Dear reader, over the weekend we made a quick getaway to the mountains. I don't know why I just said getaway. To be honest, I rarely feel the need to get away.
But I often feel the need for adventure.
Of all the virtues of the great outdoors, there is something in particular I especially enjoy..
Looking for things.
What sort of things?
Why, almost anything, I suppose. For starters, I'd like to know if there are any frogs in this pond. I wonder if there are frogs as small as my thumbnail, some speckled and brown, some mottled grey, some a brilliant shade of green.
I wonder if there are any trout in this creek. I wonder if they will drift along with the current and collect in sunny pools, barely moving at all.
I wonder if there are any nests in those trees. Any small, warm eggs or robins newly hatched, all soft and wobbly with gaping, expectant beaks.
I wonder what flowers, what smooth stones, what ribboning snakes adorn this meadow. There are crickets, the steady hum of bees, and two young girls passing through childhood at this very moment in time.
And look at our treasures! Look what we found! On top of a mountain, out in the meadow, in the bed of a stream--something from ages ago, something to stir the imagination, to make one wonder, to confirm in our minds that this is, indeed, an adventure.
Every step of the way.