I am waiting for...Wait! I've Been Waiting So Long I Forget What I was Waiting For

I'm a patient man. I've raised children, have a wife and had a dog. If you don't learn patience then your kids hate you, your wife divorces you and your dog bites you. I have spent much of my life waiting in parking lots and doctor's offices, so I am a patient man.

This past week seemed designed to test the patience of Job.

First was the highly hyped anticipation of Irene.You think of all the jokes about waiting for a woman to get ready for a date, it seemed Irene was taking forever to get made up for her grand entrance.

Then we were waiting anxiously to get rid of the big windbag.

When she finally went off in a huff, we found ourselves waiting for the lights to come back on as she took our electric power with her. We were more fortunate than some, our power was out but 12 hours, and much of those overnight doing sleep time.

And when the power did pop back, we had to wait another day to have our cable services, so another 24 hours of no TV, no internet and no telephones. This came back on sometime while I was taking my morning walk, then went off again in the afternoon and came back hopefully for good after we returned from dinner Monday evening.

So speaking of my morning walk, this was also part of the waiting game. I usually walk in one or another of our wonderful nearby state parks. However, they had closed the state parks last Thursday for the convenience of Hurricane Irene to spend time there alone. Apparently one of her favorite pastimes is knocking trees over and overfilling creeks and rivers. I wondered on Monday if any were now open. I decided to try Bellevue, which is the closest, just a short spin down I-95, where I can often see if the gate is open or not from the highway.

This morning I couldn't see the gate at all, so I went off the exit and around toward the park entrance. It was fifteen minutes past their opening time. I was behind another vehicle who turned into the park drive and then immediately did a U-turn. Ah, so the gate must be down.

I didn't want to turn in behind the guy making the U-turn. I went straight down the road and went right into the lane of some corporate mall. I did my own U-turn around the little island with the mall sign ready to go left back the way I had come, except... Except four million cars were suddenly on this road from both directions. What is this? This road seldom is very busy, why now?

Why indeed, it must have been opening time in the Corporate Mall for all four million cars were turning in. Finally one lane cleared and something slow came in the other and I zipped out and went on my search for some walking room. Talley, I thought, Talley Day Park was probably open. This is a county park with about a two mile walking track that does a figure-8 around the grounds. It wasn't far, I would zip over there.

Did I say zip?

Not so zippy.

I went up Marsh Road and now I had a nut behind me. This was not a patient driver. She was right on my bumper, which I hate. Then she was kind of trawling side-to-side and I realized she was going to try and pass me on the right, on the shoulder of the road. Oh, no, no, no, I wasn't having any of that. I edged over enough she couldn't. I slowed a bit as well.

We were coming to the intersection where I would turn left and I wondered if she was going straight. I was tempted, if she was, to go straight and further impede her progress up the road. See, that's how angry I get at tailgaters. But I went into the left turn lane after all, just as the light turned red against us. This woman went to the right as if to go straight, but instead she turned into the Pizza Hut parking lot on the corner, crossed its lot, exited the far exit, made a left on the cross street, then a right on Marsh, all so she didn't have to wait for the red light to change green. Say, babe, set your alarm for a little earlier next time!

Now I haven't far to the park. I was driving west (or is it south) on Wilson.  I will soon come to a road called Shipley, make a right, go a short distance, make another right on Faulk and then quickly be at the park. I am just beginning my ease into the right turn lane for Shipley when a traffic report comes on the radio.

"Shipley Road is closed this morning between Wilson and Foulk due to a downed tree."

Now I have to go a longer way, but still not too bad. I go straight and eventually Wilson crosses Foulk, where I make a right and head back a couple miles to the park. Won't be long now...if it hadn't been for that sign, "Road Work Ahead" and the flagman on the corner and the closed right lane and all the backed up traffic.

After my walk I planned to avoid the construction on Foulk by turning left and going home the way I had come. No road work on that side. I pulled up in the left lane of the exit drive from the park at the light awaiting the green signal...which never came. I sat there and the traffic on Foulk sat where they were because they also had a red light and then they got a green light and moved and I sat there.

