I met up with Joyce Z. and her husband Egils, Joey, Joyce P., and Nancy who was accompanied by her husband, John. Rather than being dark and stormy, it was bright and calm with nary a cloud in the clear blue sky. We mostly walked the trail loop that I had skied the previous Monday. One would never have guessed that the ground had been covered by about a foot of snow the previous week.

The walk was very tame, except for the fact that last week's wind storm blew down some trees of impressive size, most of which appeared to be of the pine variety. Workers in the park had already taken to the downed trees with their chain saws, clearing up the way for us to enjoy the trails. One particularly large pine tree had its entire root system pulled up out of the ground.  Nancy, Joyce Z. and I were dwarfed by this root system as Egils took a
photograph of us.

Egils and Joyce Z. expanded our knowledge of the park's trail system, showing us a nice loop that brought us down to the shore of the Merrimack River. There we came upon a small, aluminum skiff at the shore. We entertained the idea of scurrying across the ice covered shore with the boat to get into the open water, but thought better of that when we realized that it lacked a paddle. Really, that's the only reason we didn't use it...really!

Anyway, once we regained our senses, we continued on with our loop with Egils as our guide. He led us to a dam which afforded beautiful views of the Merrimack, as well as of Artichoke reservoir which is formed by the dam. There we spied two adult-sized red tailed hawks. After soaking in the view and observing the hawks for a while, we decided that we had explored enough, and made our way back to the parking lot.

Along the walk, I: learned all sorts of valuable information about bidding strategies on Ebay from Joey; learned that Joyce Z. is planning to submit artwork for consideration in the 2008 summer Olympics being held in China; and that my name is really Greg. Bet ya didn't know that one, huh?