No bus yet for CHC – South Run, the Cross County Trail, Lake Mercer, and Burke Lake – Independence of Barbados – A case of lowered expectations – Evening statistics
The Capital Hiking Club held a Zoom meeting yesterday, during which the issue of resuming the bus hikes was discussed. As might be expected, the emergence of the omicron variant, which occurred some days after this issue was placed on the agenda, induced the Board to defer use of the bus until April at the earliest. I am tasked with making out the hike schedule up to that point. The schedule has already been completed up to and including January 1st, so there are twelve additional hikes to plan for. They will have to conform to certain criteria: not too far from the DC Metro area, no hikes that begin at one parking area and end in another, and so on.
Today I went with CC and TK on a hike that goes along the South Run Trail to Lake Mercer and the Cross-County Trail, takes the CCT up to the road leading to the Fairfax County Parkway, loops back to Lake Mercer, and then completes the circuit around Burke Lake. Like the Lake Fairfax hike, which I led last week, it is not spectacular, but it traverses quiet woodlands that provide a welcome relief to suburban sprawl. When we lunched at Lake Mercer, we saw numerous waterfowl, chiefly gulls and loons, skimming the lake surface, and at one point we saw a bald eagle as well. A few members of the group elected to omit the circuit around Burke Lake, but the greater number persevered to complete a hike of 20 miles in length and with about 1000 feet of elevation gain. We went at an appreciably strenuous pace, as is suitable for the Vigorous Hikers, averaging close to 4 miles per hour and arriving back at the parking area at about 2:30. We were aided by the fact that the weather has been rather dry for the past several days and that, consequently, none of the pylons of the fairweather stream crossings were submerged. The hike was enlivened by the occasional snow flurry and a brief hailstorm in the morning, but these quickly passed, removing the dampness from the air and giving way to sunlit skies and temperatures well into the 50s.
Barbados is now a republic. It actually became independent of the United Kingdom in 1966, but remained a constitutional monarchy and continued to pledge allegiance to Queen Elizabeth, who was represented on the island by a local Governor-General. But now it is formally a separate nation, though it remains a member of the British Commonwealth. The motives of its population for preferring independence from a nation across the width of the Atlantic is understandable, but how will be they be able to thrive on their own? The island area is well under 200 square miles and its population is less than 300,000. Only a little over one-third of the land is arable. The Barbadians use up approximately five times the amount of natural resources that the island is capable of producing, which means that they are heavily dependent upon imports. The island’s government currently has a fairly prosperous economy fueled by three factors: tourism, the international business sector (it is home to several prominent world banks), and foreign direct-investment. It has a huge national debt, however, and whether it can continue to maintain its standard of living without being propped up by the UK remains to be seen.
A curious comment from Bradley Cooper, an actor of “A Star is Born,” when describing an incident in which he was accosted by a stranger during a subway ride approaching him while brandishing a switch-blade knife. Cooper managed to jump a turnstile and run to the station entrance, thereby foiling any intended attack. And here is his summing up of the episode: “My guard was down. I realized I had gotten way, way too comfortable in this city.” I daresay I am more captious than most people, but it seems to me that one should be able to enter subways and buses and other public transportation without being subjected to assault and attempted homicide.T
oday’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 263,013,313; # of deaths worldwide: 5,232,577; # of cases U.S.: 49,422,000; # of deaths; U.S.: 802,972. At this point the virus has infected nearly 15% of the national population and has killed nearly one in every 400.