10-11-02 @ 12:11 pm EDT

Okay, firstly, AAAAUUUGGGHHHHH!!! Fresh cool air makes my head hurt. *whine* All right. Moving on.

I finally went and walked the tracks...so to speak...considering that there haven't really been any tracks for years. It was so much different from the way I remembered doing it with Dad so long ago. Way back then, I insisted on picking up every single railroad spike I could find and bringing them home with me, so for a long time I had a box full of rusty railroad spikes gathering dust. o_O Well, what can I say? I'm a hoarder. I picked up one, then I had to have 'em all.

I also remembered, on seeing a little apple in the road--er--trail--that when we last went, we found apples, and Dad warned me not to eat them. I did eat some, but I don't think I ate a lot. You know how those wild apples are. Ick.

Anyway...it would have been nicer if the trees had more color to them. I can't believe it's the middle of October and they have yet to change, for the most part. It's still green! Usually all the leaves are GONE by Halloween, so what's up? Are they confused?

I still hope I got some good shots...fallen trees, the swamp water, bright red leaves. There must have been a hatch of woolly bears, as I found FOUR of them! I haven't seen a woolly bear in years! :D They're so durn cute. Some large bird went flapping off into the underbrush and scared me, and I saw a woodpecker battering his brains out against a tree. Flecks of bark were flying everywhere, poor guy. And despite the numerous "No Hunting" signs, I saw what appeared to be a deer blind, right beside the trail...hmm.

And...I WALKED THE RAILROAD BRIDGE!

I MUST have stated somewhere earlier in this journal, back in the mists of time, how Dad and I went out on it all those years ago. How the wind was blowing and I could see the water far below through the ties and I just LOST it. I had to CRAWL my way across, sobbing the whole way. I was just so scared that the wind would blow me off. I'm TERRIFIED of water, but even more so, I'm TERRIFIED!! of heights. The old railroad bridge has both. In abundance.

It was probably easier this time because it's since been converted into a snowmobile trail, so the bottom of it is boarded up solid. Can't see the river beneath it. I had to cross like three intersections to reach it...Jeez...I don't even remember those being there at all. And it seemed so SMALL when I came up to it...but it got bigger the moment I walked on! The metal, on close inspection, is more RED than black. All pocked and rusted. There were pebbles and old pop bottles lodged down on the lower bars, and animal feces all at one end. And the water was so, so green. I dropped a pebble in from the west side, but it went out of my sight beneath the bridge, swayed by the wind. So I did it on the east side and saw it PLUNK into the water. Eegh. It was a LOT farther down than I imagined it in D Is For Damien!! I imagined also where Dami and Lilu would have slept--more hospitable, more room, on the south end--and took pictures of the clouds reflecting in the water. Oh, how I hope those turn out. I may not be able to share them here, but I WILL share them! And I could see logs under the water, just lying there. Where are they from? Strange. And I DIDN'T FREAK OUT once! I noticed that when I looked UP I felt more nervous than when I looked DOWN. Somehow, the bars rising up over my head made me very nervous. Not that the bridge would fall on me...but I think because when you look up, you expose yourself to danger, and can easily lose your balance. Er something.

Then I started on the way back home. I picked up a couple of bright red leaves, two different pine sprigs (I snapped the needles on one and IT REALLY DOES SMELL LIKE PINE!), a big pretty rock, an aspen (?) sprig, a bitty piece of glass, and a teeny dead snake. (Well!! I've never seen one so teeny, and it was dead anyway! I'll get rid of it later!)

Oh, and lots of pictures too. Too many, in fact. Gotta go through them all. *sigh*

I hope some of the final ones I took on Hackmatack turn out too! The sun burst through the clouds over this farm right across from where I live and it was SO beautiful! Like God was smiling down on the fields or something. Yagh, and I'm not even religious. I'll be sure to share that one, if it turns out; I took a bunch of shots just in case, but I tend to be shutter-cursed.

And Cozbaby appears to be okay--I heard a crash just as I came in the door, don't know what that was, and he was pissed that I didn't take him with me, but I gave him one of the pine sprigs and put the scented one in water, along with the aspen sprig. I should probably put the snake in there too. To keep it fresh and stuff. :P Wish I had a Ziplock bag or whatever they're called. Trademark amnesia. Agh.

For a short while on the way there, it was almost like walking on Mackinac Island, if I really imagined. A couple of pretty little yellow butterflies flittered around me on the way back, and I thought of Manabozho. :) The weather grew warmer and I thought of Peepaukawiss. Maybe they're running their race today after all, who knows.

Well, I can't think of anything else to say, so I'll go now. Tar.