Category: Exercise

Unexpectedly Cold Weather

Checked out the weather last Sunday morning with the hope of finally being able to go outside to do some exercise after having spent the later half of the week without any. But the weather gods had other plans. Things seemed to be going backwards instead of forwards. The information at the weather channel website indicated that it would feel like 18° F that morning because of the wind! The actual temperature itself was going to be below freezing through the morning. The fact that it was going to be sunny did not seem to be a significant enough factor to overcome the negative ones. There was a last minute change in plans. I had to motivate myself to run on the treadmill instead of staying with our routine of going to the river. That worked out well enough. I managed to run a good distance – greater than than what we usually cover while walking. Expended the calories. Even got the timer on the treadmill to turn over – something that has happened only once before.

The exercise on Sunday was required because the days before that had been a disaster in this regard due to various factors. A vaccination shot during a doctor’s visit in the middle of the week had an unexpectedly severe side effect on my physical state that took a little while to overcome, and then the weather was damp enough that one was motivated to simply stay in bed and not do anything. There are times like this in life, and one just has to power through until you get to a better place.

It continues to be cold early in the morning, but it is warming up nicely during the day. And it is also nice and sunny outside. Back to walking outside!

Feeling The Heat

We went out for our second joint bike ride of the season the day before yesterday. Since we knew ahead of time that it was going to be a scorcher of a day, with temperatures in the 90s (°F), we left early to try to beat the heat, but we were not very successful in achieving that goal.

I managed to get a new bike rack for the Prius in the meantime. This one fit over the bump in the rear end of the car. The bike rack itself looked less sturdy than the one we have for the Honda, but the reviews that I had read makes me want to give it a try. This being the first time the rack was being used, we were very deliberate and careful about how we mounted the bikes, checking every strap along the way, and placing duct tape over areas of the bike that might rub against the carrier itself. This bike rack unfortunately does not have an additional strap that goes around the multiple bikes in order to attach them to the main section of the frame. The bikes just hang on the carrier rods that they are attached to.

We were more careful than usual during the drive to the canal. We did not go far, and I kept looking back at the bikes as we drove. It all went well.

We rode upstream from Violettes Lockand ended up near Whites Ferry before turning back.

It was cool under the trees, especially earlier in the morning,but you could feel the heat on your shoulders the moment we were exposed to the direct sunlight. One felt the most exposed when crossing the open stretch of trail under the crackling and buzzing high voltage power lines that cross the river.

We took a few breaks during the ride. Going forward, we will need to also carry more water with us. It is easy to get dehydrated.

Considering the conditions, I was surprised to see people on the river later in the morning, completely exposed to the sun. I hope that there was liberal use of sunscreen.

I did hear and see a bald eagle flying over the trees in the area near Rileys Lock, but it was difficult to stop in time to follow the flight of bird, to see where it was going. We did see a few Indigo Buntings. These bright blue birds would land on the trail in front of us, but we would be going too fast to stop in time to take a picture. I had to settle for pictures of an egret and a great blue heron. I even managed to chase the egret away! There were also plenty of dragonflies beside the trail, but I did not stop for pictures.

We also found a lot of fluffy white seed pods all over the place in certain sections of the trail and on the canal itself.I do not know what tree or plant these come from.

This is also the time for the mock strawberry fruit.

We spent a good part of the rest of the day recovering from the efforts of the morning. It does not seem to matter that all of my past biking efforts took place in the heat of summer. It still takes a good deal of effort to get used to the conditions once again.

It has cooled down in the days since the ride, but I am sure that this is only a temporary reprieve.

Riding My New Bicycle For the First Time

This is the first new bicycle that I have bought for myself. (I did actually buy a used bike once before – as an unemployed graduate student – for almost zero cost! Maybe that is a story for another day…) The bike I have been riding for the last few years belongs to Teresa. It is a woman’s hybrid bike that has served its purpose, but it is somewhat small for my size, and it was not really built for the heavy-duty usage that I was putting it through. I had somehow managed with her bike, not feeling a necessity to spend money on this background pastime of mine that could be considered non-essential. I kept postponing a final decision about a new bike. But the kids finally put me to shame with a present that they had bought me last year. It was a camera bag that was supposed to attach to my new bike! Where was the bike?!

