Have you ever read "A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson (ISBN 978-030727946)? A friend of mine gave me the book several years ago as she knew I love hiking. I thoroughly enjoyed Bill Bryson's humour throughout his soul searching journey on the Appalacian Trail together with his pal Stephen Katz. While there is no deeper meaning to my hiking, I do feel it is food for the soul to be out in Nature's splendour.
My favourite "walk in the woods" is the redwoods without a doubt, but being surrounded by tall deciduous trees on a fall day in Ontario is a very close second. It felt like walking on a painter's palette from red to bronze to orange to yellow, with a little detour to green and brown and grey. Pictures do not do justice to the brilliant red of maple tees, although I tried many times!
Of the hundreds of pictures I took on our recent trip I keep coming back to one. It was taken from the top of the Dorset Fire Lookout Tower on Highway 35, a spectacular road to drive in the fall. 117 steps up the tower give you a 360 degree view of 824 square kilometers of trees and lakes, with a few roads thrown in there and there. It was breathtaking, so say the least. Some trees had already lost their leaves, giving a smoky appearance among all the colour, but that didn't take away from the beauty of the view at all.
But I don't have to travel to California or Ontario to go for a walk in the woods. There are some right here at the edge of our subdivision in Black Diamond. Songbirds, deer, wildflowers galore... I have it all a few steps from my front door. And if I drive for half an hour, I am in my beloved mountains. How lucky I am...
