a walk in the park and other things

Today was filled with activities. I went shopping, along with Mike and his wife, for ingredients for the meals I'll be cooking. Mike and I split up with the Missus at Wegmans, a slightly more high-end, expensive store more likely to have things like ground lamb, keto chocolate chips, and almond flour. The Missus, meanwhile, went to Costco and then came back to meet us at the end of our spree. With the car loaded up, we drove all the booty/groceries home.

Mike and I then set out to see and walk some of the local walking trails (local = 20 miles/32 km away). We mostly did one of Mike's favorites, Caledon (KAL-uh-dahn) State Park, a network of paths, each of which is a couple miles long, but since they're interconnected, you could literally walk the paths all day in different permutations and combinations. We walked about five miles (roughly 8 km) today, then finished by stopping at the park's visitor center to ask about a small parcel of land walled off by an old-style fence and containing no structure. Mike had said, I think, that it had been some sort of house, but he couldn't recall what it was. So I asked the rangers at the visitor's center, and they told us it had been an old tobacco-inspection station where the British made sure the colonials weren't loading barrels of tobacco up with rocks and sand to make them weigh as heavy as a full barrel of tobacco.

After Caledon, we stopped at another trail just to look at it. I'll be walking it later. It was an old railway, and now, only the railbed remains (no more tracks). The resulting path goes in a straight, east-west line for about 20 or 30 miles; it's flat and eminently walkable along its length. I noted that the place must be wonderfully peaceful in the fall. We didn't walk this path today (Saturday), but I'll be going back to it soon enough to get some miles in.

We then went to Tim's II, the second of three seafood restaurants run by owner Tim (last name?). I had the same fried omnibus platter (shrimp, crab cake, scallops, clams, hush puppies) I'd had last time, plus Mike and I—who'd arrived well before the rest of his family—shared some appetizers: fried calamari and bang-bang shrimp, a Chinese-ish preparation. Everything was as good as I'd remembered it, and my blood sugar is currently battered and weeping, curled up in a corner. I don't have high hopes for my numbers tomorrow morning.

I then had the chance to visit my goddaughter's apartment; she and her sister are old enough to have science-related jobs and to have left the nest (one works in water purification; the other's an engineer doing HVAC work). The two siblings live together in a repurposed industrial building located in an industrial park; the interior reminded me a lot of a loft apartment in New York City—high ceilings, brick/concrete walls, and dirty skylights as the only natural illumination. I felt a pang of envy; I would've loved to live in a place like this when I was younger. Hilariously, traces of the building's old, industrial purpose still remain. While my goddaughter's apartment has a normal, swinging door, just inside is a gigantic, metal sliding door (with its track intact, but no longer functional) that looks strong enough to withstand a grenade attack. The young ladies have done what they can to make the space friendly and livable, and I'd say they've done a good job.

Upon returning to Mike's house, there was a question of watching a basketball game on TV and/or watching the movie "Tombstone" (which is actually on my Apple TV queue). Mike insists that I see the movie, which he says is excellent. The family elected to watch the game together; I retired to my upstairs room to type out this post.

Sunday, I'll wake up early and start to prep dinner for the whole family. Mike and the Missus will be around after church (they're an interesting religious combination: Mike's Catholic and R is a Christian Scientist); other dinner guests include the two daughters and R's mother; the girl's brother might or might not make an appearance. He's supposed to come back from a weekend trip tomorrow, but that's not a sure thing. Anyway, a lot of images follow. Captions will be sparse; I might finish them later. It takes a lot of time simply to enlarge these photos.

Caledon State Park

visitor center before the trailhead

Cercis canadensis, eastern redbud

cherry blossoms

Mike, with trekking pole, in the background

the garage before the trailhead

down a trail called, naughtily enough, Boyd's Hole

peaceful straightaway

moving toward the Potomac River

the fenced-off remains of the tobacco-inspection station

a closer look

where marshmallows come from

There was a lot of marsh close to the river, very different in character from le marais poitevin where my French brother Dominique lives in Le Vanneau-Irleau. I want to send some of these images to Dominique for comparison's sake.

marsh and log, not a Martian log

one of many undead trees—unalive but upright

closer

by the riverside

deck to the left of the tree

Mike says this deck is now more canted than it used to be. Shifting sand.

