Hiking

Winter’s Last Gasp

Are You Looking At Me?We went to a local book fair yesterday and picked up some used books. I snagged a couple of Spenser hardcovers for $4 a piece and a couple of early paperbacks with some retro cool cover artwork. The quote below is from one of the hardcovers, School Days, and sometimes I feel just like Spenser does.

“Why would the parents want to discourage an attempt to find their son innocent of multiple murder charges?”

Don’t know,” I said.

“You don’t know shit,” Rita said, “do you?”

“No,” I said. “But it’s okay, I’m used to it.”

When I get into the paperbacks I’ll scan the cover of one. I’ve compared the Spenser books to potato chips here before, but with this week’s eating pleasure, maybe I should compare them to a box of Girl Scout Cookies: They are extremely tasty with no redeeming nutritional value and once you start eating a box you just can’t stop until they are gone. Which is exactly what happened to a box of Samoas today.

I’ve uploaded yesterday’ post Office pictures to the gallery. Look for Barnwell, Fairfax, Olar, Sycamore, Ulmer and Williston.

This morning we hit our favorite downtown breakfast spot for a veggie quesadilla, a breakfast parfait (granola on the bottom, vanilla yogurt in the middle and hot blueberries in syrup on top) with a low fat raspberry bran muffin for a kicker washed down with a bottled water.

Meal Cost: $8.75
Tip: 1.25
Spent Today: $10.00
Year to Date: $503.74

Today’s high didn’t make it into the 60’s and tonight’s low will be around 30, but I’ thinking this is the last of the “cold” weather around here for this winter. Next week we will be in the low 70’s almost every day. Some of the Bradford Pears are starting to bloom and the dogwood next to our house has buds. Even though we tried hard to talk ourselves out of it because of the chilly temps, we still ended up spending an hour or so walking in Hitchcock Woods. The weather didn’t scare a lot of people off either, we probably spotted more folks enjoying the woods this afternoon than we have in the past 6 or 7 times total.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 64

Nice Day

Morgan's CutEven though it was only around 40 degrees when we started out this morning, it was perfect weather for a little hike in Hitchcock Woods. Just cool enough to give that fall feeling, but not so cold that you were uncomfortable. We walked on a few familiar trails, along with a few little traveled.

We then did our Christmas shopping for our “adopted” child, followed by lunch at Subway before retiring to the couch for the rest of the day.

Cars wasn’t too bad, we did manage to watch the whole thing through.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 466

47,000 Piles Of Horse Poo

At least that is what it seemed like on our morning walk in Hitchcook Woods this morning after last week’s walk along a human only trail out west. Because we got a late start (after 10:00 AM) we had to share the woods with a half-dozen people walking dogs and a third of a dozen horseback riders. I took a couple pictures that I need to look at for the October addition to the Hitchcock Woods 2006 gallery.

We went out shopping at the mall this afternoon. Donna needs new shoe laces for her hiking boots and I wanted to get a Detroit Tigers ball cap to wear to work tomorrow just to rib my Yankee loving manager. We didn’t buy either. We forgot to measure how long Donna’s laces were, so we didn’t take a chance on getting some too short or too long. The only Detroit hats we could find were of the fitted variety and they were $30. That was too much for a hat that I’d probably only wear once, fifteen would have been just about right.

We went to a local church’s Chocolate Festival yesterday. Donna likes to bid on some of the stuff at their silent auction and I like to pick some of their used books. She didn’t win anything and I got 4 books and she one, for 5 books it cost a whopping $3. I picked up one book, In Her Shoes, because the title sounded familiar. Oh, yeah, its a movie with Cameron Diaz or somebody (its in the Netflix queue right now.) I opened the book at random and started reading, hey, this is pretty funny stuff, so I bought it. I also bought a second book by the same author Jennifer Weiner.

The Emperor snicked past 47,000 miles this morning on the way to our walk in the woods.

Started down, went up, back down, up, down, up again, down again, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 416

Mushrooms Sprouting in Reprocessed Hay

SunburstsThis morning we braved the sticky weather to go for a 2 mile walk in the woods, instead of our usual 10 mile Sunday morning bike ride. Afterwards we continued the alternative Sunday by getting a bagel at the Atlanta Bread Company instead of a muffing at the New Moon Cafe. I took a couple photos on our walk, including one that matched this post’s title, but in retrospect, even though she pointed out the image to me, Donna felt I shouldn’t put it here.

So tonight, when we went out to do a little shopping and get some gas, I brought the camera along to find a my suitable picture. This one was taken outside of CVS and after a little digital manipulation…

Started up, went down, back up, down again, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 310

Happy Father’s Day

My father wasn’t much of a presence and I’m not one at all, so today is pretty much just another Sunday.

Donna and I did take advantage of the nicer morning weather and go for a short walk in Hitchcock Woods. I took the camera and snapped a couple of uninspired images. I realized that I had started a gallery for one image from the woods per month and I was a couple months behind. I posted a shot from today and because May was a total wash out due to weather and chemo, I added a May photo from last year. Sorry, but the thumbnails in the gallery are still not working, so I’ll just link you right to today’s image: Palmetto Ride.

I did spend a little quality time with the closest thing I have to a son, the Emperor. Pulled the vampire teeth back out of the mouth as they had served their purpose. Changed the oil as it had served its purpose for the last 3000+ miles. I usually rotate the tires at this point, but these are only a couple hundred miles into their lives so I left them on their respective corners. I did take them off the car though. The center caps were starting to turn yellow, so I repainted them with some Duplicolor silver wheel paint. This was a known issue with these center caps, as in 1998 when they first appeared on the Miata, there was an undocumented TSB as the caps were turning yellow within a few months. I know the history of these wheels and they were replaced under warranty way back in late 1998. So the replacements have held up pretty well, needing retouching only after close to 8 years.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 210

Fire Fox Squirrel

Fire Fox SquirrelWent for a walk in the woods this morning. Our usual parking area was jammed full of of about 8 cars, but besides the one person leaving as we entered, we saw no one. We did see a big ol’ fox squirrel who was almost as curious about us as we were of him.

And on our way out we walked right by a place where they had just done a controlled burn. I snapped a couple photos and I’m thinking of resurrecting my little see-how-it-grows-back series that I tried a while back. We never really go to the section of the woods of the previous try, but this one is right there at our normal entrance.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 80

Do You Think I’ll Live To Be 80?

I recently picked a new primary care physician. After two visits and exhaustive lab tests, he said I was doing “fairly well” for my age.

A little concerned about that comment, I couldn’t resist asking him, “Do you think I’ll live to be 80?”

He asked, “Do you smoke tobacco or drink alcoholic beverages?”

“Oh no,” I replied. “I’m not doing drugs, either.”

Then he asked, “Do you eat rib-eye steaks and barbecued ribs?”

I said, “No, my other doctor said that all red meat is very unhealthy!”

“Do you spend a lot of time in the sun, like playing golf, sailing, hiking, or bicycling?”

No, I don’t,” I said.

He asked, “Do you gamble, drive fast cars, or have a lot of sex?”

“No,” I said. “I don’t do any of those things.”

He looked at me and said, “Then why do you give a shit?”