Adventures with the Ashtons

I awoke early Sunday Morning and walked to the Trapp Family "wedding platform" to play my Native American flutes. The residual fog in the valley is always beautiful.

What's cool is I actually had a musical "conversation" with a hawk. As I played the flute (with backing tracks from my cellphone channelled thru a mini battery-powered amp), I heard the strange noises that I wasn't used to hearing. I stopped the backing tracks and played solo flute. Sure enough, a hawk would call back to me only if I played a certain set of notes. If I stopped playing, no response. If I played the lower register of notes - no response.  But if I played notes in the mid to high register - the hawk would caw back!

Perry Hill

Next I went to my favorite riding spot: Perry Hill/Rasta Mtn in Waterbury. This time not to bike but to give my extended Family (my sister and the Ashtons) a mini hiking tour of the place.

As mentioned a few years back, they built a sculpted reroute of this section of the trail. Here's a comparison

Years ago

Now

this crazy steep section is now blocked off and the trail turns to the right

The ascent on a bike is still a ball buster but as you can imagine... the descent is pure nirvana!

We veered off the descent at the aptly-named Disneyland section of the park and enjoyed the incredible ambiance of trees, ferns and the play of sunlight on all of the greenery. I played flute to the squirrels and Rick generously took the time to film me - a couple of snippets will be eventually posted on YouTube.

I tried to take them down a gully I remembered that led to a very picturesque rock outcropping but there was a new trail put in since my last visit that confused me so we turned around at this point. Needless to say, the new trail is another masterpiece which I have put on my agenda to ride.

Foamers?

Lastly, Rick Ashton is such a kindred spirit and a fellow railroad enthusiast! We spotted what looked like railroad cars way down on a siding and had to go check them out.

Great fun was had by all...