Hello Hikers!
Wednesday Dec 21
Road walk, Buck Hill Road and Aiken Road, Mecklenburg
One more in our series of country road walks off the beaten path.
Once again, I picked the walk without having seen it — I figured from the name “Buck Hill Road” that it would be hilly ….
It wasn’t — in fact, we were up on a large pretty flat plateau — I assume we were up on Buck Hill — there were great distance views in a number of spots but they were subtle, not dramatic
I loved the big-sky, wide open spaces feeling
A curiosity — this lovely house was on the Underground Railroad before the Civil War — and Jack V’s grandmother lived here as a girl, much later of course
Beautiful morning
Official head count: 21H, four D
You can see Jack V’s photos here
Saturday Dec 24
Road walk: Fischer Settlement Road, South Danby
Very nice mild gloomy morning — the radar was showing it would rain but the storm veered aside at the last minute
The snow was quite deep and in poor condition for walking so we stayed on the road
The road’s fully paved but it’s extremely quiet and it runs mainly through Danby SF so you feel like you’re really out in the country the whole time
This is an old cemetery with graves dating back to 1850 — the snow was completely slippery on what should have been a minor slope
Official head count: 20H, five D
Sunday Dec 25
Lindsay Parsons Biodiversity Preserve, West Danby
Treacherously icy in the parking lot, but the snow was soft and walkable once we got onto the trail — though very slippery, and everyone was complaining of serious hip fatigue by the time we wrapped up
Another lovely morning, mild and gloomy — we ran into a little rain driving home but it was dry on the hike
Official head count: 18H, seven D
Get-together at Iris’s afterwards
The light was too subdued inside for me to get any shots — too bad, since Iris is an art teacher and her house has a very lively and distinctive decor — the turkey and the latkes created a great holiday feeling — lots of sweets and treats — the turkey was extremely succulent — roasted by Gopi, donated by our own Father Christmas/Father Hanukkah, Norm — who wasn’t even there; he was visiting family on LI. Tiger and I went home at 2:20 — official head count as of that point, 28 people. Very nice vibe.