Last week I got in 25 miles of woodsy walking and foto-footzing to complete my third 20+ mile week in a row. I was feeling pretty stoked about that, so I was eager to get back at it this week.
Monday and Tuesday proved to be absolutely perfect fall days with crisp temps, brilliant sunshine, and leaves that are a-changin’. As a bonus, on Tuesday, I completed a 5-mile loop without having to sit on a log and pray to the Dogs above for the end of my days due to back pain, as I did back in August. There was much rejoicing.
Wednesday, I was back stomping around the woods, but the weather went from “crisp and sunny” to “muggy (for fall) and rain,” and I had no problem with that ’cause (to paraphrase Vincent Vega), I dig it the most, baby.
Rainy hikes in the woods outside of Michigan’s hardcore mosquito months are Ma Nature’s gift to people like me who are not only hiking to enjoy the outdoors, burn calories, and take some photos but also to free up some head space often filled with anxiety and dread. And for me, nothing does that like a rainy hike; the sound of the raindrops on the leaves, the emptiness of the trails, the cool mist on your face, and wet moss, fallen pine needles, and soggy leaves underfoot allow for near-silent movement through the trees that somehow makes for an almost voyeuristic look at nature. Or a serial killer vibe, either way.
With Nearly 15 miles over three days, I made the executive decision to make Thursday an official low-key Foto-Footz day and went to Meridian Park to stalk birds and critters.
Sadly, Ma Nature and her critters didn’t get the message, and I spent most of my time trying for shitty photos of robins, a gang of ducks from a distance, and landscape shots with a telephoto lens. It wasn’t the most fruitful day of picture taking, but I was outside and got nearly 2 miles of photo-creeping in before a hard, cold rain moved in—complete with some frozen precip— and caught me out on an open field trail, forcing me into the dark pines before making my way to the car ASAP to protect my not-so-weather-sealed Sigma 600mm.
***
As I type this early Friday morning, it is once again dark and rainy, and I am eagerly trying to finish typing this shit so I can dump out and get my gear for another walk in the woods that will hopefully get me over my 20-mile week minimum.
Later.
SOILED SOUNDS TRACK OF THE POST:
This track is from one of my most listened-to albums of the past summer; The Overload by Yard Act.
The album is filled with literate semi-spoken word Fall-like vocals that alternate between dark humor, mockery, and sadness at modern British life.
Admittedly, outside of a couple tracks, this album took me a few listens, but now there are a handful of songs that I have returned to over and over in recent months, with Dead Horse being one of them. And while most of the song is taking aim at post-Brexit Britain, so much can sadly be sympathized with by people like me who are at odds with and stuck in a QAnon/Trumpian wasteland full of Republican “Christian,” racists, misogynists, and bigots.
Note: I had to go with a YouTube version of this track for now. Sorry if that shit doesn’t show up in your browser.