Back at it!

Now that the weather is finally getting cooler, I can resume the activity that I started last year - walking with a group of people from the internet! Meetup.com is a website for hosting various types of "meet ups". To date, I only do the ones that are for walking groups. Friday night's walk had some people that I remember from pre-summer temperature walks along with some new ones.

Melissa, the organizer of Friday's walk, is well-known to me. Back in February I posted an entry sharing the gory details of a snowy walk on unplowed trails and how a bottle of cinnamon schnapps came in handy. This was also organized by Melissa who, within a little ways into the start of the walk, turned around and asked if anyone had a good sense of directions because she didn't. Fast-forward 8 months and the same thing happened again.Thankfully a)I knew this might happen and b) we weren't out in the middle of nowhere. Instead, we were in the cutest subdivision called Cherry Hill Village (http://www.villageofcherryhill.com- This is a different city but same concept and probably same developers) where all the streets are names of ex-Presidents and everything resembles Boston circa 1800's with a handful of "squares" in the midst of the living area which includes single family homes and condos (and a Cold Stone Creamery).

I've always made Big A do a drive through this community when we're in the neighborhood (and sometimes even when we are not even close) so I was kind of familiar with the layout when Melissa's sense of directions ended with the last ray of the setting sun and her ability to know where she was by the color of the houses ended. Sure all the houses have porch lights that come on at dusk but does that help aid many people walking on the sidewalks since there aren't streetlights? Not really. "Turn by the purple house" became almost like a treasure hunt (and Melissa lives in this subdivision!).

At the start of the walk though, this guy who I've never seen at a group walk somehow found himself next to me. He was very disturbed by this community and how much like a movie set it looked (which it does) and all the faux architectural details that are found on the houses. About a block later, I was sick of this guy and just stopped listening or responding. I know Cherry Hill Village is mass-produced but I love the look of it anyway and heartily dislike anyone that points out all the flaws. Thankfully he eventually dropped back and continued his negative conversation about this neighborhood with another woman who was new to the walk.

A little while later, this same woman attempted to strike up a conversation with me but I wasn't interested and just answered her question with a 'Uh huh' and continued with my sightseeing. I wanted to enjoy my Cherry Hill Village in peace. She eventually got into a conversation behind me with a woman that I've seen at some of the walks last year and I don't know what their conversation was about but the quiet of Cherry Hill Village at dusk was irrevocably broken by the woman from previous walks exclaiming "I can't help it that I'm short and with big boobs." As an extra special treat, she said this not too quietly and 3 times.

Combine all this with Melissa bringing her horribly trained dog Polo on part of the walk, being nearly bum rushed by a German Shepherd, and having an East Indian man talk about having only 1 white man as a friend as if that was all he wanted, it just reiterates that the internet is a strange and wondrous place to meet people.