Wanderings in the Woods

School has been leaving me pretty burned out, so this weekend, I decided it was time for a change of pace.  And I thought the easiest way to accomplish that would be to have a change of scenery.  Thus, I decided I would go to the park.  I love the park, but I haven't been there in at least a year, probably longer.  I always think I don't have time, but I should really make time for it more often.

 

 

It was also a wonderful excuse to break out my awesome hat that I rarely have a chance to wear.

 

The park has lots of trails, many of which lead down to the lake, which is a nice place, if a bit sunnier than I like.  I prefer finding a bench or a log in the forest to sit and think or write.

I did manage to get some writing done, which was my goal, but not quite as much as I'd wanted.  I did, however, get lots more exercise than I'd planned.  You see, the trails around the park are like a maze: each large path has many different, smaller, sometimes unmarked paths leading off of them.  And my theory when walking is to choose the most interesting looking paths, which generally tend to be those tiny, barely traveled paths.  (Two roads diverged in a yellow wood and all that.)

This usually isn't a problem, because all the small paths eventually lead back to a larger path and all the larger paths eventually lead back to the park.  The only issue is knowing which direction to go.

So eventually I found myself back on a larger path and randomly chose which direction to go.  At some point I realized that the path was taking me around the lake, but I didn't think much of it, because the path twisted and turned and looped back so much that I had no idea where I was.  I did eventually get to the end of it, only to see this:

 
Yup.  The trail ended, not at the park, but at a road.  And the park was three miles back the way I'd just come.  I was not a particularly happy hiker at that point.  For one thing, I was wearing a long skirt and non-hiking boots, which wasn't the best for lots of hiking.  Also, I hadn't had any water since I'd left my house about three hours earlier, so I was pretty thirsty.  Next time I'm bringing a water bottle.

I did get back to the park eventually, but I was pretty exhausted and my feet were quite sore.  Despite all this, I had a really fun time at the park and did have some time to sit peacefully in the middle of the forest and write.