Caught In The Whirlwind
Posts tagged outside
Lost In The Park
May 19th 2009
It was really, really nice out yesterday. Just a little chilly, but sunny and warm enough to go outside and do some outdoors-y type things. So my friends and I wandered out to one of the local town parks in hopes that we could find some hiking trails through the woods like we did last weekend.
We went to a different park, but as we found out, it was just as large as the first one and had a lot more hiking trails. Enough to require a trail map to make sense of it. As we came to find out though…their trail map kinda sucked.
The first warning sign was that the trail map indicated an entrance to a trail that did not exist. We wandered down the road a little further and came to a path that lead into the woods that wasn't on the map, but we figured we'd follow it in anyway. It seemed to lead to a system of trails but we couldn't figure out where we were on the map. And a couple of intersections later we had lost track of where we were in relation to the park.
The trails themselves were pretty cool. Right in the woods, and through some interesting nature type areas. If we end up there next time I want to take my camera to get some pictures of some of the trees (if we can ever find the trees again that is) because they were really cool. It was a little bit muddy though. Like…a lot muddy. We were able to avoid most of it by cutting through the actual woods.
But, back to being lost. Eventually in our wanderings, we came across the back of a sign. As we passed it and turned around to see what it said we were surprised to find that it was warning us that the way we came was leaving the park land and the trails were going to become unmarked. At this point, we had two thoughts: "We left the park land???" and "The trails are supposed to be marked???"
Eventually we discovered that the trails were color coded. But the map was labeled with letters and no colors. So even if we found a trail, we had no idea which trail we were on or which direction we were supposed to be going on it. I have half a mind to write a really nasty letter to the town about their "map" and their "marked trails"
We stumbled off the park land again once more (also without being warned until we were back on) and then found ourselves on the red square trail…whichever trail that was supposed to be. Then we found the blue trail and realized that blue was "A" and we were back on the trail that we thought we were on from the beginning. Finally! Which was good because we were starting to get hungry.
We jumped off the trail at the first sign of the park showing up through the wilderness, but ended up walking into a bog type area. Ahhh…nature. What would a springtime walk be without mud. Eventually we found our way back to the park proper, although we ended up behind the maintenance building near where they store all the various pieces of equipment.
And thus ended our outdoors adventure for the day. It sounds like we've got a lot of options for outdoor walking in the area. A lot more than we thought we had. It's amazing what's local if you're actually looking for it.
The Appreciation Of Fall
Oct 9th 2008
I used to not really enjoy the outdoors when I was a kid. Too hot, too many bugs, too much fresh air. That kinda thing. I was the recluse kid who would rather be inside reading a book or messing around on the computer. But as I've gotten a little older I've started to enjoy just hanging around outside when it's nice out more and more. And also enjoying things like the leaves in fall and the sound of the rain. I think I've become more introspective or something. Enjoying things for what they are and appreciating the little things more.
So it was nice last night taking a little walk after work outside with my friend Wassy who came out for the usual mid-week hanging out. It ended up being a little bit more rainy than it was forecast to be but that was ok. It's part of fall. Around New York state here, fall is a lot like spring…it's hard to tell exactly how long it's going to last, so I'm glad we were able to get out and enjoy a little bit of it.
There will be more fall activities going on this weekend where my friend (Jay and Wassy) and I will be headed out to Trenton Falls (Note, that picture was when the water level was low due to the mismanagement of the regions water supply…it's a long story) to do some walking in the semi wilderness and a picnic lunch after to enjoy the scenic view since the trail will be open. It's only open 4 times a year and I've always wanted to go. It'll be nice to get outside after staying in so much last weekend. And we're supposed to have nice weather too.
I Saved Money On My Car Insurance By Swit– Oh You Know The Rest
Jun 23rd 2008
Sorry for the lack of updates over the past couple days. Been a little busy and I was feeling a little out of it for a while there, which isn't really conducive to blogging.
But the main thing that happened is I'm dumping Progressive Direct for my car insurance because they decided they were going to charge me $50 more per 6 months than they had been charging me for what seems like absolutely no reason at all. So I scouted around and ended up setting on Geico as being the cheapest ($167 per 6 months cheaper, to be specific about it). So I switched last week and all I need now is to take care of the photo inspection part and send back one form and I'm all set.
And I'm going to specifically mention that this saturday was a very nice day. My friends and I went out to Green Lakes State Park and walked the trail around one of the lakes before settling in for a picnic lunch (mmm…deviled eggs) which was awful nice and relaxing. It's beautiful out there and the trail was very nice. Not very crowded either. I really hope to go back there sometime and hang out some more.
I've been noticing a curious trend where I've been wanting to just hang around outside more often than I normally would. I'm not an outdoors person at all realy, so the fact that I'm drawn to just hang around outside is a bit of a surprise to me. I've started taking a book outside to read during my lunch break, for example. It's just something about the fresh air that relaxes me a bit more than just hanging around inside would.
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