So I made a right turn on red from the left lane. I know, I know, but believe me, there was no traffic coming behind me.

Of course, now I am in the backup for the roadwork with the closed right lane. I use the word roadwork loosely. Yes, the whole right lane and right shoulder were behind the ornate barrier of orange cones, but the work was being done to THE SIDEWALK!

Things off the road were no speedier for me lately. I found my blood pressure elevated two weekends ago. I was in a drugstore dropping off a prescription for my wife and spotted one of those "Take Your Own Blood Pressure" chairs, so I took it. I shoved my left arm through the cuff and pressed the button. The cuff began its squeeze. A little sign said you will have your results in less than a minute. The cuff continued its squeeze. The result windows stayed at zero, unmoving. The cuff continued to squeeze. Time ticked by to the beat of my heart in my pinched arm, definitely longer than a minute. It came to mind I might be in a malfunctioning machine. It would never give me results and the cuff would never release my arm. Perhaps it was a possessed machine in a Stephen King world, one that would soon rip my arm off and beat me with it.

And just as I was considering yelling for help, my results popped up and the cuff released. My heart rate was 66, toward the lower end of the normal scale of 60 to a 100 at rest. But my blood pressure was a tad high. Okay, more than a tad. More like giraffe height. When I got home I called my doctor because my high blood pressure medication was used up and so was the renewal date. The receptionist-phone-answerer-nurse-whatever said she would call them in to my pharmacy. (I take two different pills for high blood pressure.)

This was on a Monday a week ago. On Friday afternoon, after I got home from work,  I went to the drugstore to pick them up. I am a bit of a procrastinator I admit. On the way I glanced at my gas gauge. I was below a quarter. Oh rats, I should have got gas last night or this morning on my way to work. I better fill the tank now.

Easier said than done. At the next intersection was my regular service station. Cars were lined up at one bay of pumps. It would be hard to squeeze in that side. The other bay was blocked off by my familiar friends, orange cones. Those tanks must have already been drained. The gas station on the other corner was no less crowded. I drove on.

This is good, I am driving in search of a gas station less crowded. Perhaps I will run out of gas looking for gas.  Just to keep my mind alert the radio picked that moment to announce places were running out of gas. I came toward another station, but the traffic was backed up for a red-light and I could not see if the station had lines or not. Closer I came and then stopped, again by traffic and the light. Again closer and stop. Eventually I reached the lot and it wasn't bad. I pulled in with only one car before me at a bay of pumps.

I got my gas and went out on the other road because of all the traffic. I had to go around Robin Hood's barn to get back to my drugstore. On the way I passed the supermarket I often picked up at and pulled in the lot. I wanted to get some soda and perhaps some batteries. As I parked I saw the Wilmington Trust Bank Branch was now striped of any identifiers. This was the great conversion weekend. No more Wilmington Trust Bank. Next week this would be M&T Bank.

I went in one door of the supermarket and right out the other. I wasn't dealing with that madhouse. Why was there so much traffic on the roads because certainly everyone in the county had piled into this supermarket. Besides I could see the battery display and it was empty. I got in my car and drove down the street to my drugstore.


I come in and there is a long line. I guessed everyone was not it the supermarket after all. The rest were here getting his or her prescription refilled before the Hurricane arrives tomorrow. I had never experienced long lines here before. So, I waited and I waited, and I waited some more. The woman before me asked if she could step out of line to sit in a nearby chair. Certainly, I'll hold your place. No sense having people passing out before me, that would only slow things up. Why was it so hot in the place? I could see into the pharmacist's workroom and they had fans set up in there. We were wilting out in line. No fans here. So by all means, dear lady, please take a seat.

Finally I reached the counter and gave my name. The clerk shuffled off to sort through the hanging plastic bags. He went over and spoke to one of the pharmacists, he came back and began searching the computer.

"Did you drop them off today?" he asks.

"No, my doctor called them in three or four days ago."

He shuffled back to the pharmacist, then conferred with another pharmacist, then rechecked his computer.

