A Living Magazine - Day 355 - Homecoming - Concord: Lost and Found

I woke to a beautiful view out my bedroom window...

It was 5:30 a.m. and I had to move quickly. An older woman was walking down the path, but she didn't see me. Of course more folks would be walking, jogging, running, biking and touristing. It was a simple pack up...

Monument sunrise.

Panoramic sunrise.

The walk downtown was interesting...

This my friends is the Toxic Princess, Poison Ivy. 

I've seen more of it around Massachusetts than anywhere ever.

Avoiding it hasn't been easy.

Some notes about poison ivy (Toxicodendron radicans)...

Poison ivy is very dangerous, but only to humans. Most animals prefer to eat it, because to them it is nutritious and delicious. Our problem (over 70% of us) is with our own immune systems--they overreact to an oil within the plant called, uruciol. The pentadecylatechols within uruciol bind to skin, causing blood vessels to form gaps in their pathways through the body. These gaps fill with fluid and it seeps out of the skin. Usually, an intense itching and burning occur, with blisters. Thankfully the resulting fluid released by these blisters is not poisonous. In other words the fluid does not spread the problem.

It can take days for the dermatitis, rash and blisters to develop, and weeks for it to go away. Not good. Furthermore, uruciol  is highly stable (meaning it takes a lot to break it down). Even when the plant is dead, the oil will still be on it. Infact, burning the plant will not destroy this oil either, and makes it more dangerous, because the smoke, now airborne, if breathed in will cause the same thing to happen in your lungs as happens on your skin. Same thing with accidentally ingesting it. The digestive tract becomes inflamed and can lead to serious pain, and sometimes hospitalization.

With what I do, contact with this plant could ruin the rest of my Journey, and half of July. So, extra caution is warranted practically all the time. It grows as a vine (though it is not a true ivy) or 

a shrub. I gave myself an extensive crash course on identifying the plant--which has many subspecies that can look different than the above. While the rule is: "leaves of three, let it be," there are several other plants that grow in leaves of three and look rather similar to poison ivy. The best way I've found to differentiate is to look for the non-symmetrical shape of the leaf. There is usually one side that will have a distinct "thumb," making it look like a mitten. Or, one side will have larger serrations. But it's tricky! The leaves can be any shade of green, and from orange hued to red. They also can be small or quite large. 

Here is a neat site that can help train you in identification... Poison Ivy Quiz.

Walking down Lowell Street seemed to be a morning themed on learning about unwanted plants and more great architecture. There is a wood stand at the head of one of the trails. I stopped by to read the signs...

I never realized the Bay Circuit Trail was so extensive!

Two hundred thirty miles, running between the two interstates.

The Christian Science Church. Beautiful.

The Civil War obelisk.

The Veteran's Memorial--not many names for Concord's casualties, thankfully.

I found this amusing. All right wing propaganda on this board. No lefties allowed! Ha!

Location... This house would probably cost about $300K in the Portland, Maine area.

The gorgeous Free Public Library at Main and Sudbury.

A typical house on Sudbury. Wow!

I got to Dunkin Donuts and pulled out the laptop, then looked for the DC adapter. It was gone. I asked the employees if they had found it. None of them knew anything about it. They were pretty busy though. I got a sinking feeling. Without being able to use my computer I'm dead in the water.

There were only two other places I opened the pocket that I usually put it in. One was at Crosby's Market, the other was back at the sleep spot. Ughhh...

I decided to save as much power as I could, and walk around town looking for the damn thing. First I checked Crosby's. Nothing anywhere. I asked to see their lost and found. Nothing. To be sure, I would have to go back to the sleep spot. So I did, muttering, "...let it be there, let it be there..." It wasn't.

I went back into town and checked Crosby's again. There were no electronics stores within 20 miles. So, I figured I should check the two drug stores to see if they would have anything--CVS and RiteAid. I thought I remembered that the tablet could be charged with a mini USB cord. So, I bought one for $14. I went to the library and checked it out. It didn't work. I returned it and in desperation went to the AT&T Store. I asked the sales guy if they had anything like what I needed. He didn't. He suggested that I take the train to Fitchburg where there are some bigger stores. Not a bad idea. He said it was only $3.

So, I went back to Dunkin Donuts  to research how to take the train. It was much later now and the next shift of workers were there. For the hell of it, I asked again. This time the young man really went out of his way to look for it, asking each person. Then as he stood there, he looked down and reach right below the register, pulling out my cord. "Could this be it?" I was so incredibly relieved and thankful that I gave him a three dollar tip (the amount I would have spent on the train).

A little later, another young man came in for his shift. I remembered him from the day before. He was washing the floor and when he walked by he asked if I had lost an adapter. I told him all that had happened, and it all became clear. It was he who had found it and put it on the counter. The morning crew must have stuffed it below deck when they came in. I thanked him and asked his name. It was Tyler. I told him about my project and he lit up for a moment. So, I gave him a business card and I hope he joins us all here and at Facebook.

Now I could work in earnest. I plowed through all of my pictures from the day before and processed them, eventually even getting caught up by publishing that post.

I only had about $10 left and hadn't eaten, so I went back to Crosby's and bought a hot ham steak dinner for $4.99, and ate it there on the side of the parking lot, sitting on a rock. The day had ended up coming together. I spent time at the library waiting for it to get dark, taking some great pictures of the inside of the building but I'd used one of the faulty SD cards that had been erased by the old adapter I had, and they were lost the next day.

Back at the sleep spot, I got set up right away and did my typical pacing and thinking. At about 9:30 p.m. I noticed a dark figure on the trail. I can't see clearly having been sans-glasses for many months. So I simply watched. The figure was there motionless for about 45 minutes. I figured maybe I'd missed or not remembered some object. Then as I was looking at it, a flashlight came on right in front of it. It was a guy, sitting on the bench. At first I thought he had been facing me, but apparently not. I heard some voices in the parking lot up by the road. He laughed and got up, then walked up there to meet them.

On the next day, I would be walking to Lexington and wanted to leave early. At about 10:00 p.m. I crawled in the tent and went to bed, sleeping soundly for the whole night.