It Might Be Giant

It's not like I don't own a car because I disapprove of driving on environmental grounds. Still, now and then I'll think that not owning a car is at least a little better on carbon-footprint grounds than the alternative. Then I'll find myself to be the only passenger on a city bus, like today, and realize that I'm essentially consuming a busworth of fuel all by myself.

The bus was taking me 25 minutes north of here, to Sleeping Giant State Park. Getting there for a hike was imperative on a fall day as nice as this one, so I don't regret the busworth of fuel it took to get up there. I'm glad that no one seems to be rigorously auditing the passenger use of weekend bus routes here.

Sleeping Giant has some mighty fine hiking trails in it. I hadn't gotten up there before, even though it's not so far away. The trail I picked was a lot rockier and steeper than I expected, which was a pleasant surprise. Good workout; got some of the outdoorsy endorphins activated. Foliage hasn't really changed over yet, presumably since we had a hot and dry summer. I brought my CD discman and soundtracked part of the hike with Samuel Barber's violin and cello concertos, which are both good outdoorsy-endorphin-type pieces, especially in the fall.

The weather was absolutely perfect for this. It's a good thing the Steelers had a bye week.

Beforehand I'd cooked myself a fairly robust late breakfast (scrambled eggs, chicken sausage, steamed spinach), and afterwards Stu came by for Modern Pizza and beer. I think that makes for a pretty good Sunday.