Trail Walk Completed

A few days ago we were just finishing up the latest mild spell.  It was sunny, 49 F, and I felt like walking.  Though done in three segments, I have completed the newest trail in our county system, from Amherstburg to Essex.  I might move on next to the longer intersecting trail, which Deb has mostly completed when she trained for race walking.  The trail is completely flat, and only has one long curve.  Otherwise it cuts straight across agricultural land from town to town, with the smaller community of McGregor in between.  The longer cross trail goes from Windsor to Leamington, a project for 2021 perhaps.  Here are some scenic highlights from the most recent walk.

I walked the trail from Amherstburg (left, on the west side) to Essex (right, on the east side). My trail intersects with the main trail in McGregor, where Deb's red line from years ago shows up. From Google Earth.

Today's distance was 6.6 km.  The entire trail is around 21 or 22k.

 

Sumac grows in abundance along the trail.

 

The walk begins in open farm land, but soon enters a tree-lined avenue, helpful on windy days, and in the intense heat and humidity of summer. 

 

There was still some snow left behind in a few ditches.

 

Of archaeological interest was this ruin of a dune buggy, which once ran up and down the abandoned railway.

 

Erosion in action.

A different ditch, with different snow. 

 

Deb met me at the far end, and she walked in to meet me. After that we went to The Plant Base, a vegan restaurant in A'burg, and got a takeaway lunch.  It has now been 6.5 months since I began keeping myself in shape by walking, stretching, lifting light weights, and doing bicycle crunches and leg lifts.  This is the longest I have been in shape in my adult life without having a specific goal in mind.  How long will it continue?  My plan is to keep going until I can resume serious hiking once again.  We shall see.

In movie news, Deb continues her selection of early Joan Crawford movies.  The latest one was called Sadie McKee, from 1934.  She runs off with a ne'er do well man at the beginning, and instead of meeting her at the marriage bureau, he stands her up, leaving town with a blonde singer and joining her act.  Sadie ends up amusing a very intoxicated millionaire where she dances, and he falls for her and asks her to marry him.  She does, then realized that her husband is a souse, and is never sober.    I liked it up until she sees her old boyfriend again, and decides that she still loves him.  Oh well, it's Hollywood.  The ending is not what is expected, however, as the boyfriend dies of lung cancer or pneumonia, or both, and she divorces the millionaire.  She ends up a different guy, one she has known since they were children together.

Sadie McKee, starring Joan Crawford.

 

Her 2nd choice, also selected from films departing Criterion on the 31st, was called Nostalgia For The Light, a documentary that uses the telescopes and astronomy programs of the Atacama Desert in Chile to re-explore the 1970s torture and disappearance of so many of Chile's citizens.  The tale gets blacker and blacker as it progresses, but it is a must-view film, and very well put together.  Using archival photos and talking to relatives of victims, some of whom still search today for the bones of missing loved ones, it is a story every bit as horrible and important to tell as what Nazis did to Jews in WW 11.  The role played by Nixon and the US government in this tragedy is never mentioned.  7,000 refugees from Chile were successfully welcomed and accepted into Canada in 1973, another fact that is not mentioned.

 

By the time the movie is over, it has pretty much become a true-to-life horror movie.  From 2010.

 

Mapman Mike