I did some research before going out to the stores. I test rode a couple of bikes. I did have a couple of bikes in mind when I finally went out shopping, but I ended up buying a completely different bike from those on my list! My final choice was between a somewhat staid REI Co-op CTY 2.1, and the Trek Dual Sport 2 that looked more sporty. Both bikes had similar features. The Trek bike might even have been a little ahead in feature comparison, but I finally got the bike from REI because of the benefits of membership in REI.

I rode the new bike on the towpath for the first time last Thursday. The first challenge was fitting it on to the bike rack on the back of the car. It turns out that the bike barely fits into its position on the carrier. I am going to have to make further adjustments.

It was actually not the best day for a ride, but the bike had been sitting at home for a while, and I was itching to try it out. It was cloudy and chilly, and I could feel the cold of the gentle breeze on the skin as I rode. Fortunately, I was somewhat prepared for the weather – with a long sleeved bike shirt and a sleeveless vest (apparently also called a golf vest – who knew!) on top of it. It took a while for the numbness to go away from my fingers.

Since this was also my first bike ride of the season, I also found it to be somewhat of a relearning experience. I do need to get the muscles that are used in this exercise routine back in shape. And it was also the other simple and basic things that I had to think about while riding. I had to remind myself of the danger of drifting across the trail if I turned my head to look back while riding. I had to get comfortable once again with the experience of passing other people who were on foot or on bikes on the trail. You cannot always predict how somebody else will respond to your presence.

The bluebells have almost all disappeared from the trail, but most of the flowers that I regularly observe in Spring have made their appearances. Getting on the trail, it was this field of buttercups near Pennyfield Lock that first caught my attention.

Once on the trail, I stopped every once in a while to take pictures of the Wild Phlox, Fleabane, Chickweed, Ragwort, Spiderwort, Honeysuckle, Dames Rocket, Yellow Iris, Violets, etc.. The Rosa Multiflora will be flowering soon.

The squirrels and the birds were quite active. The presence of a relatively fast moving bicycle on the trail seemed to confuse some of these creatures. One of the squirrels almost ran into the spokes of the bicycle. Birds would occasionally fly across the front of the moving cycle, and sometimes they would fly ahead of the bicycle and try to land on the trail, seemingly misjudging the speed of my approach towards them. I deliberately made an effort to keep a somewhat slower pace and not speed up. I needed to get more comfortable with the gearing on the new bike first and find out what worked the best for me.

There were plenty of turtles that were out and about.I did notice that the herons were missing in action. (It fact, they have been generally missing in action during our last few outings!) I finally got a sight of one of them in the distance towards the end of the ride at the pond near Rileys Lock.

Even though I was prepared for it, I was surprised to have encounters with snakes this early in the riding season. (I can sense a shudder going through some of the readers!🙂) Both of the snakes I saw were small in size.
I cannot make up my mind about the kind of snake the second one was. It seemed to have the pattern of a Northern Copperhead on its body, but it was darker than the Northern Copperheads I have seen during previous outings. I also do not think the eyes were the right shape. This one had round eyes. Anyway, I kept a safe distance away from it.

And then there was the experience that I mentioned in my previous blog!

All in all, it was a good first ride on the bike!

The Doldrums of January

A winter storm came through on Sunday. I was determined to get back to the towpath before the storm hit. Too many weekends had passed without my having had the experience. I would go in spite of the very cold morning that was predicted. And I was prepared to go by myself if that was the only way to make it happen.

It was about 15°F (-9.44°C) when I arrived at Rileys Lock very early in the morning.

Because of the cold, I took the concept of layering of clothes to an extreme for this outing. Four layers of clothing protected the chest and the family jewels. Two layers of socks and gloves, and a skullcap and a hoodie protected the extremities.

The first thing I noticed was the new bridge over Seneca Creek at Rileys Lock. A closer look revealed that the bridge was still under construction and was closed off.

I had no option but to head south towards Pennyfield Lock.

It was a dull and grey morning. The sun struggled from behind a thick layer of clouds that portended the coming of the storm later in the day.The water in the canal was freezing in sections because of the cold.The river still flowed freely on the other side of the trail.

The conditions were such that even the little birds flying around the trail did little to raise my level of enthusiasm. Only the colorful cardinals, now clearly visible against the brown of the deleaved plants and trees, managed to draw my attention for an extended period of time. I was not motivated to take pictures, let alone take off my thick outer later of gloves to fiddle with the camera to try to optimize any picture being taken.

Regardless of all my caution, my fingers and toes began to freeze up.

