The Morning's Excitement

Fortunately I watch for just this sort of potentual surprise when Copper and I are on a trail.  I saw it before pup had a chance to get nosey.

Nice sized timber rattler coiled next to the Appalachian Trail.

Sunday Stroll

Friday was free money day. I finally got to cash in my $100 REI gift card, using it to replace the hiking boots I’ve had for more than 12 years – I was thinking maybe the old boots were contributing to the beat up and footsore issue. Couldn’t get boots – they didn’t have any in my size and price range. So I got a pair of hiking shoes instead, and the reading I’ve done since says that the higher ankle on boots really doesn’t contribute to supporting the ankles anyway.  I’m a happy camper - less weight on the feet is less weight dragged down the trail.

My original plan was to head down to Sky Meadows State Park to challenge myself with some elevation variation. Then I saw that gas has jumped to $3.89 a gal and that intermittent thunder storms were predicted. Yeah, that’s what I want – spend a bunch of money on gas and climb up into an open meadow on a mountaintop during a thunderstorm. Um…not so much. But turned out the thunderstorms were just showers and there was a lull in them Sunday morning, so I dashed out the door and grabbed some time on the AT. Not much in the way of a challenge elevation-wise, but it'll do.

It was gray and occasionally showery, so not much good for views:

 

But the rain and warmth has brought green, green green:

And it's brought some fast-sprouting and interesting plants.

A bright fungus of some kind:

A patch of  Indian Pipestem:

The new shoes did well, and my feet were definitely in much better shape at the end than they have been.  A brisk 6.5 miles in and out of showers and then it was back to my garden to putter in the sun that emerged by early afternoon.

Sabbath Rest

My version of it, anyway.   Which tends to be rather more exhausting than a lot of other folk's definition of "rest."

It's a gazillion degrees and humid, which of course means it's time to hike on the Appalachian Trail.  In jeans, because it's poison ivy season.  (Note to self - that stretch of trail is well maintained.  Shorts next time.)  I ran late but finally got up to the Keyes Gap parking lot.  Older fellow in lot with stuff torn out of his car.  Huh.  Awareness ping.  Sense of discomfort and the thought "This is why I carry when I'm up here."

Yeah, it's hot and humid.  One of my favorite John Stewart songs starts "She was never a summer child."  I, on the other hand, am.  This is my season, a season of sun-burned shoulders and sweat stung eyes.  Of biking and hiking and, now, whenever possible, the rivers.  Of days of activity ended in a somnolent haze on the front porch as the heat stunned life around waits for the sun to begin to set and something vaguely resembling coolness to return.

It was a lovely day on the trail.  So much rain - and so much bountiful green, so many beautiful fungi because of it.  I took pictures to share - ferns, flowers, a toad, sun dapple in a glade.  My phone saved exactly one.  Which I can't seem to get to.  Sigh.  I was using a new app called Map My Ride.  The phone battery will last 3 hours running it - just enough to confirm 6 miles and then a low battery warning beep.  Plenty of other people out, so pauses and chats.  A beagle who really, really, REALLY wanted to share my snack bar despite getting scolded by his owner for bad manners. And one couple I passed on the trail asked if I had noticed the guy in the parking lot - he had behaved oddly, they thought.  Hmm.

I'm still way too heavy and way too out of shape - working on it but it'll take time.  I have to watch myself in the heat, too, because I'll push too far and then realize I'm feeling the warning signs of incipient heat exhaustion and it's time to sit down for a while.  And not in that lovely sunny spot, either.  In the shade.  It was a stumbly trip back at times because I asked a lot of my legs all at once, and I forgot my walking stick.  And there's that blister that came up on the ball of my right foot. (Second note to self - find that little thing of talcum powder before doing that again.)  But even if I'm still tired tomorrow I can do lighter work.  Like mowing the lawn.  All that rain.  All that warmth.  The lawn really needs mowing.

I crossed into the parking lot - it was full of vehicles.  But, other than me, there's just the sketchy guy and one other, younger woman, who was just coming off the trail from the other direction.  I rolled down the windows.  As I backed up the guy walked up to her and asked for a battery jump.

And as I'm turning and heading for home my mind was processing:  Guy has been there for hours.  All sorts of other hikers out here - lots of other cars in the lot since I left.  Lots of other options for jumps, mostly men and couples.  I had met them coming south as I was heading back north. And two women come into the parking lot at the same time, one openly carrying and the other not and he asks for a jump from the one not carrying as the other leaves.  Robot from "Lost in Space" started yelling "Danger! Danger! Danger!"  I pulled  off, called the police, then headed back to put another person in the lot.  Only to see him in his car, which was running, pulled to the side.  And the lot full of young men, backpackers, just coming off the trail, the other woman gone.

Maybe he's just odd.  Maybe I'm just paranoid.  But my instincts were screaming "WRONG!" louder than I've ever experienced, and I hope a deputy passed through in time to make it clear to the guy that somebody noticed him.