May GrexWalk

Every Saturday morning at 10 AM, throughout the entire year, a group of Grexers meet at Gallup Park for a walk through the Arboretum, followed by lunch at a local eatery. If you've been to one of these, you know what they're like; if not, this is an opportunity to meet and socialize with other Grex folks and get some exercise in the bargain.

Everyone is invited to come to a Grexwalk. You do not have to be a Grexer, or even to own a computer. The people of Grex are very friendly and will welcome you.

We meet in the parking lot just off Fuller Road, opposite Huron High School, just west of Huron Parkway. In this map of Gallup Park, the blue dot is the starting point, and the blue arrows indicates the path of the walk and the return path from the Arboretum.

Click on this map to view an ASCII version, useful for non-graphical browsers.

The walk usually gets underway at about 10:15, so don't worry about being a few minutes late. If you don't know what anybody looks like, just look for a bunch of people standing around together who don't appear that they could have anything whatsoever in common with one another. Those are the Grexers (we're easy to spot!)

This page documents the walk taken on May 4, 1996. Three earlier versions of the Grexwalk page exist (September, October), and December), showing the event at different seasons. In a normal year, spring makes its appearance in mid April, but this year's spring has been much colder than normal, and thus much later in arriving in full. As the small group left the parking lot and crossed the first bridge, I took the first picture. Today was a very grey day, and as you can see from this view from the bridge, there was no hint of the sun, nor was the vegetation particularly green yet on the banks of the river. By early May the lack of greening is unusual, although the lack of sun is not particularly remarkable.

The second picture shows that spring really had arrived despite all this. There are a good number of large forsythia bushes planted near the bridge, and they had already exploded in a profusion of yellow, as they do in early Sping every year. At left, John Remmers (remmers) and Dan Gryniewicz (dang) can be seen crossing the bridge. Note that the name in parentheses is used throughout these pages to indicate a user's account ID on Grex.

When we left the Gallup Park parking lot at 10:20, our small group consisted of only 9 people. Here you can see six of them. Matthew Fulton (matthew) was embarking on his first ever Grexwalk. Marla (qt314) is in front of David Dorney (dadroc) and making certain to get noticed by the camera. Meg Heberlein (eeyore), John Remmers (remmers) and Jan Wolter (janc) are also visible. You can't see me, Steve Weiss (srw) because I am always on the wrong side of the camera. I mentioned Dan G. earlier, and the only other participant was Valerie Mates (popcorn).

I got in front of the group and looked back to see them stop while Jan tied a shoelace, and most of the others look back toward where we came from to see if a latecomer were chasing after us, We were rather expecting Mark Conger (aruba) to be one of the walkers today, as he is one of the regular participants. You can see Valerie in the middle of the group look at her own shoelaces to see if they need tieing, too.

Part of the enjoyment of the Grexwalk is the people, but another important part is the scenery. No matter what time of year it this, nor how unpleasant the weather, it is always an interesting hike for scenery. Once the walk begins, it proceeds west along the paved path that runs between the Conrail Tracks and the Huron River. I paused to take this picture of the scenery, also looking back down the path toward our starting point, and discovered that Mark Conger actually was trying to catch up to us. So we paused again to wait for him to catch up, while Matthew Fulton amused the rest of the group with a demonstration of his skill in the Renaissance art of stick twirling. Matthew tells me these are called "Crystal Sticks".

The walk proceeds upriver for about a mile, sandwiched between the railroad tracks on the walkers' left and the river on their right, until the walkers suddenly turn left off the path, cross the tracks and enter the Nichols Arboretum meadow. The first photo shows the meadow, but because spring is so late to arrive this year, it looks especially drab right now. The deciduous trees are just not ready yet to produce their leaves, and without those, the Arb still has much of the appearance of Winter. There is a small fruit tree beginning to bloom on the far side of the meadow, which reminds us that despite appearances, it is already May.

As we come to the end of the meadow, a wondrous site awaits us. Nestled against the dark green of a line of evergreens is "Tree 57", a very large weeping fruit tree in full bloom. This is definitely a sight for sore eyes.

The Grexwalkers approach their favorite tree so as to fully appreciate its splendor. Tree 57 is an enormous favorite of the walkers, especially the younger ones, who are fond of climbing. It is especially well suited for this purpose. After we approached the tree, though, we found that it was already occupied. Here we see Valerie and Dan convincing the young lady who had been sitting in the tree with her young child before our arrival that the Grexwalkers actually have the tree reserved at this time, and that she will have to come back later.

She did not seem very convinced, but she was outnumbered, and allowed us to pose in the tree. Here you can see Dan, Jan, Matthew, Valerie and Meg in the tree, while David takes a photo and the rest of us watch.

Once we thanked the previous occupants for allowing us to invade the tree for a few minutes, they climbed back into the tree, and we proceeded further along the trail until we again come into full view of the river at the Arb "Beach". There has been a lot of rain this spring, and the water is very high. The rock dam which breaks up the flow at this point is completely submerged, but you can see its imprint in the surface of the river. There's not much green yet on the far bank.

At this point the walkers normally turn left, leave the river, and begin to walk toward the top of the arb following the rightmost drive, which leads all the way to the top. Today we decided to follow the lefthand drive instead. This path proceeds only as far as the small lodge used by the resident groundskeeper. I failed to take a picture of that, which is my fault and I sincerely apologize. At this point we noticed that Mark and David appeared to be missing. Once we passed the lodge, we found ourselves at the base of an enormous hill which had to be scaled to reach the resting point, high above the Arb meadow. This photo shows Dan rushing up this hill, to be followed by the rest of us at speeds which varied with physical condition and (inversely) with age.

As the last of us reached the top of the hill, we found that the two missing walkers were just arriving via the drive. They had taken the traditional right-hand route to the top, and so they were not nearly so winded as those of us who had just run up that big hill.

This is the traditional rest spot on the walk. So according to tradition, and also becuase most of us were breathing pretty hard at this point, we sat down on the long rail fence, and rested. This panoramic shot shows everyone except me who was on the walk taking a breather.

The walkers leave the Arboretum through the upper gate onto Geddes Avenue, and proceed East along Geddes Avenue, following it all the way back to the starting place at Gallup Park.

It is a pleasant journey, and conducive to breaking up into small groups to chat about whatever comes to mind. I found myself engrossed in a conversation about software with Jan, who is a fellow programmer. So there is not much I can report about our return on this particular day.

The total distance is about three miles, and the walk is usually over by about 11:30 AM. I noticed this line of willows along the banks of Gallup Lake were just beginning to show the emergence of green, so I snapped this picture at the end of the walk.

When the walk is finished, the Grexers will usually head to a local restaurant to "debrief", where sometimes they may be met by other Grexers who chose not to walk. The location of the debriefing is agreed to by consensus on-line on Grex. A schedule of upcoming debriefing sites can be viewed on the Grex system.

It costs nothing to use Grex. All you need is a terminal or a computer with a modem. In Ann Arbor dial 761-3000 or telnet to cyberspace.org, and log in as "newuser" to get a free account for yourself. Then you can discuss matters both great and small with others, and also participate in the process of deciding which restaurant will be the one chosen each week.

The text, drawing, and photos for this site were all made by Steven R. Weiss and are all copyright 1996, Steven R. Weiss. The Ascii map was drawn by Mark Conger. The web site was made available by the Huron Valley Community Network. Please direct any comments or suggestions to Steven R Weiss at srw@cyberspace.org.