It's Fall and the best time of year, around here anyway, to do any kind of backpacking and camping. Sure it's a touch cold on some nights, more importantly the mornings, but it's worth it. The lack of crowds and bugs, it makes it more doable.
However, since I only have one trip set to happen for sure (annual brothers camping trip), there aren't more in the immediate future. So I have to look forward. My son wants to go to Maine again to see the place with the trampoline in the water, I don't blame him because it was a neat place to see, but there are so many other places, how do you repeat once place in lieu of trying another place that might be even more amazing? That's a question my wife and I have time to decide about.
That thought brings up the thought of all the other places we'll never get to see or explore. That is depressing! I sit in this chair at my desk, trying to figure out a way to get to these new places but unless the lotto comes through, there's no way for me to get to do that without disowning my family and being poor. Not something I want to do. I guess the only solution is to do as much as you can, whenever you can and for as long as you can. You can only do what you can do, right?
Sometimes I'm fine with that thinking and other times I hate the very thought of it.
In the next few years I hope to put several miles on my tired of sitting at my desk sore legs. I love being in the woods. I love being up on an exposed rock top, wind blowing by my ears, the sun sneaking through the cold and the wind. It's an extraordinary feeling, once I miss almost every day.
So with the new job comes a new search for where the next year will take our family on the road, although local places are great, they're just that, local and mostly easy to access. We can do them any time.
Here's to planning your adventures.
Wednesday, November 12, 2014
Tuesday, November 11, 2014
A Walk thru Ivyland and a Walk Thru Time
Ivyland (Borough) is a small town in Bucks County, PA. The Borough itself is a historical place, with many of the homes over 100 years old and in very nice condition. There are tree lined streets with sidewalks flat with the street and no curbs. The speed limit is 25 everywhere, but there's barely any traffic. Most homes have slate roofs and some form of barn that is as old as the homes, complete with sliding doors and just the appropriate amount of wear and tear patina they deserve. The train runs through the edge of town, right where it goes from being a quaint little borough to a modern industrial park, complete with offices, traffic, noise and full parking lots.
As I am almost halfway through my last week of work at my current employer I went for a nice walk through the borough. The leaves crinkling underfoot, the smell of many variety of old trees and old houses wafting through the air set the scene. You'd never know you were a quarter mile from a very busy state road and three-quarters of a mile to a major, four lane, state road. It's very quiet, weirdly quiet.
I have walked through this little place many times in the past almost nine years, and it always feels the same. It feels like I have walked through a timewarp, I'm in a town that as a child I never stepped foot in but the feel and the air make me feel like I'm walking back in time, through a memory. For my childhood neighborhood had trees nearby with the same smells and leaves as this town. There were only new homes in my neighborhood, with the exception of a few, and those houses smelled just like this whole borough. The smell of the leaves I think is the part that directly drives me back to my elementary school days, the smell of fall always drives me back to that time period. I almost feel like no one is there, anywhere. It's as if nothing else existed outside of this small town and my walk through it.
I'd walk home from school a lot then, it feels a lot like my walks though Ivyland, which I think is why I feel so close to the place. It's so hard to explain the feeling, it feels like my childhood home but I know it isn't. Between the silence and the ever so random falling leaves, it feels like time has almost stopped. It always makes me think of so many things, life, where I am in it, adventure, home, family, holidays, being a kid, playing in a local park, being able to walk to a local store or your friends house without an ounce of concern about how far you were going because they were within four blocks. It makes me think of snow storms that would bury these homes and being inside them, warmed by a fire, the smell of an old home, looking out weathered windows. I feel holiday dinners, with all the tradition and fanfare, but none of the department store bullshit. Just family, food and a warm comfortable home filled with love.
I think it's the changing of the seasons that does this to me, it's just just where I am, it's the season in general. It's the bringing the end of a year, the end of a fruitful season filled with outside fun and sunshine. It's time to stock up the firewood, get out the blankets, build a fire and sit with loved ones in front of it while it crackles through the cold night.
I am very much looking forward to the cold nights ahead, nights spend cozy on the couch or bundled up outside watching the stars on a cold, crisp and quiet night.
As I am almost halfway through my last week of work at my current employer I went for a nice walk through the borough. The leaves crinkling underfoot, the smell of many variety of old trees and old houses wafting through the air set the scene. You'd never know you were a quarter mile from a very busy state road and three-quarters of a mile to a major, four lane, state road. It's very quiet, weirdly quiet.
I have walked through this little place many times in the past almost nine years, and it always feels the same. It feels like I have walked through a timewarp, I'm in a town that as a child I never stepped foot in but the feel and the air make me feel like I'm walking back in time, through a memory. For my childhood neighborhood had trees nearby with the same smells and leaves as this town. There were only new homes in my neighborhood, with the exception of a few, and those houses smelled just like this whole borough. The smell of the leaves I think is the part that directly drives me back to my elementary school days, the smell of fall always drives me back to that time period. I almost feel like no one is there, anywhere. It's as if nothing else existed outside of this small town and my walk through it.
I'd walk home from school a lot then, it feels a lot like my walks though Ivyland, which I think is why I feel so close to the place. It's so hard to explain the feeling, it feels like my childhood home but I know it isn't. Between the silence and the ever so random falling leaves, it feels like time has almost stopped. It always makes me think of so many things, life, where I am in it, adventure, home, family, holidays, being a kid, playing in a local park, being able to walk to a local store or your friends house without an ounce of concern about how far you were going because they were within four blocks. It makes me think of snow storms that would bury these homes and being inside them, warmed by a fire, the smell of an old home, looking out weathered windows. I feel holiday dinners, with all the tradition and fanfare, but none of the department store bullshit. Just family, food and a warm comfortable home filled with love.
I think it's the changing of the seasons that does this to me, it's just just where I am, it's the season in general. It's the bringing the end of a year, the end of a fruitful season filled with outside fun and sunshine. It's time to stock up the firewood, get out the blankets, build a fire and sit with loved ones in front of it while it crackles through the cold night.
I am very much looking forward to the cold nights ahead, nights spend cozy on the couch or bundled up outside watching the stars on a cold, crisp and quiet night.
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