"We have no record of a call in," he says. "I could call your doctor now if you wish, if he is still open."

I look at the line behind me. "No, that's okay. I'll call her when I get home."

But I couldn't. It was now too late in the afternoon and I wasn't certain the doctor's office was still open. I would have to wait until Monday, after the weekend and after the passing of Irene.

More waiting and more to come...

On Monday, once we had phones again, I called the Doctor's office. The receptionist-phone-answerer-nurse-whatever said she thought she had called it in, she would check.

I waited on hold.

She came back and told me the Doctor had disallowed my prescription renewal because I had not been in for a visit since April of last year. I would have to make an appointment to see the Doctor before she would renew my prescriptions. I made the appointment for the coming Wednesday (which is the day I am writing this). The lady then told me she would call in enough prescription to see me through until I saw the doctor, five pills of each medicine.

The Little Woman and I always go out to dinner on Monday. We usually leave at 5:00. At 4:30 I announce I am going to run over to the drugstore and pick up my ten pills, oh foolish ever-optomistic me, I actually believe I can do this and be back home all within a half-hour.

Traffic was heavy, but this really didn't slow me up greatly. I arrived at the drugstore with still twenty minutes until five. I went back to the pharmacy and what is this a Disney World ride? Today's line was even longer than the pre-Hurricane Friday line. And there were several people sitting in nearby chairs. And it was still darn hot in the place.

So I parked myself behind a lady and I waited, and I waited, and I waited some more. Then do you know what I did? Why, I waited. On Friday two clerks were processing the crowd, but today only one fellow had that joyless job. I admire his good spirits about it though, because there seemed to be mass confusion reigning in the wait area. People seated would get up and come to the line or go around it and call through the window for "Private Conferences with a Pharmacist" to berate someone, anyone to speed it up.

Then occasionally someone behind the pharmacy counters would yell, "Doris, you may get in line now." Wait a cotton-picking moment here, who is this Doris and why is she being paged into line ahead of others? The only thing I can figure is she dropped off a prescription and said she would wait for it.

Now this doesn't seem right. When I drop off prescriptions I always tell them I will come back later, usually meaning in a day or two, to pick it up. I figure I am doing them a favor, giving them time. They usually thank me for this. But if I dropped my prescription off at some earlier time (or in this case, my doctor called it in that morning) why should I have to wait because some Johnny or Jill come-lately said they would wait for theirs. That's like having made a reservation at a restaurant and having them give your table to a walk-in.

And thus I waited. Finally my lottery number comes up and I am at the window. "Name," asks the clerk.

I give it and he shuffles off behind a rack of plastic hanging bags. He then says, just a minute and goes and confers with a Pharmacist. He returns to me.

"We have one hanging," he says, "and the Pharmacist is working on the other. Do you wish to wait or come back later?"

I wish to ring someone's neck, but I say, "I'll wait." No way I am coming back later now.

So I step aside and I wait, and I wait, and I wait some more. He said the Pharmacist was working on my second prescription, did he not? How long does it take to slide 5 pills into a plastic tube? Then at last, someone yells, "Larry, you may get in line."

I step forward, but oh no, this did not mean, "Now we have your pills just come get them." No this meant exactly what was said. Larry could get in line.

Eventually I got my ten little pills in the two plastic vials and was on my way home. Needless to say I didn't make it by 5:00, but no matter, we were on our way to dinner, apparently with the rest of Delaware. Bumper to bumper traffic down the roads. Now it was rush hour and these roads do get crowded at this time of day, but they were more so this night, thus we waited a bit longer for dinner.

But we didn't wait long for service at the restaurant. Lauren was our wait person and had our drinks ordered before we sat down. She knows us well and has extra cherries put in mine. Quickly, my cup of soup was before me. Waiting seemed to be at an end, but there was still the matter of some banking business to contend with and we will get to that next time...if you can wait.

All Up Hill

Okay, so I had found the courthouse and established it was somewhere under three miles from where I had parked. I could do that walk in forty-five minutes. It is supposed to be in the nineties next Wednesday when I must, and I can do that because today is supposed to get to the mid-nineties. Of course then I won't be doing a round trip immediately.

