Trail Marker

I have continued to Ingress throughout the pandemic.  It's mostly been a matter of occupying grey portals and linking local fields.  Now a few blue players have become active in the area and that makes things more interesting. 

One of my favorite portals, in fact, the one where I earned my Onyx Guardian badge, is the Trail Marker.  It's a non-descript view point on a Bosque path northwest of the Candelaria Nature Center.  From the house, it makes a good goal for a bicycle workout, being about 5 miles round trip.  If I'm in a hurry, I can drive to the Nature Center and bike in from there.  

Trail Marker has changed hands a couple of times in the last few weeks.  Agent Burqueno has been very good about getting down there if it turns blue.  The Resistance seems to be led by Gordon56 when it comes to hitting the portals along the river path.  

Because the soil is basically sugar sand, getting to the portal requires walking your bike unless it's just rained.  Despite a couple spring showers, I've not hit the trail when it's been hard packed.  I've also not seen the wildflowers really taking off.  

My plan was to bike out to Trail Marker on Friday afternoon to get on the leaderboard for the new septicycle, the Ingress 7-day rotating calendar for team scores.  As it turns out, the windy afternoon dissuaded me.  But that was not before I threw a couple links from Kelly's on N. 4th.  That was enough for fields that put me unexpectedly at #1.