Four More Inches Last Night (Hiking Westside Overland Trail)

This Morning at 7:19

Up at 5:45 and I checked outside to see how much snow had fallen; our parking area is covered with snow again (we have shoveled it at least three times) as is our car.  I have to drive to Jamestown this morning to get something fixed on my Honda and it looks like I will be fighting winter effect snow both ways, not something I look forward to doing.  

The Boys In The Band

Yesterday, my day started with shoveling the parking area, then breakfast at the Bemus Point Inn, and home, to a house filled with the smell of ginger bread cookies.  We had five of us at breakfast, had some good laughs as usual.  What else is breakfast out for?  

Ready for Bear

Why We Hike

Both Evie and I wanted to hike some where but we were not sure where.  Finally we decided on the Westside Trail, getting on it outside of Sherman at the parking area on Mt. Pleasant Road, a mistake.  When we got there, the lot had at least six inches of snow but we were able to park.  We started our hike and soon realized we should have worn our snow shoes which are still parked in our attic.  By the time we got to the trail proper, Evie's feet were already wet, as we were tromping through snow up to her knees.  We stuck with it, however, for about twenty minutes, then turned around discouraged but enervated because it was so spectacular in the forest, trees literally frosted with two or three inches of snow. Even though in was in the teens, we would have enjoyed the walk if it had not been for the cold feet.  We were out for only forty five minutes, alas, but we will be smarter next time and bring our snow shoes.

Vistor Registry on Westside Overland Trail

We got home around 12:30, and Evie had made a big pot of vegetable soup, just what we needed after our hike.  With a toasted cheese sandwich, smeared with jam (my idiosyncracy), we enjoyed our lunch watching Jon Stewart.  The rest of the afternoon I relaxed, read, took a nap while Evie baked and decorated cookies for a good part of the afternoon.  She wants them done by the weekend so she can send them off to the granchildren for Christmas.  It's time consuming and tiring, from standing at the island and deocorating, so she was ready to relax with a glass of wine around 5;30.  I did go for a walk about 5:00, the Woodlawn/Victoria loop and by the time I got home, it was dark.

Woodlawn at Dusk: 5:00

For dinner, we had one of our summer meals, barbecued chicken with noodles.  I fired up the grill and in 14º weather, I grilled the chicken with apple butter barbecue sauce.  It was easy, especially when there are no spiders to clog my grill.  We filled up on chicken and sinful wide noodles, cooked in chicken broth.  And we watched a new series on TV called Alpha House.  We get it free though our Amazon Prime account.  To watch it, Evie fires up her iPad, goes to the Amazon Prime website, pulls up the app. and starts the movie.  Mean while, I turn on Apple TV and  the program on Evie's iPad appears on our wide screen TV.  Ah, technology, how sweet it is.  We watched five 25 minute episodes, starring John Goodman.  Based on four Republican senators who actually lived together in a Georgetown house in the 1990's, it clearly a satire of today's politics, making fun of them, as each symbolizes an aspect of the party.  Decent but not great.  

Finally, Evie sent me this brief essay yesterday, about the demands the new world of technology places upon our consciousness.  And it explains, clearly, why  both of us enjoy the outdoors whenever we can.

Battling A Sense Of Lost Time

by Marcelo Gleiser 

 Dec. 11, 2013 

 

The first word that comes to mind when I think about modern life is "overload." The second is "dispersion.'We are the targets of an ongoing war for our attention: the Web, new technologies, food, clothing, music. We feel the constant need to be connected; TV and radio are just not enough. We need to link to social media outlets, know what's going on or else be out; each instant of time is taken by a screen, small or large; information pours down in torrents.If we forget our cell phone at home, we feel like a body part is missing; we are the phones, the phones are us. We are addicted to it, as we can see when a plane lands after a 45-minute flight and hundreds of passengers turn on their phones as if their lives depended on information that just came out. We are addicted to linkage and I am guilty as charged.We no longer allow time for contemplation.People feel time is passing faster because we have less and less control over it. To do nothing feels like a huge waste of time. Any open window of time must be filled with tweets, Facebook updates, email, YouTube videos, podcasts. If no one is talking about us, let's make sure that they do. One of the victims of this "race to linkage" is our connection to nature. We can call it the new missing link. We hardly look up to the sky or the at the life around us. To most people nature is a concept, something that exists out there, that we see in YouTube videos or magazines, on BBC and Animal Planet specials. To recover a sense of control over time we need to return to nature; we need to create space to observe other forms of life; we need to reconnect with the night sky, far from the city lights. At least this is what I do to slow down. To me, entering a trail for a hike or run is like entering a temple. And as with any temple, I go in search of a connection, trying to restore a sense of identity as I surround myself with green and blue.