STORY NUMBER ONE
For Friday’s hike, I waffled on taking my ancient Canon s95 point and shoot, and the ALMOST as old Fuji x70 instead of my normal set-up. In the end, I opted for the Fuji at the last minute for some reason, and was soon hurling myself down the road toward the trails.
I was on the trails just before 7 on Friday, walking smugly along with the knowledge that, other than the random dude who’s been staying at the campground for the past couple of days, I was the only person in the woods.
That smugness evaporated quickly when, .20 miles into the lumber, I paused on the bridge to take a photo of the sunrise coming up on the river, and a familiar fully loaded commuter cyclist passed me, using the trails as a shortcut. We exchanged good mornings just as I clicked the shutter button, and I was on my way.
As I lumbered along, I was moving at a pace just below a “rage hike” with lots of worry about B going through my mind. Things that ultimately turned out fine, but “things” on my mind nonetheless.
I was seeing very little to photograph, and the woods were still and silent as the sun slowly started warming the 32˚ spring morning. I took a couple of random trail shots while moving, and ultimately just concentrated on the hike, getting my miles in, and hitting my 30-mile goal for the week.
As I neared the end of the hike, I was back at the bridge again, and there was a plastic bag on the trail lying near one of the park’s garbage cans. Since I would feel like a real piece of shit leaving it, I bent over, picked in up, and threw it away. And as I did so, my x70 slid out of my pack, onto the hard-pack trail, and the battery popped out. No worries, the camera is fine, but I nearly lost an out-of-production “new to me” camera for the sake of a plastic bag. I’d 100% do it again.
When I got back to Escape II (Electric Boogaloo), I began my routine of some quick stretches as I reviewed the day’s images on the camera. “INSERT SD CARD” flashed in red. Wait, what? Shit! The card must have popped out when the battery door opened.
With that, I made the .25 mile trek back to the garbage can to look around for the card. Nothing! Shit! I didn’t care about the photos, they were crap, but I didn’t want to lose a card. Oh well, back to the car.
Once home, I checked through my pack and jacket pockets and found nothing. Then, as I started putting my gear away, I looked down at the Canon s95 I left behind, opened the battery door, and there was a 64MB SD card in it. Then I picked up the z50, and there was a 64MB card in it as well.
Turns out, in my last-minute decision to take the Fuji, I never put an SD card in it, and I didn’t see the error message earlier due to looking into the rising sun while saying hello to that cyclist, and shooting from the hip while moving.
Oh well, I got some extra steps in my feetz, even if they didn’t count towards the week’s 30.25 miles.
STORY NUMBER TWO
Last weekend, after the footy was done, I mowed the grass of the vast (not really) estate of the Cul-De-Sac-Shack. Before doing so, I made the rounds looking for Lola turds in the fast growing grass, finding only a few turds, and wondering where the hell she shits.
I mowed, I trimmed, I cleaned the clippings of the driveway, and then called it a day. As I sat on the garage step (formerly known as The Garage Step of Crap Fitness Reflection), I instinctively crossed my leg to remove my shoe without looking, grabbed the heal, and my left hand went directly into a large hunk of caked-on dog turd covered in grass clippings. All I could muster to say through my want to wretch was “I guess I found out where she shits.”
There was much hand washing.
STORY TIME OVER.
Given that I didn’t have an SD card in my camera, I took no shots on Friday, but I found a shot I didn’t give much thought to that I took the other day of a molting deer on Raceway Trail as the early morning sun rose.
With 30+ miles in my feetz, I’m taking the weekend off from lumbering to watch footy, mow the grass (hopefully void of shitty hands), enjoy the spring weather, and celebrate mother’s day with Wifey.
Later.