Flea Market Guy and I took a short drive to the dam on Saturday. It’s been a while since we’ve been on a trail together. I guess it was in the Fall before winter set in and the days were five minutes long.
I’m so happy that every day we get about 2 extra minutes of sunshine. I think the sun is setting after 6 these days, which makes me very happy. I know an hour or so shouldn’t make such a difference in my attitude, but it really does.
The dam is about 30 minutes from our house. I think we have 3 in that general proximity. One North of us, one South of us and one East of us. There may be one West of us but I don’t know of it if there is.
We use the alltrails app when we do decide to get on a trail. We are not avid hikers at all, but we can definitely keep up for the most part. The app can track your location and point you to the type of trail you want to go on. They have easy trails ranging from a loop around a city park to hard mountain climbs. Each destination has a list of user reviews and you can even record your hike and get info on elevation and other stats.
We usually just use it to find a trail that we might like. He looks for things close to our house. I look for trails next to bodies of water. It’s pretty easy to find both especially with a dam in all directions.
We went to a trail called “songbird trail.” There were no song birds. We did see some old mining equipment and pumps from when the dam was first built. And we walked and talked and just spent some much needed time together away from our day to day existence.
I’m a fan of hiking and walking and getting outside. I could do it daily. Sometimes I do. FMG, not so much. He likes it, but he doesn’t LOVE it. And he definitely doesn’t want to do it every single Saturday, but this Saturday he was up for it.
I think getting away from all the stresses of real life is good for the soul. A walk on a trail is just as good as a nice meditation session. It’s basically the same thing. Even when you are not alone. We chatted about the birds that were nowhere to be found and how the white oaks were perfectly spaced. We guessed how old they might be. I hugged a couple of trees thinking it would tell me. We settled on them being in their 40’s and guessed that they were planted around the time that we were born. That satisfied our curiosity and we moved on.
When we got to the dam we debated whether we would be able to run up the hill to safety if the dam broke and the water came sweeping in after us. I said we would definitely make it to safety. FMG thought we would die. I assured him that I would not die, because I have been working out and maybe he should re-think his exercise regimen. A nice gentleman walking the trail agreed with FMG that we would all, in fact, die if the dam broke. Men can be such pessimists.
We did see a crane and tried to get close enough to hug him. Cranes are not very affectionate birds. They like to be alone and definitely at arms length… really long arms length. I did manage to get a picture of him.
It took us a little over an hour to walk the trail with our exploring and stopping. I was quite ready to go home when we got back to the truck. I’m not a fan of freezing weather. I think it was about 34 degrees and I did wear the wrong pants or maybe I just didn’t wear enough layers of pants because my butt and the tops of my legs were very cold. But my heart was warm and I think that’s all that matters.
RouletteWeekend 