Convolutions - Caratunk

At the ihop

This weeks' Sunday walk took place on Saturday. And so it starts. . . and fell apart quickly. With all good intentions we planned to rise early on Saturday (Sunday had other obligations) and find an exotic place and have a nice long walk. But it didn't turn out that way - as it turns out it was a very late start day. So we decided to just go to Caratunk which is the closest decent place to walk in the woods. Also as it turns out, an IHOP just opened up down the street and we thought it might be a good idea to see what it is like. So breaking with tradition and leaving all good sense at home, we struck out for the IHOP. Wouldn't you know that we were not the only ones with that idea on a warm Saturday morning. We had to wait... I hate to wait... Well they do have an extensive menu and 'Ashley', our waitress, (can I say waitress -- is that sexist? Maybe wait-person) was very pleasant and got us coffee promptly and handed us rather large menus which took a while to read, they do have a large selection of things to choose from.

$3.50 a cup!

And so we ordered, Nana had an omelet and a crepe with red berries of some kind, maybe strawberries, and I had eggs home fries and toast as normal, but also got 'country fried steak' - homage to my midwestern roots. By golly they got the toast right! It sure was busy and we had the seat right by the door and got to see the parade of humanity flowing past. I gotta say, most of them were rather large and we were thinking that maybe they had been to the IHOP one too many times. Now I know what you are thinking - I am not being to sensitive or politically correct, but I am a visual person and am just reporting what I saw. And besides, they may have been saying the same thing about me. Anyway, back to the convolutions of the morning. While we were there we realized that we had the evening free - a free Saturday - this is a rarity to be sure. I would bet that we must have no more that 5 or 6 free Saturday evenings in a year. Well with this blank slate of an evening staring us in the face we decided that we should rent a movie and my friend Giovanni had recommended 'The Intern' with Robert de Nero. Nana said that sounded fine and I figured we could pick it up at the Red Box -- checking my phone (the source of all knowledge) I discovered that this was not to be and Netflix didn't have it either. Consulting the phone device one more time I discovered that we could buy it at Walmart - which is a half a mile away - for the sum of $9.95. Excessive, but it is an open Saturday night and I wanted to impress my sweetie. We decided that we should swing by the Walmart before the hike, snag the movie and head for the woods. Walmart was out of them. . . . and because of our late start it was now after one in the afternoon and the temperature was over 90º! "Let's try Best Buy" I said trying to be cheerful " we are here already..."  Best Buy was out of them. . . .  Nana had waited in the car while I ran into Best Buy and when I gave her the news she pointed out that Target was 'just right over there' so off we went again. This time Nana also had a few things she wanted to see of Target had. . . Well I found the movie ---  $22.95!!!!!!! So in a short span of time I went from spending a buck at the Red Box to a price of $22.95!! No deal. It was the DVD, Blue Ray downloadable watch it anywhere edition - I am not paying for that - and who needs to watch it on ALL their devices.  We left.    Oh and did I mention that IHOP turned out to be very expensive.. we spent $35 for breakfast...forget the chain diners, buy local, better food, better people, better prices.

Caratunk yellow dot trail

Oh yeah, this blog is supposed to be about walking with Nana. We did arrive at Caratunk at the very peak of the hottest day so far this year. I think my phone app had the temperature at about 2000º Kelvin or something like that, it was close to the temperature of the sun. We started off on the red dot trail down over the bridge and through the tall pines. I love this little preserve. So close to home and yet when you walk back into the woods you feel very remote. Even with the heat of the day (and I really feel the heat of the day), it was a good place to be. I think that they win the award for having the most mushrooms of any trail we have hiked - they were everywhere. We saw red mushrooms, yellow and white mushrooms and mushrooms of all sizes and varieties - mushroom heaven. The other thing Caratunk had this fine day was bugs. Lots of flying, annoying bugs. I am thinking that by now you musk think that I am just an old whiner but, well, that is just how this day worked out, and it is my job to tell the story. All in all, through the heat and the bugs, we had a good walk. We walked the outer perimeter of the preserve and walked through many different types of terrain with great diversity in the types of plants and trees that grow in this forest. The ferns were spectacular and lots of princess pine and wildflowers along the trail.  And did I mention the mushrooms.

Back at the beginning

The final part of the trail Nana and I through the fields over looking the barn and the starting point. The fields are the home to a wide variety of birds and we spotted several thrushes and even a goldfinch. And of course many birds that we didn't or couldn't put a name to. While walking in the forest we were serenaded by bird song. The birds know a good thing and I suspect that is why they are here. Even though it was a convoluted start to the day..we got our walk in this weekend, in a beautiful spot, which we had all to ourselves, and as always, I was in the good company of Nana.

And of course when I got home, I had to mow the lawn..just a bit more walking in the blazing sun. . . .

Mushrooms everywhere

On the trail

It lies - I bet it was only about 2.5 miles