card?

Off the bridge and though the woods to wherever the fence leads we go.

Hope you like trees because that is what you will see here.

Some people do love trees. I don't mean tree-huggers, I mean those who got merit badges for knowing every type of tree from its leaf or nut.

I liked trees because woods had snakes in them and I liked snakes and I got a merit badge in snakes when I was a Boy Scout. Didn't come across any snakes on my walk.

Ooo, a fork in the road. This is exciting. Maybe there are other trails here after all. Let's go exploring.

I go off down this fork to the right and I loop a short semi-circle right back onto the main path.

Hmm, a path to nowhere. Must have been a politician who designed this.

I don't know what that fork was about. Perhaps just to let you get a closer look at the creek running through the woods. It was the same little stream full of rocks under that bridge. Not much worth a side trip to see.

Speaking of politicians and off to the side. This path does run just off a road and peeking through the brush is the corner of a large business complex, about the only thing along that road other than trees.

I mention politicians, because that complex use to house offices of AIG. remember AIG? One of the first big bailouts of this bailout binge of the last two years. Their offices are no longer here.

I guess it is just a general corporate mall now. I don't know what operates here anymore. It's got a new name, Rockwood Office Park, come park an office here.  I wonder why Rockwood? Why not Bringhurst? Maybe that sounds too much like bring hearse in this depressed time of dying businesses.

Bringhurst Woods Park is a little depressed itself. I remember many moons ago bringing the kids and the Little Woman here. We parked in the parking lot and wandered down into the picnic area. Something had attracted us to explore, although I forget what it was.

What ever it was it probably isn't here anymore. I'm off that main path here and standing up in what was the parking lot. I suppose it still is the parking lot, but it is deserted and closed off from the road above. There are long metal barriers across the driveway preventing anyone from driving down here to park. Seems a shame to me.

There is still a small pull-over of gravel along the road. There was one car parked there this morning belonging to a lady walking her dog along this trail. I passed coming and I would meet her again going back. By the second time the poor dog had its tongue dragging the path. It seemed fairy warm this morning and humidity must have been up. My tongue was beginning to droop as well.

The one lone picnic pavilion was forlorn and lonely looking. The inside was dirty and had some debris scattered about. The door toward the read side was sealed up.

I kept hearing a strange banging as I stood in this area. Gee, I hope no one was sealed up behind that door. It was a green door, were they making porno movies in there?

There was a sign of life here. The trash can had a fresh plastic trash bag draped inside it. Someone cares.

Well, some more fencing and pathway beckons me to traverse this way so we go to see what we can see.

We see joggers and we let them pass. It is a young couple. They are a handsome couple. The woman is certainly picture worthy, but her boyfriend/husband is all rippling sweaty muscle. I resist the temptation to photograph them as they bounce and jiggle away, him is his large and tight muscles and she in her tiny and tight shorts.

I turn around a bend before raising my finger to the shutter button again and snap this not much of anything. There is the path and there is a big rock and there is a broken off branch of one of the many trees.

Yes sir, what you see in Bringhurst Woods is many, many trees.

Ant then again, many places with some wooden fences.

Are these fences holding you back from the trees or holding the trees back from you?

Ah, a question for the ages.

Much better than that silly, "If a tree falls in a forest and there is no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?"

Who comes up with these profundities? People sit around and argue this? They need to get out and take more walks. Of course a falling tree makes a sound. Sound is physics, it's a wave, put a tape recorder in the woods and when you play it back the sound will be there even though no one was in the woods to hear it when the tree fell.  If a deaf person is in a concert hall when an orchestra plays, does it make music? Come on.

Killing time because there is just trees to see. But there ahead are the posts that mark this end of Bringhurst Woods where we will exit for the next phase, the next light green splotch upon the map.

First though another road to cross.

This is Carr Road. It isn't as busy as Marsh was. Right now it is devoid of cars. I can stand on the yellow line and snap a picture and not be flattened by a FedEx truck or something.

The path has been paralleling this road and now it bends some and crosses the road.

Why did the walker cross the road?

To get to the other side, like the chicken?

No, to eventually get back to his car.

This next patch doesn't seem to have a name. I just refer to it as Carr Park. Kind of reminds me of my home in the sixties in Philadelphia near Clark Park.

