A Walk in the Woods

I’d finished up a little archery practice after dinner when the kids cornered me and wanted to know if I’d go on a hike with them. It wasn’t too late, yet. The light was fading fast though as it was close to 6 o’clock. In truth, I really didn’t want to go. I think that, sometimes, I tell them “No” too many times when they want me to do something with them. That’s a funny thing to say considering my situation, but there it is.

Counter-intuitively, that probably makes it easier for me to say it. I’m around them so much that I never want for “kid time.” Most of that time, though, is kind of the family equivalent of “business.” Going to school, picking up from school, meals, going to martial arts, and all the other running around. Doing things that are just fun and frivolous aren’t as frequent anymore.

So, in the end, I took them for a hike.

I grabbed a flashlight and a toothpick (just finished dinner, remember?) and we headed out. There are two ways we could go that don’t involve roads- South and North. South is a short hike that skirts the several neighbors’ backyards and ends near a stream. North takes us to a different part of the stream that we can cross. From there, it’s fields and woods into the next town.

We went North.

“What’s that for?” the boy asked pointing at the flashlight.

“It gets dark quick nowadays,” I replied.

“What’s that for, Dad?” asked the lass about 5 seconds later. She’d lagged behind and caught up. I told her to ask the boy.

The initial part of the hike was through some woods. The path is easy enough to pick out, but there are tall grasses and twiggy brush along the way that is impossible to avoid. There are also downed trees that are easy enough for me to step over. Not so much for the kids. The lass was soon complaining about her legs getting scratched- she’d chosen shorts for her hiking attire. The boy was looking forward to seeing “The Mansion.”

“The Mansion” isn’t really a mansion, but it is a large house. It’s located across the street from us and up a hill. It actually can’t be seen from our house or from the road. But if we hiked far enough the way we were going, we’d be able to get to an elevated point that would allow us to pick out “The Mansion” on the hill. I think I’d mentioned this once before in the boy’s presence. He’d clearly never forgotten and had it in his mind that he’d finally get his chance to see “The Mansion.”

He asked how far we had to go. By this point, we’d come out of the stretch of woods and into our first field. To get to the point where we could see “The Mansion,” we had to cross the stream and continue East. There was a second, longer stretch of woods to pass through and we’d come to another field. Then, we had to go to the other side of that field and we’d be able to view it. I wasn’t so sure it would work out since the light was fading fast, but this was the adventure he had set his mind on. After finishing The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. No dragons though.

We crossed the stream and continued along into the next field. It was a corn field that had already been harvested. Shaved stalks created neat rows and patterns all around us. The lass grabbed the nearest one and proclaimed it “her stalk.” Our first trophy from our adventure, I suppose. The boy was asking questions about how I knew where to go. In spite of her trophy, the lass was getting bored and regretting coming on the hike. She came up and took my hand as we entered the woods on the far side of the field.

I used to bring our oldest dog for walks back here. Back when I still had a normal job and walks in the woods with your dog was a stress relieving adventure. She wood run all over. If I walked 1 mile, she loped 5. She was never out of earshot, though many a time I lost site of her. I’d call and she’d come racing back to check in, then bound off again in search of other things to sniff.

We trudged through the woods. The boy was peppering me with questions about what it was like with the dog back here. Did I have her on a leash? What did she do? Where did she go? Did she come back? Could she follow a scent back to the house? Would she be happy to come back here now?

The trail is over grown from when I used to hike back there. Not so much that it was hard to follow the trail. But enough that the grasses continued to nip at the lass’ legs. The boy’s too. They would take a few steps, then pick a leg up and wipe it with there hand to stop the itching.

The boy was wondering where we were headed now and if we had much farther to go. I told him we were looking for a wall and that we had a ways to go. The field we were heading too is several football fields long, plus the remainder of the hike through the woods. He didn’t complain and the lass just continued to concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other.