Which means I am now about to walk back that near three miles and I can tell the heat is picking up.

I walk up to the historic district. There is a familiar sign, one I have been seeing everywhere about downtown today, sidewalk closed.

They have had sidewalks and streets torn up constantly since I last worked downtown nine years ago and before that.

I cross over and walk up the other side of Market. This used to be called, "The Mall" and was closed to automobile traffic. A decade ago they opened it to traffic, both ways, again and now it is a bit dodgy crossing the street. Even after several years a lot of people forget it isn't shut off and wander aimlessly into the street without really looking. I really don't know why they didn't keep it car free.

I think you can notice in this picture that the street is going up an incline. That upward incline will be constant from this point.

When I worked in the city this was one of my favorite places to buy lunch, although I didn't get it there a lot. Leo & Jimmy's Deli is another area institution and Jimmy has been a real giving citizen for decades. I believe Leo is dead now.

This was the only place I could get Lebanon sandwiches, piled with Lebanon, sharp cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, salt, pepper and yellow mustard on a large hoagie roll with a side of kosher pickles.

My grandmother used to make a sandwich with those ingratiates for my lunches when I was a little boy, we called it "The Dagwood" and it has always been my favorite.

On the right the lighter building with the flag is the Grand Opera House and The Little Grand. The Little Woman and I were subscribers for a few years, taking in five or six shows a year until the economy went sour for me this past year.

My first time in the place was for the announcement of a new logo for the big bank I once worked for. They paid someone a hundred thousand dollars to design a new logo, what a waste of good money. Then they wasted more by renting this place, hiring a composer to write some original elevator music to go with the announcement and making us all come here to hear it.

The door to the box office.

The little sidewalk posts announcing coming shows.

Across the street from the Opera House is a newer restaurant in town called the Chelsea Tavern. The Little Woman and I ate there once recently and we will go back, it is very good.

Actually there was another restaurant here called 821, but it failed after a few years. It was more upscale in its decor and had a confusing menu. We ate at it once as well, but didn't care for it. The menu was really, really difficult to figure out. It was one of those little-dish-big-dish combo you choose from this column and that column places.

I call this photo the dance because of the positions and stances of the man and woman.

There is this corridor between Market and the street behind. Subscribers of The Grand get free parking at a garage and the garage is located on the back street. You can then walk through here to the theater.

Along the left wall are posters for The Grand shows and on the right are windows for the Chelsea Tavern.

Peeking through a window into the restaurant.

Now we are on that back street and that Monchanin Building where I had both my first and last job downtown is dominating the center. I am going in that direction.

The parking garage I mentioned is on the left.

Further along we see another building where I worked peeking around the corner of the round building. This is where I had my last position with that big bank I was employed by for 21 years before they tossed me for getting old,.

We also see a hint of that other nuisance downtown.

Road construction.

Yes sir, we have a nice blockage on a main inbound artery. When I took this picture one of those distant guys in yellow was yelling at a motorist. See that white vehicle on the right turning into a side street.

He's turning the wrong way into a one-way street.

Oops!

"Hot dang! Summer in the city..."

Dig we must.

The doorway I walked out of for the last time on September 7, 2001.

Hard to believe tomorrow, September 5, will be the ninth anniversary of the day I heard those kind and affection words, "Retire or be terminated".

I had my first interview with an outsourcing firm on the top floor of the tallest building of the city scheduled for 9/11. It was cancelled for some reason.

Here is another popular eatery in town, The Washington Street Ale House.  We have eaten there and liked it, but parking can be a problem so we haven't been there often or lately.

Oddly it looks similar to the restaurant I started yesterday's post off with.

Going to start my exit from downtown now.

I like to walk about this city, but I really am not looking forward to jury duty.  If I were actually retired it would be okay.

But it is going to be costly for me. I only get paid when I work and the compensation the court gives a juror is not even half of what I make, and I don't  make very much to begin with.

Plus my vacation starts the week after I must report and I don't want to spend my vacation sitting in a courtroom.

