Month: March 2018

You could pray for anything. Right? My mother, somewhat of an activist, would say, “I wish they would stop praying and do something.” We walked by this sign on Bay Road in Webster this afternoon and I thought of her.

Each day for the last month Peggi has plotted a loop for us to walk. If we are out somewhere in the car we’ll start from there but most often we start at our house. And we like to head out in one direction and come back via a different route. We have been inching our way up over ten miles a day and hit twelve the last few. We’ve gone down every road on this side of the bay. The roads reach the bay and then either dead end or come back up again. There is no road that runs continuously around the bay and we have been dreaming about walking around the bay but it just didn’t seem possible.

Today, Peggi suggested that we do it. Goggle plotted us straight down Culver to Empire, across the top of the bay and up the hill into Penfield to Bay Road. We stopped at Flaherty’s Three Flags Inn and split a pint of “Space Kitty,” a local IPA. A little further down the road we saw a sign sign that said, “Welcome to Webster Where Life Is Worth Living.” The sign was in the exact spot where the sidewalk ran out. Bay Road is is two lanes in either direction and it is decidedly not pedestrian friendly. We walked against traffic on the shoulder and kept jumping up in the snow to get out of the way.

Things settled down once we hit Lake Road and the walk across the spit of land between the lake and bay was beautiful at sunset. We stopped again at Shamrock Jack’s and had a pint of Ithaca’s “Flower Power” to celebrate our successful fourteen mile circumference. FC Salzburg vs Borussia Dortmund was on the screen behind the bar and the score was 0-0.

I took a quick look at the route Peggi had plotted for today. She had Google Maps open on her iMac and the route was plotted in Satellite view. I could see the bay to the left of our starting point and the lakeshore was stretched out across the top of her screen. The river was also visible on the right hand side and our route went right along it for a stretch. I was struck by how much geography there was on the map and then by the notion that we could possibly cover that much ground on foot.

Our street was still somewhat icy so we started with our Yaktrax on but took them off at the cemetery. Those roads are some of the cleanest in the county due to the roster of public service workers with nothing to do. We turned right on Titus and walked to the House of Guitars where we turned north on Cooper just as Irondequoit High was letting out. Cooper meets Saint Paul and from there we began our descent to the river level, a place called “The Flats.” Irondequoit people talk about this place in almost mythical tones and I can see why.

There are wide open spaces between the houses, old barns and fields, undoubtably fertile fields judging by the standing water. It feels like you are out in the country but we just walked here. It was like a dream. We continued north along Saint Joseph which changes names to Van Voorhis and takes you up out of The Flats.

We checked the mileage and we were somewhere near six miles, about ready to begin the return leg. Since we don’t like retracing our steps we headed north on Saint Paul to the lake and walked along the lakeshore, up Zoo Road in the Park and on home.

I’m hoping we’ll pick up an additional tenth of a mile just walking around the house tonight because I really want to see that 13 mile tally on our Moves app.

We got a late start because we had a funeral to go to for our sister in law’s father. It was a patriotically themed event as well it should have been. The man served in all three branches of the military! Flag pins were attached to the red, white and blue programs. A trumpet player played taps while we took our seats and then guns went off outside the Baptist Church in Greece. The hymn was “America the Beautiful,” all four verses. Free Masons, wearing white beanies in the front row, presented white roses to the remains. State Senator Joseph Robach gave the remembrance. And a piano player, a seasoned lounge player, played Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah and a great version of Frank’s “My Way.”

We changed clothes and headed out through the park and along the lake all the way to the river. We thought we might be able to work our way along the river to Silk O’Loughlin’s, which had just opened for the season, but we couldn’t get around the gates of a shipyard. I took this photo in front of Shumway’s Marina and we turned around. With the temperature right around freezing we walked on a variety of surfaces. Some crusty, icy snow, some black ice, some mud, some soft sand along the lake and a few good sized puddles on the sidewalk.

The Emirates Group sponsors both teams. Qatar Sports Investments owns Paris Saint-Germain and they spent a fortune on players like Neymar. Real Madrid is owned by their club supporters, hundreds of people called socios and they too spent a fortune on players like Ronaldo. The word Real, Spanish for Royal, was bestowed on the club by King Alfonso XIII and our friend Matthew advised us that if we’re going to cheer for a Madrid team it ought to be Atlético because Real still has cultural ties to the fascists. But we can’t help ourselves, we’ve been rooting for Real in the Champions League and we were ecstatic watching them defeat PSG, both at home and in Madrid. We wouldn’t root for Real against Barcelona, of course. They are on another plane.

Ronaldo is an over-the-top star. Like Trump, you can’t take your eyes off him as he sucks all the air out of the room. Madrid has Sergio Ramos, the captain of the ship. They have Marcello, a back who is an ever threat to score. They have Bale, on the bench with his man-bun. They have the smart, agile Croatian, Luka Modrić, in midfield. And they have Zinedine Zidane in the ever so sharp coach’s suit. They are a real team and a joy to watch.

We are sort of in limbo with with this white stuff. The big snowfall we had last week is just sitting there. The sidewalks are clear. People aren’t wearing hats or gloves anymore. We have all moved on but the snow lingers. There was so much of it the sidewalk and street plows shoved it into the other’s paths. And it was so heavy and wet when it came down it is now clumped into hard-core sculptural formations on the edges of the sidewalk.

Our route today took us in an eight mile loop with stops. Starbucks, where we had a sandwich and a medium Flat White, the post office where we mailed off (for scanning) 700 35mm slides that my sister culled from my father’s slides, and Dunkin Donuts where we used the bathroom.

We saw “Shape of Water” this evening and I loved it. An old fashioned straight up love story done with loving respect for the medium. I was a skeptic and wanted Greta to get all the awards for “Ladybird” but I was wrong. This was beautiful.

We were hanging out with our friends, Jeff and Mary Kaye, last night and we were telling them about all the cool little neighborhoods we had been exploring while walking. We mentioned the dead ends that lead down to the bay on the west side and Jeff told us he lived in a house on Schnackel Drive back in the seventies. He had to get out when the water level rose. He said there was a small store down there that sold nothing more than Wonder Bread and beer. The street sounded so familiar but we couldn’t place it until we found it on our phone. The map showed Riviera’s Liquor store down there, on a a dead end along the bay. I couldn’t believe it. I called the number but it had been disconnected. We were determined to find the place today.

Point Pleasant Road, the third traffic circle on your way to the lake, leads to Pleasant Avenue which takes a dive down to the bay where it turns into Schnackel Drive which hugs the shore of Irondequoit Bay. You can wind your way around the inlet to the right or walk to your left around the gated Point Pleasant Estates and the opening to Bay Front Lane, a street with about fifteen homes that can only be accessed by foot. We’re guessing the store Jeff remembers was the first place on Bay Front Lane but we couldn’t find the liquor store.