2020-06-28 42 -78

Location

In the woods off the Clarence bike path near Wehrle Drive

Participants

Pedalpusher

Expedition

My father's birthday was last week and I told him I would take him to the driving range to hit a bucket of golf balls. Since my parents live in North Buffalo, we were going to go to the Brighton Driving Range in Tonawanda. Knowing the weather for the weekend, I suggested Sunday would be the better day as it was supposed to rain and possibly thunderstorm all day on Saturday. When the hashpoints were published for the weekend, I saw a bonus opportunity to try for this hash on the way home since I was already going to be closer that I would be just driving from home.

On Sunday morning, I confirmed with my parents that we would meet at Ted's Hot Dogs first around noon for lunch (my mom had some coupons) before going to the driving range. With COVID-19, the parking lot had traffic cones all over as they set up a Drive Thru lane through the parking lot. Fortunately, I found a spot in the adjacent lot that was sort of coned off, but people were parking there. Checking around, I didn't see my parent's but my father drove by within a couple minutes and my mom arrived at the same time on her bike. She wanted to get a ride in and didn't want to go to the driving range with us (Golf is a dumb sport if you ask her). We got our orders in right before the Lunch Rush and we got a good spot under the pavilion in the shade to eat.

The driving range afterwards was also fun as I split a large bucket of balls with my father. I even traded up my driver with my father. He doesn't get out much any longer and both drivers we were using were previously my grandfather's. I think the improved club adds about 50 yards to my drive and I was easily hitting the netting at the back of the range about 300 yards away. After the buckets were depleted, we said our goodbyes and I headed for the hash.

Not wanting to take a wrong turn, I had the Phone GPS guide me there and I found the parking lot at the end of the bike path. As I started down, I turned on the Hash-droid App on my phone so I could see where I was closest to the hash before turning off the path. In the first section, on both sides, the woods were very swampy. I didn't see any posted signs, but honestly, they weren't needed. No one would want to wander into that section of woods. The small ponds looked to be knee deep in places, possibly worse.

As I was getting closer to the hash, I could see where the swamps looked to be ending. Unfortunately, right at the spot where I was about to head into the woods, I could see a tree with the first posted sign. Honestly, I wasn't that disappointed as I was pretty sure there would be more swampy areas getting to the hash. I got a couple pictures and then figured I'd walk a little ways down the bike path before turning around and heading for home. Just before I stepped back on the bike path, I looked down and saw two giant wild strawberries! They were absolutely delicious and I noticed the strawberry plants continued along the path. I decided to continue walking in the grass and spotted a number of berries that I happily gobbled up. The wild strawberries had a poor crop this year so they weren't all over the place and I had to keep a keen eye for them. Even in other areas where I know about the wild strawberry patches, it has been difficult to find berries this year. I ended up walking 0.6 miles (1 Km) down the path before turning around and walking in the grass on the other side on the way back. Even with the sparse berries, there were still quite a few I found over the mile walk.

All around it was a great day, despite the No Trespassing for the actual hash.

Side note: Looking at my pictures as I wrote this up, apparently, I forgot the Screenshot of the closest distance I was able to get. From Google Maps, I estimate the remaining distance to the hash to be about 600+ feet/200 meters into the woods from the path.

Photos

Bike Path signage by the parking area. I've done other Posted expeditions on the other end of the path past Salt Road too.
Walking down the path to get closer to the hash, the woods look very swampy.
Getting as close as possible on the path, it's not swampy any longer but it is posted.
A view down the path from the closest spot to the hash.
The two wild strawberries that changed my stroll down the path to hungrily seeking more delicious bites along the side of the path.