That Time Again - First Spring Walk!

Wow, the weather outside has gone from frightful to delightful in just a few weeks so when hubby walked into the living room, lifted an eyebrow and tossed his head towards the door, I knew what that meant. Our first of the year after dinner walk – to Lindenwald.

I’ve gone over this before, but in case you don’t know, Lindenwald is the former home of our eighth president, Martin Van Buren (nicknamed The Red Fox of Kinderhook – a little inside info for you). We live only a few miles from there and across the road from his estate trails through the woods beckon. One of our very favorite spots.

This evening we also had our grand dog, Casey, in our care. She’s only three and full of spunk, sass and energy. Good grief – lots of that. When you ask her if she’d like to go for a ride she’s all about it. But she had no clue where we were going and was in for a treat. Every dog we’ve walked there has loved it.

Dogs are just the best, aren’t they? So willing to love you and aid and abet you’re every whim and fancy. When we’d secured our walking sticks from the trunk hubby opened the car door and out Casey flew. Wow! What was this? A whole new world full of awesome smells and crunchy twigs, leaves and holes in tree trunks. Here we go!

And here – in my mind – is where we walk into a timeless zone. Hubby calls it a high climax forest. That is, very little in the way of underbrush and towering (and decaying) trees. Sauntering along you can almost imagine smoke from long ago camp fires, horses hooves on the wooden bridge over the gurgling creek below, and deer watching you with studied calm. The further in we move the less we can hear of the outside world.

And while I’m waxing all romantic about earlier times, Casey is bounding along in joy like only a young dog can. Soaring ahead of us, but only so far. Dashing in wide circles in the woods, but casting an eye backwards to make sure we’re keeping up. Plunging her nose into leaf piles and coming up with a sneeze and a head shake only to plunge in again. With other dogs we’ve ducked behind trees to see if they’d turn back to find us, but we’re getting to old for that. Besides, you can’t do to a grand child – er, dog – what you did to your own dogs. Right?

As we came to a turn in the path I saw this just ahead. Someone, maybe Daniel Boone, needed a lean-to for the evening. Pretty cool, huh?

Our walking sticks helped us plow up the next rise and kept us from tumbling as the rise fell on the other side going for the foot bridge. Casey, of course, investigated the trickling stream below and I tried to take a snap of a small eddy at the edge. See it there? 

As we gained the end of our trek, we noticed doggy was draggin’ her wagon a bit. Great romps of delight can’t last forever and a happy exhaustion sets in. She was making double sure by now that she was close to us and soon traffic sounds could be heard again.

“Casey!” Hubby starts the call and she slows a bit more. The parking lot is close by and that other world we inhabit calls to us. We all hopped back into the car, happy and tired. The first walk of spring. Awesome. I hope you have a special place like this – and visit it often. Maybe you even  have a dog to aid and abet you. Happy walking!