Whereas, the best place to walk is in the woods.
Whereas, Roanoke is surrounded by a bounty of woods and mountains.
Whereas, for scores and scores of weeks in succession over the second half of the past decade and now into a new one we have retreated to said woods.
Be it nonetheless also Whereas-ed that:
The Great Roanoke Snow Of 2009 remained on this date hard, fast, frozen and slick upon the land, especially the higher reaches thereof.
The predicted high in said surrounding mountains for this date and the other weekend day to follow began with the number 2 or 1 and the windchill with a 1 or a 0.
The Greatest Day Hiker Of Them All just… well, she just don’t like the cold all that much.
Be It Therefore Declared That:
On this Ninth Day of January in the Year 2010,
We Weenied Out.
Well, not totally. We weenied out of the woods, but we did put on our layers and shoes that would carry us over several miles. We did walk through some woods (along the Murray Run Greenway), see some big trees and some wildlife.
But even a six-mile urban walk is not a woods hike. You’re dodging the occasional car instead of ducking under the occasional branch. You’re admiring residential architecture instead of big trees. You’re surprised to see an animal rather than surprised to see a person.
Still, picking your way through the most-wooded way you can find for three miles or so to Barnes & Noble is a good walk. And finding a new Cheryl Wheeler CD for the trouble is nearly as good as anything you can find in the woods. And what you find there you’re not supposed to bring back home.
And the walk back, while not downhill as is the ideal of our out-and-backs, was fairly flat. And toward its end, the missing of the woods seemed to visit us: For along Murray Run, Gail caught sight of three striking, long-billed birds in flight – herons? And a block or so later, at the corner of Brandon and Mount Vernon near our house, a huge tree caught my eye; one that we had walked or run by hundreds of times and I had never noticed. As big around and most anything we see in the forest. Old growth right in the ‘hood?
The other good thing about an urban walk? Makes you hanker to get back into the woods all the more.
January 9, 2010
