Whew! I’ve had enough with the Excessive Heat Warnings already and it’s only halfway through the summer. And why do they always have to coincide with the days my partner and I are both available for a walk? Between long hours at his day job and my side-gig teaching, it’s not every day that we’re able to hop in the car and find a place to walk, but I’m still struggling with the change from an 11,000 step a day commute to a thousand steps a day on a good day of working from home in my little city apartment. I need to move, need to get out, and need the weather to cooperate!

Today we headed over to Montclair, NJ. For us, Montclair usually means the independent movie theater where we often went for a double feature, but of course, no one’s doing that anymore….

But I found a short, flat walk promising views of the city and wildflowers over in Eagle Rock Reservation, and we hopped in the car. It’s starts out along the Lenape Trail, a project named for the Leni Lenape people (meaning literally “Original People”) mostly forced out of New Jersey, build a hiking trail connecting Essex County’s major green spaces and historic sites. On Eagle Rock Reservation in Montclair, it’s a wide trail with some impressive protective stonework built in.

And there are some nice views of the city from Eagle Rock. We drove past the September 11th memorial, a grassy space offering an expansive view of the city and some nice bronzes, but there were quite a few people there, and we didn’t get out of the car.

These days, this is as close as I get to New York City….

Do I still love moss in the sunlight? Yep!

Also definitely still into ferns….

But despite what my app promised me, there were only two kinds of wildflower I could find along the trail. Must be the wrong season for that, I guess (though my allergies may protest!)….