I usually try to get to the gym on Monday to lift heavy things for no reason and lumber on the treadmill; however, the weather was so perfect this past Monday that I just couldn’t bring myself to spend it inside Dysmorphic’s Gym™. So I headed to Deerfield Park for a hike/photo creep in the woods.
A 3.5 to 5-mile hike was on the agenda, so I took along a lightweight camera setup of the Nikon z6 and a 28mm f/2.8 lens to capture some random bits of nature along the way. As it turns out, that would prove to be unwise. As would be not checking the charge on my Garmin watch that cut out halfway through the hike.
I felt good plodding along the park trails but was having a shit time finding photo ops. Then as I lumbered past a small swampy area, about 20 feet away, I saw an awesome frog seated on a log in the water. Damn! There’s no way to get closer, and a fixed 28mm is doing nothing for the cause. Onward I went.
I would stop along the way, doing my best to get a shot of a wood frog here and a mushroom there, but nothing was working for me.
The final insult was walking along the river trail when I saw a bald eagle fly over the river. After getting over the initial excitement of an eagle sighting, I immediately mumble something to myself like, “That was awesome; as long as it doesn’t land on one of those perfect dead tree branches along the opposite side of the river, I won’t be pissed off I didn’t bring a zoom lens.” So, of course, it landed on the tree branch.
After about half a minute of gawking, the eagle flew off, and I walked on, finished with 4.5 miles in my feet, and rolled back to the Cul-De-Sac-Shack, a sweaty mess with an SD card full of crap photos to delete.
***
Again?
Tuesday was another chance to eschew the gym for the woods, so I returned to Deerfield for another 4.75 miles and more chances to shoot crap photos.
I walked, took photos; it started to rain, and it was perfect. I had the entire woods to myself and enjoyed the sound of the rain falling through the trees, which thankfully still had their leaves on and provided some protection for my camera over the final miles.
With two days and 9+ miles in my legs, I’ll probably finally head to the gym for Wednesday’s “Me Time” to avoid the laundry list of annoying injuries that pop up if I seemingly do too much of anything.
Unnecessary side note: Early Tuesday evening, the mid-mitten area got a round of severe thunderstorms. As is my want during storms, I went on to the front porch of the Cul De Sac Shack to watch the storm while enjoying some adult refreshments. As I watched the rain fall while enjoying my 4 Giants (ATHO) IPA, the lightning flashed so brightly that it forced me to shut my eyes, and there was an immediate clap of thunder so loud I thought it had burst what was left of my eardrums.
I’m not sure where the lightning hit, but it had to be close, and once I finished yelling, “Holy shit! That was fucking cool!!” loud enough for the entire cul-de-sac to hear, I slinked inside, thinking maybe I shouldn’t do that again. Ah, who am I kidding, everyone knows you can’t cure stupid; I’ll be back!
Later.