8-22-08: The Great Outdoors

I took today off and went hiking. The location: Sleeping Giant State Park in Hamden, CT. It's about a 40 minute drive for me, but well worth it. Pretty decent hiking trails.

The weather was fantastic. Sunny, not too hot, with a gentle breeze at the top. It didn't take me long to make it up to the top, which isn't that high but the view is still really good. You can see all the way to New Haven, which is interesting. At the bottom of the post are some pictures I took from my phone's camera.

But the strangest part of the trip was on the road. More specifically: the road that Sleeping Giant State Park is on: Mount Carmel Avenue. Apparently, at the corner of Mt. Carmel Ave and New Road, they put in a stop sign. I found this out when I almost ran completely through it.


View Larger Map

Fortunately for me, there was no one turning. That wasn't the case when I left. On my way back, I stopped going the other way, and got a front row seat to an accident. A girl of around 18 or 19 was driving a Volkswagen Jetta and ran through that same stop sign and nailed a guy in a Honda Element turning left. She hit the brakes at the last second, but the damage was done. I don't think any one was seriously injured, though the driver of the Element, an older guy with his teenage son, was pretty shaken up. He might've hurt his neck. I pulled over and walked over to see if every one was OK. The girl was pretty calm, though she panicked a bit on the phone with her mother. But she did calm down, which was good to see. I stuck around until the police showed up, along with the fire department and ambulance, then was allowed to leave without having to give an account of what I saw. It was pretty clear-cut: the girl ran the stop sign. I empathized, though, since I had almost done the exact same thing just a few hours earlier. I told her that and I think it helped a little.

A guy with a walking stick, I'd guess he was in his mid 50's, walked over and I chatted with him for a bit. We both agreed that stop sign was poorly placed. My guess is that they'll give drivers more notice of the stop by making a bigger "STOP AHEAD" sign on that road. It's in a poor place either way; in Massachusetts there wouldn't even be one there. It's a main road; who'd have thought they'd need one? Anyway, I hope every one was OK.