One More Snowy Path

Tyler State Park

11 February 2017

On Wednesday, I rode my bike to work in nearly 60-degree weather. On Thursday, we got five inches of snow.

Today's ride was an extra; until a few days ago, I was supposed to be chairing the morning portion of a meeting. That got cancelled, and Tom offered to lead in Tyler State Park at an hour early enough for me to get back in time for the afternoon session.

Wicked tired yesterday, I pushed the alarm back another fifteen minutes when it went off this morning. And because of that, I barely got to the park in time. I also had that last-minute panic when the parking lot wasn't where I thought it would be. In the nick of time, I found Tom, Chris, and, hallelujah, Plain Jim, finally back after a couple months of illness and injury. We all agreed that he'd chosen a good time to be out of action.

It's been two years since I've been to Tyler State Park. I remembered two things: that there are hills, and that there's a creek.

There's always a creek.

And I always take pictures of creeks. We stood on a low bridge above a dam.

Another damn picture of another damn body of water.

Or something sticking out of the water. 

Or of rocks in the water.

At least it's not the Raritan this time. The Neshaminy Creek does flow into the Delaware, though. Same watershed as half the other pictures I take.

Two years ago the trail down to the bridge was covered in snow. It was today, too, mostly.

I took this same picture two years ago. It rolls around every so often on my desktop slide show at work.

I like it when I can step back into my pictures.

Over a tributary, my camera battery decided it was too cold. I used my cell phone instead, and put the camera into an inside pocket to warm up.

The paved trails loop across each other. By taking a few of them twice, we managed to cover almost all of them. We passed the Tyler Park Center for the Arts twice. On the second round, my camera had warmed up enough to use again.

Across the way, tomorrow's weather was rolling in.

In all of our loops, we saw no other cyclists. We crossed paths with runners, walkers, and a vast assortment of handsome dogs. There were golden retrievers, corgis, Labrador retrievers, mutts, shepherds, and, my favorite, a husky puppy rolling around in the snow like a cat in catnip.

Back at the dam again, we stopped at the rest rooms. Tom and I wandered about with our cameras. Jim and I fussed around some park bench icicles. Composition. I really need to hew my composition skills.

Last week, I posted a photo of a fake goose in frozen water. Today, I post a real goose in moving water.

In the measly twelve miles, we climbed almost 900 feet between photo and orientation stops. It wasn't difficult, but it wasn't easy either. I got home in plenty of time to clean up and get to the afternoon meeting, where, I think, I'm getting past my years-long volunteer burnout.

I'll be sacrificing some cycling time to the Resistance. It is necessary.