Calvin and I ran a couple of errands this afternoon. Not the kind of errands that take you inside, but dropping things off at people's houses (some books to borrow, milk bottles—hey! We started our milk delivery again, and it turns out...I've missed it!), and while we were out we decided to get Gimli some exercise at a favorite hiking spot. Gimli is a high energy dog. He needs something more than the several-times-a-day-through-the-neighborhood walk. Before the sky fell down he was used to twice weekly nature hikes and at least twice weekly walks through town or new areas. And at the beginning of our current American Tragedy, I stuck to this schedule pretty well, but lately I've pulled into trail parking lots I was used to finding empty only to compete with umpteen other cars for a spot. The first time it happened we still went for our walk. That time the whole family was with me, and we spent most of our time dodging close encounters of the possibly virus kind. I felt like the proverbial cantankerous oldster only instead of "get off my lawn!" I was singing a chorus of "get out of my park" throughout the entire hike.
Certainly it's wonderful that so many people are now able to take, and are interested in taking, advantage of our local nature spots. Certainly. Still, I can't help but feel that these spots weren't meant to handle quite so much foot traffic in any given day, and, certainly, they weren't created with the need to allow for appropriate social, or physical, pandemic distancing in mind.
Today Calvin, Gimli, and I pulled into a supposedly less popular, less travelled, much smaller park only to find six other cars there. With mask recommendations from the CDC on the immediate horizon but no masks in the car, we decided to forgo the crowded hike and return home for some fetch in the backyard instead. The silver lining was finding our neighbors outside, or hanging out their windows, looking for some company. At a distance.
