15-Apr-13
After the previous few days spending time with Mike and Sarah after the passing of Mike’s Mom, I felt the need to get away from everything for a bit. So I packed up the Mustang and drove out to Crow Hill, in Leominster State Park. I had planned on hiking, climbing, and hopefully doing a bit of work for Artisan, but the events of the day changed that plan a bit…
- I was awake and mobile much earlier than usual. Perhaps because it was a Monday, but I think it was mostly due to the emotionality of the previous days… and my need to escape to the woods for a bit.
- After a delicious breakfast of waffles, bacon and eggs I finished packing up the car and headed into work at Artisan, to get caught up on a few things that I’d missed the previous week and to make up some time that I knew I was going to burn later on in the week.
- I actually got a fair bit done in the short time I was at Artisan; having a building completely to yourself does actually help creativity and ability to focus, as crazy as that sounds. Though I did miss having someone to bounce ideas off of, I’ll admit.
- After grabbing some of my notes I hit the highway again, dropping the top on the car and taking Route 2 all the way out to Crow.
- The drive? Amazing! Perfect weather and excellent skies, with just enough traffic to keep the driving interesting.
- I park at the parking lot to the rocks and head on in after having a short chat with one of the rangers nearby. Slow day, supposedly, which is a bit surprising for such a propular climbing place on a Monday holiday.
- After chatting with a few random climbers about the rock and the day so far I headed deeper into the park than I usually do – heading out to do a bit of exploring for new crags to climb
- There was tons of wet rock and greasy climbs, but for a while nothing looked legitimate enough to bother setting a rope up on
- Finally I broke through a whole nest of shrubbery and undergrowth, finding a massive cliff that looked perfectly open for development. I still haven’t gotten to go back yet so I won’t admit to anything about them… but I can’t wait to get back.
- As I’m walking around and exploring, the phone calls finally start flooding in…
- “Are you ok? Are you at the Marathon?”
- The theme continues – no information about what’s actually happening or has happened, but I start hearing rumors that something happened at the end of the Boston Marathon.
- As the calls flow on, I learn more and more: I slowly put together a picture of what had happened… learning about the explosion, the second explosion. Hearing that my friend who ran the race was ok. Learning how many had been hurt, and that thankfully none of my group of friends had even been in the area
- But… I was an hour away, at max speed. And being back in Boston wouldn’t help anything… so I continued on, exploring more of the crags and scouting out a few possible new places to climb.
- I do sit down and try to get some Artisan work done, but unfortunately for my trusty Netbook, the water bottle that I’d brought alone didn’t have a particularly secure lid… and the water had spilled down onto the keyboard. Thankfully a few days of drying cleared it out, but it was out of commission for the time being.
- With the Netbook out of order, hiking is the option of the day. I roll out and explore to the far end of the State Park, taking my time and chatting on the phone as calls come in.
- As darkness sets I head back to the car, having a nice drive back home as the sun dropped down below the horizon.