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15 July 2009
130 minute walk.
Today I wanted a longer walk of over an hour and was hoping to discover some new areas of Mason. I headed for the Mason antique district near the "Dead End" road of my Walk of 29 May 2009. Instead of walking north on Mason Street I walked the railroad tracks running parallel to Mason Street. In fact I could see many of the features I saw while on Mason Street. As can be seen from the first photo, the tracks don't appear to be in a good state of repair with many rotten and broken ties. One of the train engineers told me once that they were required to drive the trains at a low speed due to the state of the tracks. I had to take care while walking the tracks to avoid missteps.
When I spotted the secondary storage facility of the Mason Elevator Company I left the tracks and headed in the direction of Cedar Street across the field. I wound up on what turned out to be Curtis Street, where I was some unfamiliar buildings, including the Ingham County Jail, a Mason Fire Department storage building, the Ingham County Animal Shelter and some private businesses, finally coming out on Cedar Street at the Subway sandwich restaurant and a dry cleaner business. I documented several businesses along Cedar Street and turned east on Buhl Street. Here I found the front entrance to the County Jail, the Ingham County Sheriff's Office and the office of the Drain Commissioner, with its rather interesting art work on the front of the building. I cut through the property to D & G Equipment. I remembered from a previous walk that D&G had a back entrance onto Kerns Road, so I cut through their parking lot, intending to go down Kerns to Howell Road. I wanted to visit that standing water area with the green pollen and look for wildlife. I could hear the honking of the geese before I could see the water and was lucky to see many birds on the water. I headed to Hagadorn Road and headed home. It was a warm day and after being out for well over two hours I was very glad to get home. I estimate that I used over 1000 calories on this lengthy walk.
Click on any photo to see a larger version in a popup window with photo information. |
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| I head north walking the railroad tracks, till I spot the Mason Elevator Company secondary storage area. |
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| Official buildings for the county and city on Curtis Street just east of Cedar Street. |
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| Various local businesses on Curtis Street just east of Cedar Street
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| I exited Curtis Street onto Cedar Street. Even though the street is marked "No Outlet" I was able to enter at the other end by cutting through the Mason Elevator storage facility grounds. The sidewalk in front of the A&W restaurant, well known for their root beer, caught my eye so I used the G9's macro mode to take a few photos. I took well over 100 photos today but only show about 1/3 of them here. |
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| More businesses along Cedar Street in Mason. |
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| I turned off Cedar Street east onto Buhl Street, which leads to a complex of buildings including the Ingham County Sheriff's office, the county jail and the Drain Commissioner's headquarters. The reflections in the last photo show multiple self portraits (100% crop) ... rather neat! |
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| After taking a photo of detail on the Drain Commissioner's building I cut through their property into the parking lot of D&G Equipment. Two photos show the second Mason water tower from D&G's property. |
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| I was drawn by my curiosity up a driveway on Howell Road and was this impressive array of propane tanks. I couldn't resist taking this panoramic format shot (I just cropped out the bottom and top of the photo). |
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| Continuing east on Howell Road I crossed the railroad tracks I had walked near the beginning of this trip. This photo is taken to the south where I came from. The 100% crop shows the orange Mason Elevator equipment near downtown Mason. After passing the railroad tracks I was in great anticipation of reaching the green pollen-covered pond. My hopes of spotting some wildlife was raised when I heard the honking of geese. I approached carefully to avoid scaring the birds and took numerous photos. |
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| Above are some cropped photos of the geese. |
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| The larger version of the geese photo is a 50% crop of the center of one photo. After finally tearing myself away from the geese I encountered a regular sort of attraction of my walks, a mystery that beckonned me to explore. What is down this road behind the orange barriers and net fence blocking the path? Should I explore what may be forbidden territory? Much of the fun of these walks is exploring interesting new things. Finally, after a rather lengthy walk, I approach Hagadorn road and the way back home. A flock of birds were overflowing from the side of Howell Road right out into the street. The birds were in flight a fraction of a second after this photo. |
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| There's a lot of water in Mason, leading to areas like this. I was lucky to spot this American Goldfinch. He landed on this same brush twice while I was watching. I got a couple shots. This one is a 100% crop of my best shot. |
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| Heading home south on Hagadorn I encountered the "Welcome to Mason" sign. Even past this sign I found cattle grazing in a field. As I approached the Wastewater Treatment plant I spotted this pile of bikes. I can only speculate they are lost bikes collected by the police department. |