(I don't get paid anything while on vacation either.)

I pity the defendant if I am selected because I won't be in a forgiving mood.


This picture is called, "letters"

Last time I was called for jury duty that famous local one-time-big-shot-influential-well-to-do-person was about to be tried. I thought I might get on that jury. I worked for that big bank then and they would have paid me while on jury duty. A long trial would have been fine. Not now.

Last photo I took. Usual scene, roadwork on I-95.

I thought I had my lens clear of the fence, but obviously not, so the shot was ruined.

I took no more photos because I had walked a long way and the day had grown hot and humid and it has been all up hill and the hill is about to get steeper and I didn't have the energy left to raise my camera.

I'm not as young as I used to be, you know.

Where Civilization Crumbles: Viewing Rockwood

So we are gathered under the spreading chestnut tree or what the heck this spreading tree is. We've been mulling time over our mulled wines and now it is time to pick up where we left off the other day when our batteries died.

This little grouping of chairs is on the front or back yard of the Rockwood Mansion. I have still not figured out what to call this yard, perhaps I'll just refer to it as The Yard. There really isn't a yard on the other side, the front of the building, just a driveway.

Now one of my invisible buddies here, probably after a one, two or few cups, chides me about this constant battery problem I keep having. He wants to know if I'm entering my dotage never being properly prepared for my excursions.

His friend, also invisible, is even more invective.

"You have two battery chargers sitting in a drawer under a virtual log jam of rechargeable batteries. Why aren't you all charged up, man?"

Good question, but to tell the truth I've found the rechargeable batteries sometimes undependable and yes, I tend to forget to plug in the charger enough ahead to assure a full charge. So I just go out and buy a pack of Duracell Coppertops. I picked up a 20 pack yesterday for $7.50. That's not a bad price. I don't get Energizers too often ever since the Bunny Rabbit United Union filed complaints about the Energizing Bunny not taken any breaks and just going and going and going. I think the last straw was when those aliens hooked his ears to jumper cables.

But enough of this chit-chat or we'll never get through this place. Let's get back on the trail where I left off last time I brought you all here. We had just swung around some evergreens behind the expanse of The Yard. That path just looks out on another wide splotch of grass, the yard beyond The Yard.

We're going to follow this path hereabout and see what kinds of things might be happening today.

It is, as usual for me, early in the morning, not long after sunrise. There were no cars in the parking lot when I arrived and still weren't as I started this walk.

Doesn't mean we won't make some acquaintances along the way. This is on the Northern Greenway after all and people stroll in here from Bellevue and Bringhurst (remember we mentioned Mary Bringhurst last visit) and even Alapocas Run.

Personally, I often like it this way, quiet solitude. It is a funny thing how some trails attract a crowd and others leave you with plenty of elbow room. For some reason you hit more traffic out in Brandywine Creek State Park. Lot of walkers and a lot of bicyclist seem attracted there for some reason. The Little Woman and I like to walk there as well, but for the most part it is a straight wide path through the woods along side the Brandywine. It doesn't have the twists, turns, hills and thrills of this place, which may be the reason for the preference and the feeling it is where civilization crumbles and sets me free of its hold.

Oh by the way, we can see the whole back of the mansion from here.

We actually walked Brandywine Creek State Park a lot, especially back when the kids were little. We would take them there to romp. It is there we find the example of bureaucracy good mad, a handicap parking spot next to the start of the hiking trail.

I've walked Brandywine Park probably more than any other actually. Now don't get confused, Brandywine Park is in downtown Wilmington and near the start of the Northern Greenway. It is a city park, not a state park. Being downtown is why I walked it more than any other because I always went for a long walk on my lunch hour when I worked in town.

Oh, one thing you will notice, Joseph Shipley, or perhaps the Bringhursts, were very fond of gazebos and they pop up several times at Rockwood. We saw one down in the lower pasture a couple photos back and we'll come to one on the high ground later.

We just passed one at the edge of The Yard.

I had to stop here and tie my shoelaces. For some reason modern shoelaces won't stay laced. You tie, walk a bit, and have to retie.

