Time to leave Megalopolis, for now

I have to admit...I'm really going to miss living in the northeastern coastal forests ecoregion. Hiking these hills and mountains of New England, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland, I've never felt more connected to the source of all that supports our fragile existence in Megalopolis. Trees that clean the air we breathe. Precious, clean water. Wildlife living in balance with us. Still, I'm fraught with anticipation of what life will bring us down in the subtropical steppe, somewhere between the Chihuahuan Desert and the southern Rockies. Less water for sure. But the hiking should be phenomenal!

For more on the hiking I've been doing while staying in New England these past few months, check out my blog Man of Merit.

Sounds of pedestrian life

I can hear the sounds of the city all around me, and nature. Birds sing and chipmunks scurry, while a trash compactor runs down by the recycling yard, and a power hammer smacks somewhere down by the interstate highway.

The train should be coming through in a few. It whistles in the distance, but not in this tucked-away suburban dream. And it stops, if you ask the conductor to, or wave down the guy from the nearside track – so at least I know when the shockwaves wake me up to make the great escape, there’s a way out so long as the conductor’s on board.

Walking with the dogs to catch the late-morning inbound, Khiz, the boys and I were stalked by a stunning great white coyote. It leapt into a clearing downhill from us along North Street and followed our movement toward Church Street en route to Kendal Green. Maybe they want Remydi for food, but it’s not going to happen. Khizer swears he’s got some magic Xena shout that will scare all beasts away!

Today we’re planning a hike along an abandoned rail bed in Weston, walking from home, and tomorrow we’ll be training it to North Station and Orange Lining to Oak Hill for a trek through the Middlesex Fells.

Captured by New England outdoors

Florida is wonderful, for what it is. But the hills call to me every time I'll listen. And while Albuquerque calmed my soul after the shock of '01, now that '11 has come and is almost gone, it's New England that's captured me, and I'm off to the hills every chance I get.

Two weeks until the semester begins, so I'm getting in as much outdoors time as possible while living in the conserves, and am taking interspersed urban jaunts into Boston or out to one of the rings.

Today, the ring is Gloucester. Again. Gloucester won over Khizer's heart yesterday after an afternoon walk down Main Street and a windows-down drive around Cape Ann. Today we're returning for a walk through Dogtown followed by fruit and veggie shopping at the farmer's market in Salem.

The pic I'm posting above is from today's walk with my pups, heading up Cat Rock in the Weston woods. This place is a 10-minute's walk from the commuter rail station at Kendal Green, just a couple miles south of Walden Pond. What a find!