I kept walking along trying to quieten my mind. I only saw one person on the trail during the early part of the walk. His jacket was a shade of blue that caught your attention from far away, especially in the dull brown background. He turned around as I was approaching him and went back the way he had come. I was very surprised to encounter a bicyclist. He came up from behind very quietly when I thought was the only one on the trail. I might have been singing before he warned me of his presence and passed me by.

I was able to eventually internalize and mentally adapt to the cold. I reached Pennyfield Lock and kept walking past the landmark. The place could have served as a milestone to use to turn back to return to my car. My thought when I had left home that morning was that I would see how it felt walking in the cold, and turn back the moment I felt that I was on a fool’s errand and was putting myself in some danger. At that point many of my fingers were still partially numb. Some had reached an intermediate state of pain which I think had to do with the pressure on the blood vessels as they attempted to open up in my fingers. It was actually usually a good sign. I could manage, even if my extremities were not in a completely good state. I had experience with the situation and knew how bad it would get. It also helped that there was no breeze at that point. I still could feel my nose.

It was a little bit after I passed Pennyfield lock that I decided that I would try to cover about 8 miles. It felt doable. I was comfortable.

I turned back at the point where the trail ran next to the cliffs before Swains Lock. I began to encounter more people on the way back to Rileys Lock. As I was not getting good opportunities for taking pictures, the camera went back into the backpack. I decided to start jogging. It was simply something that I felt like doing at that moment. There was no planning involved.

It was a different experience once I started jogging. First of all, the movement and the rhythm of the breathing came easy even though I had not run on the trail for probably a few years. I could keep going, and the going was easy. Perhaps it was due to the fact that I had done some jogging on the treadmill earlier in the week.

And then something magical began to happen. The blood began to flow through to my extremities more freely. I could feel it. The frozen feeling began to vanish slowly, although painfully. Before long, my fingers and toes were feeling fine and I had found a rhythm on the trail. It was a rhythm that I thought I could manage forever. The miles were passing by effortlessly.

It was about 19°F by the time I got back to the car. I was not feeling the cold in the least bit!

It started snowing in the afternoon.

https://www.gocomics.com/barneyandclyde/2022/01/16

Its Just Another Day

I hate to admit it, but I do have the Monday Morning Blues today. The worries/annoyances have risen to the surface – Omicron, Build Back Better, stock market, etc.. The microwave oven happened to breathe its last yesterday. It has to be fixed before the rest of the family arrives for the Christmas holiday. The laundry and the groceries have to be done. It is colder than usual this morning, and the Reynauds is always there in the background. I think I can find plenty of stuff to get worked up about if I put my mind to it!😄

The conditions for our Sunday morning walk yesterday were not ideal. Although the temperature was supposed to be in the 40s – not too bad – it was cloudy, and there was a breeze coming through. There was the promise of the sunshine that was to come later in the day, with the blue sky poking through the clouds in the distance, but that did not do anything to help us feel warmer on the trail that time of the morning. My fingers never warmed up in spite of the 7 mile walk.

There were a couple of exciting sightings during the walk. The red-shouldered hawk settled on a branch just above the trail and sat there while I took its pictures. We were close to Swains Lock when that happened.

The bird eventually became shy and turned its head the other way.

We also saw a nest on the other side of the river with a couple of bald eagles in it. Their season for nesting is beginning. We have to thank the birders – a small group of older women – whose actions in the distance on the trail gave us a clue about the presence of the nest. (They also identified the red-shouldered hawk for us when we saw it the first time.)

Its just another day.

A Morning For The Freight Trains

We walked to the town of Brunswick and its big marshalling yard for the CSX railroad last Sunday. We encountered the freight trains well before we got there.

We were still driving from home towards the parking lot at Lander Lock, the starting point of our walk, when, at Dickerson, I sighted the rear-end of the freight train crossing the bridge over the road. The train was headed towards the bridge at the Monocacy river. When we reached Point Of Rocks about 10 to 15 minutes later, we saw the same train running on the tracks parallel to the road we were on. We then landed up at Lander Lock another 10 to 15 minutes later just as the same train was passing by. We had to stop at the railroad crossing to let it go by before proceeding to the parking lot.

It was in the 30s when we started our walk from next to the lock house.

It was the Sycamore trees that drew my attention early in the walk. One wonders if I ever will tire of their majesty?!

