Reflections..Or stuff you want to forget!

With all that has been going on lately in my life and those around me, I haven’t been finding much time to reflect on what is on the horizon and what has already come and gone.

And for the few moments that I did find the time to do just that – “reflect”, well, it was this ONE particular moment – a traffic jam in front of the Ford Plant in Oakville- I smirked and thought to myself “Oh yeah, I TOTALLY forgot about that!” as I mindlessly crawled forward at 5km/h. Yeah, that’s right, 5km/h. I can walk faster than that.

So let me draw you back to when I ventured out for a 3 hour trip north, to my old stomping grounds once again.

I knew I was in for quite a hike – as to be expected,  but I felt confident. At least until the point when the car disappeared from sight. Then, that confidence seemed to wither away pretty quickly.

And so you know what made me think of this while I was stuck in traffic? My stereo. You see, I have this channel on XM radio called “Chill” and it’s a relaxation station that plays soft, ambient music to help calm the nerves. Something that I need after a long day at work and a grueling drive home.

Yeah, it was my stereo; as soon as I tuned it to chill, I had a flashback about that hike into the bush – the car was out of sight, and the first thing I did was grab a small portable radio from my knapsack and I tuned it to whatever I found comforting, playing it at a volume that was loud enough to say “I’m here” but not loud enough to be disturbing. And it was those voices – other people talking – that had such a calming effect over me.

Now I’m not saying that I became totally oblivious to my surroundings but It gave me that extra “umphhh” I needed to get me into the woods to the point where I was going to try and plant a trail camera. Yeah, the little radio was the company I needed and it was welcome. You see, this place is pretty desolate. In fact, a lot of areas of Ontario can be downright intimidating and spookey.

So as I approached the area , I turned down the radio and took a peek at the GPS. I was within 100 meters of the small clearing where I was going to mount the cam. I looked up after viewing the GPS and that’s where I saw a flash of Red and the soft chatter of humans not so far off in the distance. I was stunned at first - “People? Here? Why?

I did not believe they noticed me so I immediately retreated to take cover and try to observe the group with my binoculars. I just couldn’t get a good enough view through the bush, but I could hear them. At this point the radio was obviously off and I just waited, huddled down to see if they were transient or locked down to that one area. It seemed to be the later, so I decided to backtrack and reconsider a different area to plant the cam.

Now the thing is, I had never seen anyone is this area before. No signs of life (humans), nothing. To see this was quite unusual and I felt compelled to find out what they were doing, which meant that I had to get within viewing range of these folks, so I held off backtracking to plant the cam and I went into Ninja Mode (LOL!! ;)

Lo and behold, I found myself gazing upon two couples who were doing pastel paintings of a small rock outcrop that had a group of trilliums growing from it. I’m guessing students on a art class adventure, how the heck they ended up here, I had no idea, but it was a peaceful discovery that had me leaving the area satisfied that all was good.

And so I spent the next 2 hours scouting around the area. I did a big “loop” around the students to plant myself further north of them – much further north, and I found a beautiful spot that would please even the most fanatic trail cam operator – not saying that I am one LOL but I wanted to really give it a good run for the money. After all, It was a 3 hour drive there and back!

I was meticulous about the mounting of the equipment and I spent some time camoflaging everything to make it look right at home. And it worked. Quite well, for the next planned trip up there – two weeks later for fishing, I followed the GPS until I arrived at the cam. Low battery light was on, but it was still running.

I removed the camera from the mounting strap and opened it up. Voila! Lets see what we got!

Damn!!! I forgot to put in the SD card!!!!!

I needn’t say more. When you are distracted or overly-ambitious, you sometimes forget the simplest things.

And in this case, I think I just wanted to forget the whole thing…but now, in hindsight, I learned something and I can only chuckle at it. Nothing more.

Good night!