PopWars

We better make sure our car still starts. We haven’t driven it in a week. We walk everywhere now. Not that we go anywhere. We mostly walk in circles, circles that keep getting bigger. We are averaging ten miles a day and one of us is carrying the pack. Today we came home with 24 pounds of groceries.

We spotted a yard full of snowdrops as we walked down to the lake. They are such a delicate flower. They seem shocked to be up out of the ground so early. The hardy Winter Aconite, on the other hand, bursts out of the dirt and often right up through the snow. The ones we have on the hillside out back are just now unfurling and orienting themselves to the sun. I’ve tracked the date we first notice them for the past ten years and this is almost the earliest.

I was sickened to read about the amount of plastic scientists found in tiny fish at the bottom of the ocean. And when you walk as much as we have been your eye catches the plastic debris along the edges of the sidewalks. These freakin’ dental picks are everywhere. And someone in the vicinity of Titus and Culver drinks an incredible amount of Fireball Cinnamon Whiskey, incredible in that they are apparently behind the wheel while chugging these plastic fifths. And then there are all the tiny little drug bags. I collect them.

Edgerton is a big name in Rochester. I don’t know the reason but I know there is a big grave stone in the cemetery near our house with the name on it. And there is an Edgerton Street in the city near the Upper Falls. The neighborhood is called Edgerton. There is an Edgerton Park near Jefferson High School on Dewey. And there used to be an Edgerton Road that ran through Durand Eastman Park. It is still shown on the map and there is even a street sign labeling it near the end of Pinegrove at the western border of the park.

The road used to connect Pinegrove, which now dead ends, to Kings Highway near the clubhouse. I’m not sure whose idea it was to put the sewage treatment plant in the park (I know it is downhill from the city and I have heard there is huge pipe, probably the diameter of those halfpipes the Olympic snowboarders compete on, that runs from downtown to the plant) but that operation grew into the VanLare Wastewater Treatment Facility which now seems to accept truckloads of shit for hire. And so what was public park land has a smattering of “No Trespassing” signs and the road itself which was closed to traffic has been mostly been swallowed up by the land.

There are still cement guard posts and occasion pieces of metal guard rail and you can pretty much tell where the road used to lie because of the geography. Parts of the old road are used by the treatment plant, pieces are used by park maintenance workers and parts of it are the golf cart path on the back nine. We were determined to follow Edgerton Road yesterday and we did it! The park is huge and other areas have been reconfigured over the years. Ever wonder why Horseshoe Road runs off of Lakeshore and stops instead of coming back out? Ever wonder why three roads run up from Lakeshore Boulevard and all come together in a circle with a barrier in front of Wisner Road, a road that would take you out of the park. Somebody has to think about these things.

We had been watching the weather, timing our annual winter trip to the mountains and we thought we had the perfect window. It even coincided with Peggi’s birthday. But the predictions for 4-8 on the day we planned to leave and then 6-8 on the day we would be returning charged our barely hatched plans. We opted for some place closer to home. There are almost as many historical markers as there are people in Aurora, New York. We were last there for Thanksgiving and we made a note to return when the snow fell.

We checked into the Aurora Inn and asked for a nearby place to cross=country ski. First things first. The desk clerk told us about Long Point State Park, a couple of miles further down the road. The park is right on Cayuga Lake and the ski trails run all the way up to the top of the hill overlooking the lake. It was so grey and snowy we couldn’t even see across the lake. The trails were well marked but they all ran in circles and we kept coming back to our tracks. We got back to our room just in time to catch the second half of the Copa del Rey semi-final and when that finished we went downstairs for dinner. This place is pretty comfortable.

On the way back to town we stopped in the Montezuma Wildlife Refuge and skied their trails. There were tracks out there but all made by animals. We had the place all to ourselves. It is incredibly beautiful there, even in this reduced palette season. Our neighbors across the street said they hadan extra pair of tickets to Sean Rowe at Abilene and they wanted to know if we would like them. We were too beat to take them up on the offer but we did look up Sean Rowe. He reminded us of Waylon Jennings so we put on the “Best Of” songs that Sparky gave us.