The first stop was Catoctin Aqueduct. You can see how low the sun was in the sky from this picture that was taken from the walkway on one side of the aqueduct.

We could hear the activity in the railroad yard even before we crossed Little Catoctin Creek a little later.We had to go down to the level of the creek to cross the creek. The original culvert over the canal was destroyed in a storm in May 2018 and has still not been replaced.

Little Catoctin Creek is located near the eastern end of the Brunswick railroad yard. The first thing we noticed was the back-and-forth shunting activity going on with a locomotive consist of three engines attached to a number of freight cars carrying containers with J. B. Hunt logos on their sides. (We originally mistook them for containers carrying ketchup and other tomato products!🤨)

The railroad yard was, as usual, full of freight cars dispersed over the different tracks. You could see and hear the occasional locomotive located behind the carriages on the tracks closer to the trail. There is a background rumbling sound of the locomotives at rest, and the occasional creaking and clanging of metal when freight cars are being moved around, when you are walking in this area.

This is a picture from the trail beside the yard.The sky was absolutely clear! This part of the towpath has actually been converted to a gravel road that people can drive on to get to a privately owned family campsite next to the river.

The distance we covered during the walk was a little more than what we usually tackle. The Brunswick parking lot for the towpath was slightly further away than what I had expected. I took some additional time to walk the extra distance on my own, looping back on the road next to the railroad yard to get back to the trail. This is a picture of the Maryland Route 17 bridge at Brunswick taken during that part of the walk.There were a couple of trains parked on the tracks at the far end of the yard.I see trains at this location almost every time I pass by on the road. (You can actually see these trains on the other side of the bridge if you open up the picture of the bridge!)

As we were departing the area of the railroad yard on our way back to Lander Lock, the train that we had seen moving about in the yard let out three blasts of its horn (similar to this sound) and started moving in our direction. It was still moving quite slowly, still picking up speed, when the locomotives passed us by. The train consist itself was much longer than the J. B. Hunt set of container cars that we had originally seen. With its over 160 varied freight cars, it was long enough (and slow enough!) that we even reached the Catoctin Aqueduct on foot on the trail before the train fully passed us by!

We made a stop at the Rocky Point Creamery on our drive back home to pick up some ice cream. We have driven past this place for many years, and this is the first time we stopped to investigate further. The ice cream remains to be consumed at this point in time!

Little Pool

We had visited Big Pool on the C&O Canal earlier this year. We decided to go to Little Pool, its little sister, on Sunday. Little Pool is located just a few miles west of Big Pool. To start a walk at Little Pool, one must get to a parking lot for the canal that is difficult to access, one which does not get much use. The information about the approach to the lot requires a little bit of research. It is possible that not many people know about its existence.

This parking lot, just outside of Hancock, is located off an on-ramp to Interstate 70 going east. The only access to the road leading to this ramp from the highway is from an exit on I-70 heading west. The exit is located in the middle of the countryside. You could miss it easily – in the blink of an eye – if you were were not aware of it, or if you were distracted. There is no exit from I-70 to this parking lot if you are headed east on the highway, and there is no way to get onto I-70 West from the parking lot.

I had found this parking lot many years ago when I was discovering these sections of the C&O canal for the first time. I had only been there once – in 2007. In fact, I had written about this place at that time in an email to friends and family! That outing on the C&O canal was the first time I had made it to the town of Hancock, the furthest west I had been at that point. I had started a run at Little Pool on that day.

Nothing had changed regarding the nature of the parking lot since 2007.We were the only ones there – both when we arrived and when we departed the place after the walk! This parking lot serves both the WMRT and the C&O Canal. (We had been to the WMRT at Pearre, MD, just a few weeks earlier when searching (unsuccessfully!) for the colors of Fall.) You walk down to the WMRT from the parking lot.

You then cross the WMRT to walk down to Little Pool.The pool was bathed in a lovely early morning light. We walked east, towards Big Pool, on the towpath from that point. I had wanted to walk all the way to the aqueduct at Licking Creek, but had misjudged the distance. We turned back before we got there. Here are some pictures from this part of the walk.

We were walking in the direction of the rising sun at this point. It warmed us up nicely in spite of the low early morning temperatures. The last picture in the above sequence shows a trailer park on the West Virginia side of the river, and a freight train crossing a bridge over a minor tributary of the Potomac called Sleepy Creek.