Now where were our thoughts as we strolled past the gazebo point? Ah, we were talking about Brandywine Creek State Park and Brandywine Park. It does get a bit confusing in this region. You cross the state line going north and you can add Brandywine Battlefield Park and Brandywine Picnic Park to the list. The Little Woman and I have done our share of hiking in the Brandywine Battlefield, too. It's pretty hilly and both George Washington and Lafayette slept there at one time. That was before Rockwood was built, of course.

Oh, look, another Ha-ha, tee-hee!

I've never been to Brandywine Picnic Park under that name. It isn't really a walking park. It's a picnic park, duh! They launch a lot of tubes down the creek from there. I was there often in my youth under its old name, Lenape Park, when it was a small amusement park with a train, a roller coaster, bumper cars, big swings and a fun house. Use to be many small amusement parks once upon a time, but then Walt Disney changed that world and the little parks quickly disappeared, which I consider a loss.

Here is one of those decision points on our walk through life. Which way shall we ramble? Well, if we go right we will come up pass the Mansion to the Carriage House where we explored last time.

If we go to the left we will go down a long curving trail leading eventually back to the parking lot. I walked up that trail one day thinking it went around the woods and off to some other place, but instead it simply snaked around an s-curve by the woods and came up the hill to where we now stand.

So it is straight ahead into the forest primeval then!

It doesn't look it, but it is a little steep here and with these leaves everywhere one must watch they don't slip.

Also, the forest isn't all that primeval as the autumn leaf fall has unfortunately revealed.

See, see the house on the left. Actually, even in the full frontal foliage of summer this house can be seen, just not so much of it.

So I knew this place was here.

It looks desolate much of the time, but occasionally a light is on or a car is in the drive. It is a big house with a twisting walkway down to the edge of the creek that weaves through here.

I knew that house existed, but I was unaware of so many others. Man, its like a walk in the city this time of year. I didn't know this house was here next to that big white place. This house is earth colors and still blends in with the trees and leaves around it, but during the summer it wasn't even seeable.

I wonder who these people are hiding back here in the woods? They are not near-paupers like me, that's for sure.

They are not really hiding back in the woods either. They are the encroachment of modern society upon the woods.

I never saw this garage like building on my right before the leaves dropped. Now it rises from the underbrush to glare at me.

It is the back of some kind of maintenance building for the park. On the other side it is quite visible fronting a large gravel parking area down below the Carriage House, but its hindquarters have always been well covered by nature in the warm seasons. Now its flanks are exposed for all to see and to the nip of approaching winter.

Walking through these parks is a reminder of the illusions of life. I am grateful and thankful, what with Thanksgiving just around the corner, that we have all these parks with their pleasant trails, but I know they aren't true wilderness. Modern life lurks all around and is much more a threat, isn't it, than any cougars or bears or other dangerous beasts that may have once roamed here.

Squirrels skitter away all around me, but squirrels hardly count as wildlife anymore. They skitter all about my neighborhood too and steal the sunflower seeds out of the bird feeder. They keep a respectful distance most times, but they also stand relatively close until they see whether you are carrying a spare nut their way. Squirrels are semi-domestic creatures.

As I was driving here this morning a deer did come awkwardly across the road ahead of me and then run down into Bringhurst Woods. I never met it on the trail.

More homes appear in the thinning foliage, homes big enough to be hotels, chalets at least. What do people do with all those rooms? Back when Joseph Shipley built Rockwood families could have filled them; after all, he himself was the youngest of twelve. Certainly, his mansion competes with these in size and scope. But by todays standards I, with three children, have a large family. With the kids grown and two moved away, my place is too large for us. We can't utilize the space we have. Maybe these people throw large parties with many guests staying over night to sleep it off. Perhaps these people just want to show off how successful they are. I don't know? My philosophy has always been you can only live in one room at a time. I'm grateful to have a roof over my head when it rains and walls when it is cold.

I hope these people are grateful for what they have. I hope they don't take it for granted or think it is owed to them or look down on those with less.

