Walking to Michelle's

My friend Michelle recently moved to a house on the diagonally other side of campus, and we can walk to each other's houses!  And not only can we walk, but the walk is completely on wooded trails and through farm fields.  Today I tested out the route and mapped it as I walked.  The walk starts in the upper left hand corner, leaving my back woods by way of a stile.  (I discovered today that a tree limb has fallen on the fence beside the stile, taking down part of the stile and a section of fence.)

From there the walk goes down the mountain by way of a beautiful grassy hill full of wild flowers, ending at another stile.  I crossed the dirt road and went into a field that has just been planted in wheat (last year it was corn), and I walked all along the edge of the field and looked at the mountains at the back of the field.  I crossed the river on a little bridge (not shown) and entered another stile that led to the trail along the river.  I turned left and shortly came to the gate to the trail, two trees that form an opening.  Shortly beyond that is a grove of golden bamboo, from which I was sad to notice Owl Man is missing.

Students were skinny dipping in the river near the grove-- it's the time of year when classes in the afternoon become sparsely attended on warm days.  Coming out of the grove I passed a wonderous knobbly tree, and then the chicken yard.  The trail took a dive back into the wooded river edge, under a wooden pergola-like frame and over a small bridge over a creek.

Soon I came to some frog ponds, now alive with tadpoles, and two bird blinds.  After that is the old archaeology shelter, where we stored our equipment when the dig was open in the 90s.  All along here the air smelled like roses and honeysuckle and the river gurgled and birds sang.  The main trail continued on along the river, but I left the river and headed up the mountain on the Muhl Trail.  I couldn't really show it on the map-- this is NOT to scale in any way-- but this trail goes steeply up and up and up, passing overlooks through trees where you can see the farm fields down in the valley.  At the top of the hill the trail has a T intersection, and I took the right fork, which led sharply back down and into Michelle's subdivision, which has beautiful views.  It was 1.82 miles to her house, but I added a little on to the return trip to come out an even 4 miles round trip.  Took about an hour and ten minutes.