Blog is back!

Wow, this year got very busy, very quickly.

I suppose in hindsight I could have made time to 'blog' about all of my outdoor adventures, as well as my indoor adventures...but I did not. :(

My work has kept me very busy and quite 'run down' by the time I get home. I'm looking to press the master reset button as I do from time to time, and that usually comes with the holiday rush.

So what outdoor adventures have I gone on this year? Sadly, not many. Although I am still quite capable of hiking through the 100 degree weather that seemed to plague us this year, I do not find it as enjoyable as I once did. When one gets home from work at 3 or 4 o'clock, one does not want to drive another 45 minutes to go for a hike. Then there is the drive home, and diving right into the home life. Ugh.

Therefore I have stuck mainly to the Mt. Tom range. I absolutely love the views, the history, and the solitude (if you know where to find it). After a while, however, the same thing over and over does get a little boring. I had made plans to go up to Monadnock a few weeks ago, mainly for the views, but due to the heat those plans fell through. I stuck closer to home and it was probably a good thing; The air was smoggy and the views from Monadnock would not have been as rewarding as I would have liked.

In other news, my work on the Hampshire/Hampden canal mapping is going to resume soon. Summer is not a good time to perform the surveys due to the overgrowth, bugs, etc. I plan to continue this fall when some of the leaves are down and there is some standing water on the ground. The canal is much more visible during these times.

Closer to home, as we move into autumn I will resume my search for the Eyrie house Dam and William Street's home up on the Mt. Tom range. I searched once or twice last year but failed, mainly because I only had about an hour before the park closed. As with the canal mentioned above, searching for ruins is greatly aided by the lack of leaves on the trees. Man-made structures stand pop out much better when the leaves are down, as one would expect. The Dam and location of William Street's house are not on the maps.

There were a few things on my checklist that I didn't get to this summer due to scheduling circumstances. Another trip up Mt. Washington, Monadnock, Greylock, and Katahdin. As you can see, I like the tall things. No, no aspiration for K2 yet.

Looking forward I have decided that perhaps I will tackle Monadnock in the winter this year. I had managed to pick up a set of nice Mtn boots at a sale last year, so this year I will snatch up some crampons. Monadnock is the closest mountain around here that sees anything significant in terms of weather, so as long as a storm is not moving in I think it would be good practice. The problem is, as in summer I have nobody that wants to or is avaiable to go with me. Grr. Solo it is, then.

So for now I am going to retire to the couch for I have been sick the last two days. Yes, two days in a row is very rare for me but it happens, I guess.