If you want to get over into that community beyond the trees you cross this bridge. Another path will meander up a grade and into that neighborhood and take you out to Rockwood Road. If you go along that road and under a couple of overpasses, you will come to more large estates. There you will pick up the path again and if you follow it, you will eventually come into Alapocas Run State Park.

Our little protected roadway of nature, our shelter where civilization crumbles.

I've been across the bridge and out to that road and I've come out of Alapocas toward it from the other direction. There are a lot of big houses and I keep wondering who lives in these places and how many wish they didn't since the housing bubble broke? Driving by such communities at night we see darkened shells and wonder how many foreclosed.

But we didn't come out to trouble our mind with these types of questions and cares. We came to ramble away from the cares and worries of the world, to clear our head, not clog it up, so let's chance the subject.

You know how stream of conscience is, though, just like the stream under that bridge. It meanders about and sometimes bumps up against a rock. My mind does gather a bit of flotsam hear and now. I don't know the names of these streams that pop up in these parks. I suppose eventually they feed into the Brandywine, which takes them along with it to the Delaware and eventually out the bay to the sea. All part of a self-contained hydro system. Water flows about the earth until it is sucked up by the sun, then it settles in clouds until the weight is too much and it falls to earth again. Always the same amount of water as when the planet began.

We may pollute it, but we never really destroy it.

Now our path turns 90 degrees toward the East, away from the high-end urban villagers toward the parking lots for the maintenance barn and the Carriage House.

I've ambled along perhaps a mile so far and haven't seen another soul. As I approach the cross path ahead a lady jogger comes bopping down it and by me. I say hello, but she is oblivious to my greeting, an unusual occurrence on these Delaware Trails. We Delawareans are generally a friendly tribe who always speak.

I passed this same jogger another day and she didn't acknowledge my existence then either. I do notice she has earplugs planted in her ears and an IPod hooked on her belt. I guess she is deep into her ITunes and her ITrot and has blocked out all else her IEyes see.

I turn up the trail she came down.

Here again houses I never noticed before. They're like big fat ticks on the hide of a Razorback hog, bloated and ready to pop.

There are lampposts all along the trails here. I've never been here at night. I wonder if they light them? Maybe they only put them on for special occasions. I see no purpose to illuminate the trails at night. The park is open from sunrise to sunset, so who would be wandering back here after dark except those who shouldn't be. Let those who shouldn't be fall in a groundhog hole or something in the dark. Often when I come in the morning there is a police car in the parking lot. I have never figured out if the officers are there to protect or just hiding out and goofing off. I wonder if they patrol the drives here during the dark hours. I wonder if they even drive to the parking lot in the dark hours.

There must be some who visit after closing, but not to explore the park. The other morning there was a used condom lying on the macadam when I stepped out of my car. Nature lovers?

I don't know if you recognize this path. It was the one I snapped from the porch of the Carriage House and put in my last post.

This path is going to take us into the woods and up to the top of Rockwood hill. This is what I call the gradual climb. There is a steeper way up the hill, but I prefer this one. I generally return down by the steep path.

I have come up that other way, but I have to confess I was panting by the time I reached the top. I'll leave that way to the younger crowd.

Not that I totally shy away from hills. These trails are full of up and down slopes and I like that. It helps in keeping one somewhat fit. Maybe in another ten years I'll feel different.

There is always the chance in ten years I won't be walking over grounds, but lying under them.

It is important to keep the body as fit as possible these days. After all, one never knows when you'll have to walk through an airport scanner.

Funny how we have turned ourselves into our own terrorists. People aren't so much afraid to fly anymore as they are getting from the ticket window to the boarding zone. Ten years from now the only people in airport security will be perverts, pedophiles and Bill Clinton, meanwhile real terrorists will be out blowing up trains. They don't call it Washington DC for nothing; Washington Dumb and Confused. We need to get our security peoples hands off our privates and looking in our eyes. We don't look for terrorists so much as we look for things. We have a nice collection of threatening baby bottles, pudding cups, nail files and nose hair clippers to show for the effort. I feel so much safer.