The wall we were looking for is an old stone wall. Looking at it now, with my new eyes for stone wall construction, I could appreciate that it was a well built wall. Even spacing between stones, a nice flat face and a flat defined top. Someone, at sometime, had taken some care in assembling it. Trees were slowly wrecking it now, though. Either because of trees falling on it or because of roots coming up under it. Attacked from above and below, it was slowly ceding ground. There were also sections that had clearly been dismantled by people who’d decided they need a way to pass through. But the parts that are still intact are a testament to it’s builder.

We walked along the stone wall for the final leg through the woods. This is a gentle uphill stretch that’s a bit tricky due to roots jutting out from the ground. It’s easy to catch a toe and get tripped up. There were also tree limbs that I had trouble dodging. The lass noted “Sometimes it’s better to be short, huh Dad?” She wasn’t wrong. The boy could see the opening to the field and bounded up to it, buoyed by the realization that he was at the final leg of his journey.

The lass and I emerged and she sighed. The field was looooong. Just like I’d told them. The boy had his hands on his knees about 50 yards in. I think he’d run all the way there before realizing he would never be able to sprint across the entire field. The lass griped again about going home. The complaints about the grass were worst for this stretch. Long and thick, it caused there legs to itch on every step. Even the boy finally admitted he should have worn jeans.

The boy was marvelling at how he didn’t feel tired. The lass was wishing she’d eaten more for dinner. Then she asked whether the dog had been this far back and when I told her she had, it seemed to lift her spirits to think of the dog trotting through the field she now trudged through. She like the thought of her being happy and exploring. She kept asking, trying to flesh out all the details of what the dog had done, where she’d gone.

We finally reached the other side of the field and turned around. I could make out a light on the hill, way back across our street. It was well into dusk now, and without that light it would have been hard to see “The Mansion.” As it was, there was little detail that could be discerned. If I hadn’t told the kids that it was a big house that sat there, they’d never have known based on the view.

We stood and admired the view for a bit. The gray clouds in the sky were streaked red from the sunset. The boy noted what looked like a rainbow next to the clouds. Even though he couldn’t really see the house, he didn’t seem disappointed. The lass too, seemed to be in a better mood. Perhaps it was because she knew the next stop would be home.

Still, with the light almost gone, she took my hand for the walk back. She wanted to hold the flashlight, but I declined. When I wouldn’t pass it to her, she asked me to turn it on. I told her “When we get back to the woods. There’s still enough light to walk through field. You wouldn’t want the batteries to run out, would you?” She didn’t push the matter any further.

The walk back seemed quicker than the walk out, in spite of the darkness that descended up on us through the woods. The boy commented on the difference and I tried to explain that when you don’t know where you’re going, you tend to notice everything and it makes time seem longer. But on the return journey, everything is familiar, so you tend to notice less and the time seems to go by quicker.

Along the way, I’d occasionally shine the light into the woods and scan it around. I did the same in the field. Both kids kept wondering what I thought I’d seen.

“Nothing,” I answered.

“Then why do you keep shining the light into the woods?” the boy asked.

“Because if I don’t stop and look, I won’t see anything. Maybe there’s a deer, or a rabbit, or a coyote out there. If I keep shining the light on the trail, that’s all I’ll see. So I stop and look around every now and again, because you never know.”

We walked together through the night. We detoured from our original path as we neared our house. Rather than passing through the woods to get back to there, we went around to the road. This was to benefit the lass, whom didn’t want to deal with the sticks and bushes nipping at her legs anymore. She’d held my hand the whole way, but let it go at the road. We walked with them in front of me so I could light them up with the flashlight for cars to see.

The lass had held onto her corn stalk all the way back to the house and she now tossed it onto the side of the driveway. The journey was over.

Before heading up to take showers, they both said they liked the walk. The lass added that she’d like it better if it had been during the day. They both wanted to do it again someday, they said.

I’ll have to oblige them.