shades in the winter

this evening mindy and i ended up at shades state park for no reason at all. one of my favorite places in the world. i love it there in the winter. first of all it's free. then: the quiet of the woods. the sound of your footsteps and the occasional animal darting through the dead wet leaves and brush. you feel like howling. and you do. best of all, there's no one there, save for one ranger who opens and closes the gate each day.

i used to run here in the winter. scalding the tepid paths with intentioned footsteps. breathing steam and dust. now i'm too fat for that. so we walked around and skipped around and jumped around. played on the swings. mindy played with the camera a bit and took all these pictures. we checked out the woods and watched the sun set, till the ranger found us and told us it was time to go home. but we had a fun pointless excursion.