To show you how stupid our great security thinkers are, they even subjected the pilots to the same groping and voyeuristic scanning. Apparently they thought any pilot who wished to crash the plane needed to smuggle in a devise to do it.

Not everyone gets subjected to the peek-a-boo or the hands-on-grab. Here is another great mind at work. We select our subject at random. In other words, we play the lottery and hope some time we win a terrorist.

And the terrorists play the lottery and bet the odds are they won't get caught. I mean, think about it. You got a bunch of terrorists who want to repeat 9/11. So six of them head for the airport and spread out in the line. here comes a terrorist with his skivvies loaded up with plastic explosive. he is closer and closer to security and then a guard snatches away the 93-year old grandmother for a pick your poison moment, body scan or body pat. Meanwhile, the terrorist signs in relief for he know he is just going through the metal detactor and he is safe, and we are not. Maybe we even pick one of these dudes by random, but all six? Lotteries don't work that way.

Now here is where I could use some security. Some paths are so leaf covered you can't see where the path ends and the ground begins. It is easy to slip off the edge of the path and twist an ankle. I've done it about three times on narrower paths. You suddenly hit partway on the lip of the macadam and your foot twists over into the soft soil beside it. I am fortunate to have strong ankles. Otherwise I would have to lay moaning by the path until some jogger happens along, hopefully not the lady with the earplugs.

Obviously this is the path less traveled and in all honestly, I didn't travel it either. It would have led up to the parking lot for the Carriage House. I am on my way up the gradual hill to the summit.

As you can see we have left any houses behind. It would appear we have entered deep woods, but appearances would be wrong.

If you look closely at this photograph you may be just able to pickup something right along the horizon behind the trees. You'd never notice in the summer because in the summer you can't even see that horizon.

What you might catch in the summer a little further up this path is an out of place splotch of green that doesn't match anything in the forest.

You can clearly see what that odd green is in this picture. Follow the fence as it bends right and there halfway up above the fence is the green, a highway  exit ahead sign.

The thing that ran along the horizon that could barely be picked up was a guard rail. The infamous I-95 rolls right along side this upward path. It is easily exposed here in the autumn. Not only can you see it, you can hear it. In the summer the full trees and thick brush muffle the sounds of traffic to a few big trucks and noisy motorcycles.

And we won't escape the overhanging shoulder of I-95 on this side of Rockwood. I am walking up this hill and over to my side people are whizzing along in their cars, rushing where I do not know.  I stand on the edge where civilization crumbles.  Maybe we will see cars lined up over there while their turkeys grow cold upon the table, trapped by the inefficiencies of rebuilding the toll booth on the border, perhaps twenty mile backups the newspaper warns.

They are spending $32 million dollars on toll booths. Gonna have to collect a lot of tolls.

Is it necessary? Why not just throw open the gates for the holidays, give the weary travelers a gift. I always have the nagging suspicion the tolls go to maintain the tollbooths and pay the toll takers.  I hope on Black Friday I'm not stuck in any such backup. I exit not far from the toll plaza, far less than 20 miles. Heck, the state is only 30 miles wide at its widest, which is this part at the top and who wants a backup of traffic across two-thirds of your state?

Oh, we have reached the top of the hill. Here is an intersecting path that came up the steep side of the hill. Its level through the gap in the stone wall and a bit further, then it dips down.

In reality this isn't quite the apex. This is the high point of paved paths, though. If we go a little beyond the intersection we will find this unpaved path to our right.

Yeah, I know, it's hard to believe there is a path, but there is.  You step over the fallen log, go past the marker sticking up and wind in around those trees to be on it. This path will take you to the actual crest of the hill where you can look down over a sort of cliff.

Its pretty peaceful up there because few seem to make the short trek. You can see how undisturbed the path is. How buried by leaf fall.

Next time I'll take you up there and then show you the ways down and we'll talk to some dogs upon our way.

For now we have rambled far and wide and long so let's take a rest. If I don't get you back here before tomorrow, let me wish you a wonderful Thanksgiving. I hope you have much to be thankful for.

Meanwhile try to see what sits atop this hill. It is in this picture.