We walked past a couple of locations along the canal where the waste weir for that section of the canal was built on the berm side of the canal, away from the river. The water from the waste weir fed into a culvert under the canal that led to the river. The usual practice, which seems to make more sense, was to build waste weirs on the side of the canal facing the river.

We walked back to Little Pool, and then continued the walk along Little Pool towards Hancock.

We saw a few birds that morning. I even caught sight of an bald eagle in the distance. It was too far away to get a good picture. We saw woodpeckers, bluebirds, cardinals, nuthatches, and even a family of what I suspect were ring-necked ducks on the water.The bluebirds were too small and restless to keep a track of long enough to take a picture of. There was another bird that we could not recognize that kept flying ahead of us over the trail. It would take off as we approached, and then land once again further along on the trail. It then started doing this activity over the canal bed – flying ahead of us as we approached and then landing next to the trail – again and again. I tried to have my camera ready for a photo-opp but was unsuccessful. I finally gave up tracking the bird.

The views of the trail ahead of us got my attention in the morning light.We did not quite reach Hancock before we turned back. We had walked over 8 miles that morning.

This was a morning for strange sightings. We saw what looked like a weasel in the water at Little Pool. But everything I have read so far suggests that weasels are not present in these parts. We also saw what looked like a pig in the median of the highway as we were driving home. That was quite strange. We were left wondering how it got there, and from where!

One more thing that was unusual about this outing was that we did not encounter a single person on the trail that morning. This might have primarily been due to the fact that the WMRT runs parallel to the towpath in this section. Its pavement provides a much smoother surface for bikers who are passing through to ride on than the towpath.

The Approach of Winter

Although winter is not officially here yet, we are seeing signs that the transition to the season is well underway. The difference in the nature of the woods during past few weeks is stark. This is how a certain section of the trail looked two weeks ago.

This is how a section of the trail that we visited (a different one) looked yesterday morning.

It was still early in the morning when we got on the trail yesterday at Whites Ferry. It was quite cold outside, in the 30s. We are still getting used to the onset of these kinds of temperatures, fairly typical for this time of year at this time of the day. Fortunately, it was not windy. The sun was still struggling in and out of the clouds from its position low on the horizon when we arrived. There was little warmth from its presence. The weak rays of light barely reached us through the leafless trees.

The majesty of the towering Sycamore trees was once again revealed to us in its fullness: on the trail,and across the river on the shores of the Potomac.The perfect reflections on its calm and quiet waters further enhanced our views of the river, and uplifted us, on this beautiful morning.

For some reason, we encountered very few people on the trail yesterday. But we did see a few great blue herons. The herons were more skittish than I expected – like this one that we encountered early on in the walk.

Its eventually warmed up into the 50s, a more reasonable temperature to handle at this stage of our transition to winter.

The long walk that we took served well to compensate for the calories consumed during the Thanksgiving meal. It was a quiet and relaxed affair with just the family and a friend, with the kids putting in most of the effort in preparing the meal. We are thankful – for everything!

The Hiking Weekend: Seneca Creek State Park

Seneca Creek State Park is a place that I go to regularly. It is actually a part of one of my running loops that I can get on to directly from home. I typically run along the south shore of Clopper Lake, and on Mink Hollow Trail and the Greenway Trail, approaching and departing the park from the south.

You get a nice view of Clopper Lake and its shoreline through the trees when driving on Longdraft Road. The view tends to draw your attention (you might end up taking your eye off the road for just an instant😉), especially in the early mornings when the sunlight lights up the trees on the sides of the lake. From past experience, I know that this view can actually be somewhat stunning when Fall is at its peak. I had been hoping to actually see and experience this view this year. It had been a while since I took my last Autumn picture from this vantage point. A hike going through this location became a goal for the weekend’s activities.

I needed to get to the target location for the picture I wanted to take a little later in the morning, after the sun had cleared the trees. The point was to get the sun shining directly on the trees rather than have them in the shadows. Since the park was close to home, I had to make sure that I did not leave home too early.

This is a picture I got from the location of interest.My overall timing for the picture had ended up not being ideal – too late for the colors and too early in the morning to avoid shadows. This was not the picture I had had in my imagination, but it would have to do.

There happened to be a few birds in the water in that corner of the lake.
I walked along the north shore of Clopper Lake. (As I mentioned before, I am usually on the other side of the lake.)

