Scary Golf Course Geese, Swollen Rivers, and A Cemetery

   Okay, not much to have blogged about in the last two weeks, I'm still not running and the constant rain has even prevented me from being in the forest, convening with nature and then showing you the pics of that!

Walking along Westdel Bourne, on
my way to Komoka. There are a lot of
"Bourne" sideroads in this area but
they each have their own identity.
(see what I did there?)

   Actually, given my doctor's original timeline on when I could start running again, I should already be  back to light jogging but I suffered a bit of a setback a couple of weeks ago. I was walking down the 15th fairway at East Park a couple of Mondays ago when, all of a sudden, I sensed something behind me. I turned around, only to find an an angry, hissing, wing-flapping Canada goose chasing after me! There had been a warning in the pro shop about "aggressive geese" and I thought to myself that if I encounter any geese I would just take a wide berth. This goose, however, came out of nowhere and ambushed me! And, in an effort to both run backwards and dipsy-doodle my cart to keep it between me and the goose, I did my knee in again ("sad" emoji here).

Finally arrived at the Komoka
parking lot. I probably should have
just turned around at this point...

   It felt very much like back to square one, so I've started the whole recuperation thing all over again and am still at the "walking" phase. The constant rain, however, has even put a damper on that.
   Yesterday, however, was beautiful! A little brisk with unseasonably cool temps and a strong wind but amazingly sunny and, all in all, a great day for a hike in the woods!
   I decided to head to Komoka Provincial Park and I also decided to walk there. Normally, if I was headed there to run, I would drive and then be faced with the $7.50 to park in the lot. When I thought about it, though, why drive to somewhere nearby if the idea is to walk in the first place?So I gathered up my hiking clothes, threw half a Nuun into a Camelbak bottle (product placement here, folks), grabbed my trekking poles and headed off.
   

A marshy area, just off the trail.
LOVE seeing things come to
life this time of year!

I live near the western edge if London and after about 20 minutes I was out of the subdivision and on to "country" roads. I say "country" road because you're still walking past houses but there are no sidewalks and the cars are passing at about 80 kmh and, if you want to give them what seems like the right amount of room, you need to hop down into a ditch sometimes....
   Komoka is about 5K away and it actually took me an hour and 17 minutes to get there (what with stopping to investigate stuff, take pics and re-tie my boots). At this point, I was thinking I'd just had quite the little walk and I was going to have to walk all the way back when I was done so, really, how much hiking through the forest should I actually do? I decide to pick a spot on the trail, hike to that spot and then turn back, regardless of how much I might have been enjoying myself. As I headed out, I passed the parking machine I normally would have slid hard-earned coins into, muttered a very silent f**k you, and then went on my merry way.

A flooded creek, leading to the river
you can sort of see off in the distance.
Normally, this is just a trickle.

   This, then, led me to The Steps. If you go to Komoka Provincial Park and head west from the parking lot, staying on the White Trail, you will eventually come to The Steps. They are a multi-platformed set of wooden steps which take you more or less from the edge of the river back up to the top of the Thames Valley. I had decided I would hike to The Steps, sit down at one of the benches they have at the top of them there, eat my sandwich, and then head back.
   Along the way, it was hard not to pay extra attention to the Thames River. Due to the incessant rain the past many days, the river is swollen and moving very quickly, so much so that the local authorities have warned people to stay away from its edges and not to venture out on it. Much of the trail follows the river and I was constantly coming to areas where normally I could have ventured out maybe twenty yards onto the river bank and been on dry land still. Not so now. The water level was so high that even the tiny streams which empty into the river were themselves swollen. Just a little surreal and uncomfortable! 
   

Halfway up The Steps. A tree's
fallen across them since the last
time I was here and I almost
bumped my head coming up them!

The river itself had not flooded any portions of the trail but the constant rain lately had done its part to keep many parts of the trail slick and muddy. I've found that the trekking poles helped greatly with this. The poles are actually urban poles and were meant for pavement but I went to the store I got them from and picked up a couple of packs of trekking baskets and then converted them. Huge difference on the slippery trails and a lot more stability!
   After I finished my lunch at the top of The Steps, I headed back down them and made my way back to the parking lot. Normally, I am looking forward to being able to hop in my car and head for home but yesterday was necessarily different.

The very swollen Thames River. I
will go back and take the same pic
in about a month and show you
the difference.

   I got back out onto Gideon Drive and headed east, along the highway. I don't really enjoy being in such proximity to traffic moving so quickly and, honestly, every time a car approached I made plans for which direction I would have to throw myself to avoid it if it happened, for whatever reason, to swerve directly at me. I also tried to estimate whether or not I'd be able to leap high enough in the air to only make minimal contact with the roof of a vehicle as it passed underneath me, do a somersault, and then land safely on my feet. Because I think I saw this in a movie somewhere....
   Along the way, I stopped to take a stroll through Woodhull Cemetery. This is a fairly small cemetery on a piece of land once owned by the Woodhull family. The little bit of genealogy I've been doing lately has me believing that I'm partially related to the Woodhulls, at least by marriage, if not by DNA, so I thought it might be kind of cool to stop in for a visit. I also managed to find the grave of the husband of one of my wife Doralyn's best friends while I was there. We had never met so I introduced myself and let him know that his wife and kids are doing just fine (although I'm pretty sure he's already aware  of that!)

And a quick stop at the Woodhull Cemetery.

   After my little visit, it was back to another short highway stretch and then back into the subdivision and home.
   I might have overdone it. I ended up walking about 16K altogether and today I'm feeling it, particularly the injured knee. It's throbbing just a touch so I'm just about to go pop some Advil and ice it a little. What I've noticed lately is that it pops back fairly quickly after hard work so I really hope it keeps up the trend. It's actually quite strong as long as I don't get it into weird little positions and I'm hoping that soon I'll be back to running. Fingers crossed!