Speaking of parks, there is a park bench at the entrance into this next section. There will be at the next as well. Maybe they stick these benches thinking we older seasoned citizens need to park ourselves on park benches to make it through parks.

Maybe it's for hobos to sleep the night.

Oh well, these park benches make more sense than some things I've seen in State Parks. The Little Woman and I have often hiked a State Park not on this particular trail and at the very end of the parking lot, right where the hiking trail begins, is a handicap parking space.

Why?

If a handicapped person can hike a rutted, gravel covered mud hiking trail, surely they can walk across a parking lot.

Oh look, more wooden fencing. Perhaps it is for the handicapped hikers to hold on to.

Sorry for the sarcasm. It's not aimed at the handicapped; it's aimed at the silliness of the politicians who make laws requiring handicap parking spaces at hiking trails.

Now guess what we are going to see along the path through Carr Park?

Same thing we saw along the path through Bringhurst Woods.

Trees.

Joyce Kilmer would be oh so happy here.

Did you know Joyce Kilmer's actual first name was Alfred? I wonder why he choose to go by his middle name? Of course if he hadn't, then we would have never had Shelley Berman's famous words:

"She said Joyce Kilmer wrote trees and I said, 'Who's she?' and totally embarrassed myself."

Shelley Berman said that a long time ago so if I said Shelley Berman and you asked, "Who's she?" Well, go look it up.

Jogger alert!  Jogger alert!

Wow, look at him go.

He should slow down and walk. You run all you can think is, "When am I done, when am I done, when am I done, am I gonna die, am I gonna die!"
You can't see the forest for the pain.

When you walk you wander and when you wander you wonder and when you wonder your mind can wander and ponder about what Shelley Berman said about Joyce Kilmer. This is all good. You exercise your body and you exercise your brain.

When you walk and don't run, you can enjoy the light patterns through the trees rather than the spots before your eyes.

When you walk and don't run you can breathe in the fresh country air rather than gasping for air, any air, to breathe.

You also have a better chance of noticing the bicyclist bearing down on you in his or her funny hat and indecent shorts. You can get out of the way before being flattened. You can jog, but you can't out run those demon bicyclists.

If you can avoid bicyclists, you have a much better chance of seeing the little posts ahead that say you are almost through Carr Park, you have lived to wander some more through the indigenous trees of the northern south.

Yeah, I know, some may think of us here as Mid-Atlanticers and some, with long memories, as Border States, but officially to the U. S. Government we are Southern ladies and gentlemen, y'all.

So here we are, we have officially crossed Carr Park or the no-named land, successfully.

We Southern ladies and gentlemen stand poised on a new frontier, a new place along our path to explore.

But first we must do something.

Not that! What are you thinking? I told you to do it before me left.

No, we must cross another road.

This is Shipley Road. It had a few more cars on it than I expected this early on a weekend, especially this far down the road. Further north it gets pretty busy.

That is the ubiquitous I-95 on the overpass.

I'm not sure what to make of the jogger. She came up the path out of Carr Park behind me and paused at the entrance. I greeted her with a good morning, which she returned. I expected her to jog on up into the next park once traffic cleared, but instead she headed down Shipley. Maybe that is the way home. I hope I'm not so scary looking she was running away.

I'm no predator or pervert. I'm no threat to anyone as far as I know. I have my faults and flaws and fantasies like anyone, but I'm not going to be  chasing women through the woods. I'd be like the old car chasing dog anyway. If I caught one, I wouldn't know what to do with it.

I just assume she was running her usual route. I can't blame any woman for not taking chances these days, though. The Little Woman told me she wouldn't go down any of these trails alone.

I've had some times I felt the same way. Usually I don't give it a thought. I've been walking solitary trails a long, long time; a very long, long, long time.

I'm still not ready to sit down in the benches they keep providing at the entryways of these parks.

When I die I'd like one of those benches though. Not to be preserved and sat upon. Ugh, there is a bizarre and morbid picture. Me corpse sitting on a bench at the entrance of a park, perhaps with one hand raised in greeting.

No, no, no, I want a bench in place of any tombstone. It doesn't even have to have my name on it.  It can have engraved upon its back, "Sit and rest your weary legs a moment. No one will bother you here."

