Wandering Around, With Photos.

Yesterday I had occasion to be out in Corbett, an itty-bitty town up the Gorge.  I was at Menucha Conference Center, and I had a bit of free time on my hands.

So I went exploring, lured by the promise of walking trails and spectacular views, and by the glint of sunlight on damp leaves.

They weren't kidding about the views, that's for sure.

Though the river was mostly hidden behind a generous curtain of trees, this was the view from the swimming pool.  The pool itself was also spectacular:

Not so much in the "wanna dive in!" sense as in: Wow that's green.

Not far from the emerald pool was a giant stone hearth.  It has clearly been far too long since someone set up a blaze here:

You could definitely cook some stuff in that thing.  If you click to see the photo larger, you might notice the inexplicable initials inside: J M.  It's obvious that stories are piled up here, thick and musty as the dead leaves.

Menucha also has a really nice labyrinth, made of brick and stone and moss and pebbly mosaic:

The plastic jugs had candles in them, stabilized by sand.

Walking the labyrinth is probably my favorite form of meditation.  The twists and turns made me think of the unexpected nature of living life in a chronologically linear fashion, and how sometimes, when it looks like you are moving away from the goal, you are actually moving toward it.

But the rich smell of damp leaf mold and sweet evergreen lured me deeper into the woods, past all the interesting things made of concrete and rocks.  I picked a trail and a direction, and started walking.

I didn't know where I was going.  I had a rough trail map, and a vague idea that most of the trails went in a circle, but I didn't really know where I was... and that was the best feeling.  My favorite dreams are like this, where I'm in an interesting place and I'm exploring it, with no sense of urgency, discovering curious new things at every turn.

There were a lot of things to discover, here.

I was sort of obsessed with all the moss, and took way too many macro shots of it.  Here is the best one:

The ferns were amazing, too.  I was trying to get a really good shot of the ferns from the underside, like from the perspective of a little forest creature looking up through them, when I was distracted by the sound of someone picking their way down the bank. I was annoyed -- I was enjoying the solitude and didn't want to shift back into polite banter mode -- but when I looked up, I froze.  It was a mule deer, about to take a shortcut across the path.  It saw me and it, too, paused.

I tried to sneak in a sneaky photo, without moving or looking away, just hoping I had the deer in the shot.  Flash!  ...oops.

 
Instead of bolting, though, the deer walked a few paces back (off to the right, still in the frame of this shot) and stopped moving, still nearly in full view.

Ah. Excuse me.  I walked softly away, and so (I saw, glancing nonchalantly back over my shoulder) did the deer.

I followed a narrow side trail, which began wobbling down a hillside toward the sound of rushing water.  I began to get excited about this stream, and about taking pictures of it.  But the mud was getting muddier and muddier, and I wasn't wearing mud-friendly shoes.  So when I reached a particularly swampy stretch of path, closely flanked by tall drippy weeds and blocked by a substantial spiderweb, I turned back... but not before looking up.

The weather has been all wrong for autumn color this year, but a few trees managed to represent anyway.  The gold-on-blue is so heraldic, I think.  Giving up short of a goal is always disappointing, but the golden tree made it feel like a triumphant moment: I came this far! And I knew when it was time to turn back!  Huzzah!