4/5/03 Miles to date: 12.2
Followed Jet through steep slopes, up and down, dark, echoing tunnels with pictographs of people, animals, butterflies, and eggs(?!) plastered along the walls. He found a cold stream up on the wall of the cave and asked me to hold him up to drink from it. We both giggled when he set his thumb on the outlet and sprayed us both with the ice cold water. We trod up and down and across and around as fast as Jet could go. He loved the cool quiet and studied everything we went by. We went through about seven slopes each way and seven tunnels, I wonder if this is a dwarven path with numerical significance?
4/7/03 Miles to date: 14.5
Walked this one on my own, as John ran ahead to scope out the terrain. A snowy, wet spring day, the flakes falling fat through an iron grey sky. The mountains were shadowy ghosts amid the veil of snow. The fields look brown and sere from a distance, but as I walked by, I could see the soft green undergrowth of new, young plants. I'm glad of of the wet snow, as it'll feed the lives that are here. The ponds and streams are filling fast. The pond by my walk was a calm, mirror surface pocked by the tiny droplets from the snow. There are farmers fields, plowed and either seeded or ready for seed. The springs here are so short but so intense with life, it's great to be out in it, breath the sharp air and splash a few puddles.
It's good to walk, to feel muscles moving, breath flowing, heart working strong and steady to the steady rhythm of my pace. I'm really starting to enjoy this, now that I'm past the initial soreness that always plagues the beginning of most journeys.