The cant is visible from this angle.

another proudly undead tree

impressive woodpecker holes

I think Mike said these are daffodils, not native to this area and now running wild.

plenty of decay to photograph... circle of life

"Kinda' makes you think, doesn't it?"

I can't remember what the ranger said this stone marker was, but it looks strikingly Hindu/Buddhist: squares and circles.

could be a property-line marker

We diverted from Boyd's Hole loop to another trail. All told, we did about five miles.

Claytonia virginica, the Virginia springbeauty

more marsh

Witch King of Angmar's helmet

another property marker?

By the river again; "cliff drop-off" seems dramatic for a fall of only a few feet.

rotting split-rail fence

vicious birds

a strange fence weirdly marking off... property?

Mike joked that blog readers might think there were nothing but rotting trees in the park.

We'd apparently passed several of these signs before I noticed them after Mike had pointed them out.

fallen tree ahead

Fallen tree ahead!

Thar she blows.

looking ready to sag or collapse

a tuning fork for evil

blight and burl?

What does that to a tree? Pathogens? Insects?

back to the visitor center, armed with questions

a side house by the main visitor center

inside, with me wandering while Mike renewed his annual pass

Click to enlarge and read.

What's your feeling on taxidermy?

I'm not revolted by it, but...

...it does seem kind of awkward and unreal.

Still, I can understand it as one way to get a closer look at wildlife.

It's still kind of creepy, though.

decidedly not a wild turkey (they have longer necks and sleeker bodies)

bobcat?

Dahlgren Railroad Heritage Trail—just a glimpse.

one parking area by the trail

This reminded me of the walk from Hanam City to Yangpyeong, where you see this sort of thing happening along the Han River (i.e., plants choking the water's surface).

These days, everything is scannable QR codes.

Mike warned me that there are QR-code scammers who create different or malicious QR codes, then stick over real QR codes to mislead people. I'm not really into scanning QR codes, though, so I hope this scam doesn't affect me in the States or in Korea.

Tim's II, seafood resto

what's left of the bang-bang shrimp appetizer

what's left of the fried-calamari appetizer

the tacky, electric palm tree (which Mike wants for himself)

the lone pier/jetty/dock/something, where Mike said I could get a good resto pic

before the dinnertime rush (we ate outside)

a blocky, wooden eagle at the resto

See the QR code?

The neighborhood where Tim's II finds itself is filled with modest and rich suburban-style houses. The locals often get around the area with tricked-out, rough-and-tumble-looking golf carts with fat tires and powerful motors. Make of that what you will.

heading out to get my shot of the restaurant

a boat at the dock

And there it is—Tim's II.

some of the richer local houses

a burd perched over the Potomac River

my fried, fried meal

Cue the derisive "Americans love fried food" comments from non-Americans. It was a great meal, and despite the abuse to my blood sugar, I have no regrets.

Goddaughter's apartment

My goddaughter lives in what used to be (or is still?) an industrial park. Here's her apartment, a converted building.

The hallway leading down to her apartment is rather cinematic-looking.

final shot: apartment interior

A long day. I'm going to finish it by watch 2 hours of "The Expanse." I'll then go to sleep, wake up early, and start prepping a Moroccan-inspired chicken dinner while Mike and the Missus are away at their respective churches. When they get back, Mike will help with prep (I've got him on chicken-deboning duty). His younger daughter might also be around to help. I look forward to serving up what I hope will be a delicious dinner, followed by a viewing of "Tombstone," which I'll doubtless watch again when I'm back in Seoul. At that point, I'll review it. Yet another review I'll need to finish. I'm falling behind: I still need to put out reviews for "The Wild Robot" and Season 3 of "Reacher."