The is the lower entrance to Rockwood Museum. Sigh, I fear it is all uphill for a ways into this park. People think of our tiny state as flat. Much of it is as you roam south, but up in this neck of the woods there are hills and a lot of them.  I came down this hill on my way out this path and what comes down must now go up.

And up we are going.

Let me ramble a bit about Rockwood Museum. First of all I used to get it mixed up with Rockford Park, which touches this trail further along on the western end. Rockford has the tower, Rockwood has the mansion.

This region has a myriad of things with similar names. There is like a zillion and one streets, museums, stores, malls and whatevers named Brandywine something-or-other.  Bellevue isn't so uncommon either. We started this post speaking of  Bellevue State Park. I worked for a company on Bellevue Avenue and a former paper carrier I had lived on a Bellevue Road. There's a Bellevue Boulevard somewhere. It can get very confusing for an ordinary mind. You don't want to dwell on it or you may end up in Bellevue, the hospital.

Still walking up the hill, by the way.

Rockwood Museum, kind of a strange name for a park this museum tag. I guess they consider the old mansion a museum.

Oh, we reached the top of the hill and turned down another path. Take a look up here. The hill actually goes up a bit further although the path doesn't continue to the very summit. But can you see the gazebo at the apex.

Yeah, kind of hard to spot it, isn't it?

It's there over toward the right.

There seem to be people think we have more power than the environment, but turn your back for a second and the environment will take over again very quickly.

This photo was taken from pretty much the same spot four years ago. Can you see the gazebo now. Back then you could walk straight up to it across the hillside, now you need search along the paved path for a small foot trail through the brush.

Nature endures when man ignores.

This was once the home of a man named Joseph Shipley, a Quaker and a banker. He apparently did all right for himself as a financier. That last road we crossed was named for him. He built his Rockwood Estate back in the early 1850s.

Today it is a museum and park.

It used to be the home of the annual Ice Cream Festival. The paths on these grounds all have names related to that ice cream theme.

I'm not here for the mansion or the Garden Tours or ice cream. I'm just taking this simple walk and this was my starting point and my ending point.

When I began my walk I came up the trail that you enter here. This is the one going past the gazebo on the hill and then joining the Northern Greenways path.

This is a very long, steep, uphill path. Even though I arrived shortly after dawn, before the temperature could rise and while the park was still rather dark, I was still perspiring by the time I reached this path's end, puffing and huffing, too.

Don't let this tranquil photo lull you in thinking this is a gradual grade, this is a hill to be mastered or to be mastered by.

It was somewhat easier walking down it than up.

I could have continued down to the parking lot, but instead swung right and went along the ridge path toward where the mansion sits.

On the way was this lovely weeping willow.

The mansion sits at a point with a commanding view of the valley.

There it sits in the distance. On this side is a conservatory or greenhouse room, windowed on three sides and full of exotic plants and some high backed chairs.

You can just make it out sticking to the left from the side of the building.

I stood on a platform and looked over the front path I usually come up when I visit this park. I hadn't used it this time because they have been laying new concrete and the bottom portion is still barricaded off.

Instead I parked on the further side of the parking lot and walked up on the circular driveway beyond those trees and wall.

When I had arrived there was a police car parked not far from me. It was soon joined by a second police car as I began my walk up the hill.

I had walked for a good hour and half. I figured these police would be gone when I came back.

They weren't. I don't know what they were doing there, perhaps just hiding out and having breakfast from McDonalds or killing time. They were about to give me a scare.

I always feel nervous around police. Don't know why, maybe I have a guilty conscience, but most likely it is just some paranoid reaction to guys with guns. It makes me nervous to have a police car behind me, even though I know I'm not speeding or disobeying any rules of the road.  Seeing cops gives me visions of those iron barred gates closing behind me.

I came around the bend of the drive and suddenly one police officer starts his car. He was parked facing the opposite direction and he leaves. The other officer, whose car faces my direction, starts his engine and pulls toward me. Then as he nears, he stops and gets out of the car and begins walking in my direction.

I feel like he is glaring right at me.

My heart begins to flutter as if I were a wanted criminal found out and cornered.

He steps ever closer, then turns and steps into a porta-potty.

I walk over and take a last picture of the fountain as the officer comes out, gets in his car and drives away.

My simple walk has ended.