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| Virginia Bluebells |
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| Snowdrops |
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| Lesser Celandine |
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| Potomac River |
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| Sycamore |
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| Spring Peepers |
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| Frog Eggs in Vernal Pool |
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| Spring Beauties |
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| Pair of foxes |
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| Gnarley old mountain laurel |
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| Creek treasures |
Early Spring 2021. It feels like I'm emerging out of a long quarantined slumber. In person school restarted last week and I have been fortunate to receive both vaccine doses. It seems like my quarantined pandemic journey is coming to an end. Our school is operating at about 50% in person capacity. Traffic is still light on local roads and highways for the most part. My car is up and running again...barely. The check engine light is on, the car moans, squeaks, and sounds like grinding metal when I make sharp turns. I've got 285,000 miles on it, hoping to get a few more months out of it if possible. The days are getting longer and we are getting some glorious crisp, sunny days. The forest is just beginning to come back to life. I've started revisiting some old trails that I haven't seen in a year after work. I still have a lot of mental work to do as I try to adjust to a less socially distant world. I still feel uneasy seeing and having passing maskless people on trails as the numbers are increasing with the better weather.. I still carry mine and put it on passing people. It will take time to readjust.
This is my favorite time of year, as each day becomes more interesting in the forest as the plants and creatures emerge. It feels good to see a light at the end of the pandemic tunnel, I remain cautiously optimistic...
Masking up after you've been vaccinated is a courtesy, since the other guys don't know you've been vaccinated. That's my thought, anyway. I mean, for now, until my immunity peaks (and even then, it's 95%, not 100%, right?), it's also about protecting myself, but even next week and after that, I'll still mask up when passing people, at least until the COVID numbers really bottom out. I'm so used to wearing it even when walking, it's no big deal for me, anymore.
ReplyDeleteI always get a kick about how different your hiking environs look, compared to mine!
Mark,I am trying to reach you to see if you would be OK with including a story you wrote based upon an experience you had while hiking the PCT some years ago ("The Palm of God"). You ended up caught in a thunderstorm just south of Sonora Pass and found refuge in a patch of stunted whitebark pine. I posted it on www.pcttrailsidereader.com . . . Anyway, I am in the process of putting together a collection of stories from the PCT that will be published by The Mountaineers Books as a 10th Anniversary Edition of The Pacific Crest Trailside Reader. (I am working with a co-editor, Howard Shapiro, who is also trying to reach you.) All of our royalties will be donated to the PCTA. Please connect with me at hughes@humboldt.edu or pcttrailsidereader@gmail.com . . . Rees Hughes
ReplyDeleteNice photos!
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to see these lockdowns easing up. I got both of my shots in May, plus I went through being sick from covid-19 in February. It didn't affect my lungs, but I was hideously sick for five days and ill for much longer. It was unpleasant.