Tour Countdown : I probably shouldn’t eat that?

Tour Countdown Continues: Leaving Ithaca for East Durham, our friends drove with us as as far as the town of Caroline, where we went for a quick hike at Roy H. Park Preserve.

Not before parking in Park’s park parking lot.

The preserve counts bears, beavers, fishers, minks and 50 different types of birds amongst its inhabitants. Us chatterboxes gave them plenty of warning, so if they were there we didn’t see any of them. I heard a few splashes and flutters and other signs of life though and did spot several different multi coloured mushrooms. Some of these were I am sure perfectly edible, some possibly hallucinogenic and some probably poisonous. I base this on the law of averages. I decided that I knew only enough to know I didn’t know nearly enough to chance it.

We had a relaxing walk in the shadow of the arches of the pine trees. A good place for daydreaming. It made me wonder, not for the first time, about the role of fungi in Irish mythology. Feeling like you were soundlessly racing through a forest without so much breaking a twig might be more explicable after a feed of Psilocybe semilanceata.

 

Heading back to East Durham now on the elevated Route 88. The sun is shining. We’ve been having some good chats. Now we are sitting in silence listening to Chris Mills’ ‘The Heavy Years‘. It is a great retrospective collection of Chris Mills’ music between 2000-2010. (He has done perhaps his best album ‘Alexandria’ since then.)  This is a great album and a generous introduction to his music for the new listener as well as being a great Mills mix tape for the fan. I highly recommend it.

I’ve been thinking about doing a similar compilation myself one of these days. Any thoughts on that, or what should be on that, are most welcome.

I leave on tour, one week from tomorrow.

Tour dates can be found here:

http://www.niallconnolly.com/events/