Before heading out to hike, BMc needed to know one very important item of information: I am an annoying hiker. He didn’t seem phased by the notion, so off we went, BMc, the captain, and me. The path from Belmont Lake State Park to Argyle is an in and out that, according to some hiking websites, is about 9 miles. Perhaps including a walk around the lake. Perhaps not. I’d waited to do this hike because I wanted to build up to the possible 9 miles with some other hikes first. Spoiler alert: it’s not 9 miles and I hadn’t needed to build up to it. Still, it was worth the wait.

We met in the parking lot, and the captain was like, We need to go where we cross under the Southern, and he pointed in one direction. I was like, nope, it’s that way, which is the other direction. I was right. That’s 1 out of 10 if y’all recall. (I’m right one time out of every ten).

After snarking about upper management and administration, and after watching two women and a child get followed by geese because they’d been feeding the geese as they are not supposed to do for this very reason, we found the path under the tunnel into the wilderness. The captain was about to go to the wrong path, so I was like, No this way. Unprecedented. This was twice in one hike that I was right. How this happened, we will never know.

Whenever I smell burnt toast, I immediately ask whoever is nearby if they smell it, too. Burnt toast smell is a symptom of having a stroke, so I figure we all can’t be having a simultaneous stroke. There in the middle of the woods, I smelled it. So I asked. They both smelled it, too. It smelled delicious. We started talking breakfast food. The smell lingered, got stronger, faded, got stronger, faded, and eventually went away. We don’t know where it came from. I do know that I want more of it in my life. I don’t eat bread, so I’ll take the aroma whenever I can. It’s like one of those many foods and beverages that have a better aroma than taste. The aroma was strongest around a pond that we came upon when we got into Babylon. Mmm, toast.

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BMc asked at one point what we were carrying in our backpacks. The captain had water and snacks. I had that and so much more! Your gal had her full lunch, a towel, sun screen, two kinds of bug spray, band aids, tissues, gum, deodorant, hand sanitizer, eye drops, chapstick, a solar powered phone charger that doubles as a flashlight and has a broken compass, and, as a new addition, a pee funnel that is supposed to let me stand up while peeing if there’s no bathroom around. I have a feeling I might pee all over myself, but I’m clearly prepared to do that and still be able to clean up afterwards. I’d rather not squat over the ground seeing that every time I go outside, random people warn me about ticks.

We made a bicycle friend. While most of the cyclists inched by without warning, this guy shouted from well behind us, On! Your! Left! Which is how it should be. I yelled, Thank you! Captain heard him mutter, You’re welcome. That guy should teach a class in how to warn pedestrians that you’re riding a bike. This is also what bells are for. If you’re going to go riding, then know the rules.

Things that came up in conversation that I didn’t know about that were to become my homework:

Watching the movie Hook.

Watching some show or movie that starred one of the actors from Hook.

That actor’s name who starred in A River Runs Through It whose face I could see and whom I called “a doughy Brad Pitt,” like not in a bad way but like in an observable way.

Something else that I have now forgotten. Actually, I haven’t forgotten. It’s something I didn’t write down and didn’t make a memory of. (Lisa Genova’s book Remember has changed my life. Read it, and you, too, will realize the different between forgetting and not making a memory).

Argyle Lake appeared not so much later. There were large birds around, one that was standing tall on a rock with large wings fanned out. It looked bat-like, and I didn’t like it at all. By now, I have forgotten what kind of bird it was, but the captain and BMc knew. I will refer to it as a batbird. There were many batbirds on the large rock thing in the middle of the lake, all hanging out in the sun. They didn’t look like bats when their wings were closed. We also saw a black bird with a red spot on its wings that I usually see out at Heckscher, and BMc was like, it’s a red spotted black bird. I was like, That’s its name? He was like, Yes. Right now, I don’t know if that’s what its exact name was, but I do remember thinking it was a very obvious name.

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As we headed into town to get some coffee (aka so I could eat my lunch because I was starving) and use the bathrooms (no spout for me this time!), I spotted another guy toting a backpack. I pointed him out—See? That guy’s got a backpack, too! We all looked to where I was pointing. This guy had on combat boots and shorts and no shirt. He was also running. They suggested that perhaps his backpack was filled with something different, and it was possible he was running from something or someone just as much as he may be running towards something. Fair enough.

We visited Babylon Bean where I found a bench to eat my lunch. Our sidewalk conversation seemed to annoy the woman who was at the other table conducting a video chat, so she got up in a huff to go inside. Work in public means the public can get in your way sometimes. We next visited the library and then the statue of the guy who clams. There’s a name for him. It’s not longshoreman. It’s not clammer. It’s something specific, and I can’t remember that, either.

Back to nature, we took some of the same and some different trails back. I wouldn’t know the difference. Plus, everything looks different on the way back because you’re facing a different way. What made me feel most secure about being in the right place? Burnt toast. There it was again, wafting through the air. Ahh, the delights of nature never cease to amaze me.