Travels With Clancy: A Winter Morning Walk

Clancy and I finished up our 2011 Travels by discovering a new (to us, anyway) treasure in our own backyard.

As I mentioned in a previous post, Clancy and I regularly walk in Embshoff Woods, which is right down the street from our home. There is a trail that goes deeper into the woods that I have always wanted to try, but dogs were not permitted on the trail until recently. I'm not sure why the change was made, but the "no dogs" sign disappeared, so Clancy and I took advantage of some great weather over the Christmas weekend to check out the trail.

I love to walk in the morning, so we left home early and headed off down the road to the woods. We started down the trail just as the sun was peeking out through the trees.

As we continued walking, we saw six deer hanging out together and looking for their breakfast. I so wanted to get a picture of them, but unfortunately by the time I had my camera ready, the deer had disappeared, and all I could see was a blur of six white tails bobbing into the woods.

The deer appeared to be our sole companions though, as the only sound around us was this small creek babbling over the rocks.

 

I stopped to take Clancy's picture, and he was not the least bit pleased about having his walk interrupted. He didn't even try to hide his irritation.

Finally, after some prodding on my part, he made a feeble and totally insincere attempt to smile.

We had gone up a fairly steep hill at the start of the trail, and came upon this staircase at the end to get us back down to where we had started. I was a little on edge as the stairs were covered with a frosty glaze, but Clancy couldn't wait to head down them.

When we got to the bottom, I turned and looked back up the staircase, and was immediately reminded of the quote from Martin Luther King, Jr. that I wrote about in my New Year post.

Since I had been making my way up the figurative staircase of the writing world throughout 2011, it was somehow fitting that Clancy and I discovered this literal staircase to round out our 2011 travels.

My goal in traveling with Clancy was to discover the beauty in my own little corner of the world and, while I didn't get to as many places as I originally intended last year, I definitely feel I met my goal, as we discovered some absolutely gorgeous parks and trails. This trail alone is a great find for me, as it is so close to home, and I know it will be beautiful when the greenery of spring returns.

We may not have traveled to as many places last year as I originally planned, but we still have lots of time in 2012 to discover those places and more. I know Clancy will be ready to go too, even if he does have to suffer through the frustration of dealing with me and my camera.

Happy Friday to all, and I hope everyone has a great weekend!