Fall could be experienced in its full brilliance along the lakeside.But there were also other sections of the trail where all the leaves on the trees were still green. These sections tended to be a little away from the shoreline. While I was generally not motivated to take pictures of green foliage, this section of evergreens, away from the lake, did catch my eye.

I took a diversion from the lake to walk along a road leading towards the entrance of the park. I then took a trail leading down to Seneca Creek from the parking lot for the Park Office near the entrance.I ended up on the Greenway Trail which runs all along the creek, beyond the boundaries of the park itself.

This is a picture of another section of the park closer to the Long Draught Branch, a creek at emerges from the dam for Clopper Lake. The trail is called the Long Draught trail.As the pictures in this blog show, different kinds of trees dominate different sections of the park. There must be a logical reason for this.

This hike did not take too much time. I was generally zipping up and down slopes which in past years would have presented actual challenges. But I was also getting tired towards the end of the hike. I slowed down in the section south of the Great Seneca Highway closer to home.

Not having had to drive anywhere to get on the trail, and because of the relative ease of the trail, I was done with the hike rather early in the morning. I did manage to cover over over 8 miles.

Williamsport and Pearre, MD, On The Same Morning

It was our first weekend walk along the C&O Canal after my return from India. After our earlier somewhat less successful experiences in the Shenandoah National Park with the viewing of Fall colors, we were going to give it a shot once again. But, based on experiences of past years, I was also not expecting much success in this regard. Except for in a few short sections of the canal closer to the city, the leaves on the trees along the towpath tend to fade to shades of yellow, with perhaps an occasional tinge of orange if you are lucky, or turn directly to brown. You do not see much of the reds.

In any case, we decided to give it a try, and headed to a place that was much more north and west of where we lived, where, according to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, Fall was well underway. We went to Williamsport.

Unfortunately, we arrived in Williamsport to find that most of the vegetation was still green.We walked south on the trail up to a section just beyond the re-watered part of the canal. At that point we determined that the colors were not going to improve. We aborted the walk, returned to the car, and decided to drive further west to see if we could have better luck in our endeavors. This part of the Sunday morning activities was totally unplanned.

In any case, before leaving Williamsport, I managed to get a picture of the restored Conococheague aqueduct from the level of the creek, something I was unable to do during our previous visit.

We drove west past Hancock. Soon after, just before the Sideling Hill cut on highway I-68, we turned south onto Woodmont Road, one of the occasional narrow local roads that run through this extremely rural section of Maryland.

(As an aside, Sideling Hill is actually a somewhat long (but not very tall) mountain ridge of the Appalachians that runs all the way north into Pennsylvania and south, parallel to the border of Maryland and West Virginia, to West Virginia. The Potomac river forms the border of Maryland and West Virginia here. At some point the river turns and cuts through the ridge. The border of the states continues to follow the river.)

This space was a part of Maryland that I used to come to by myself, to run and explore, every once in a while in the past, but not recently. This section of the Maryland is lightly populated and heavily wooded. The drive south on Woodmont Road was quite nice, and we could see some color on the trees along the way.

We ended up at the parking lot for the Western Maryland Railroad Trail (WMRT) in Pearre, MD. This parking lot used to be the western terminus for the WMRT. We discovered that morning that the trail has been further extended a few miles west.

We were able to get on to the C&O canal towpath from the WMRT using a connector between the two trails. Alas, the vegetation here was also mostly green. We took the trail headed in a westerly direction. It was less than a mile before we crossed the Sideling creek and Aqueduct.The railings on the WMRT (behind the aqueduct in the picture above) looked new from the level of the aqueduct. This was our first hint that that trail might have been extended beyond Pearre. It was perhaps more than a mile after that before we came to a place where we saw the following structure.We realized that this was the place where the extension of the WMRT on the railroad right-of-way ended. This was where the WMRT connected back to the towpath.

We decided to tranfer to the WMRT for our return to Pearre. There was a little more color to be experienced from this perspective, but not much.The trail was very nicely paved and in much better shape than the towpath in these parts.

It turned into a long morning because of our having gone to two different places, and because of the extended distance away from home that we had traveled. I was tired, and it put me in a bad place later in the day for the first music practice after my return from India.

We have not had much success so far this year in our quirky annual endeavor of trying to find places to experience the colors of Fall. It may not be too surprising to some that I have been observing the fuller phenomenon of Fall, with more of its brilliant colors, more vividly closer to home – on the local roads – in recent days. I do not know yet if I will end up taking pictures.