Adventure Two -- Montani semper liberi.

Mountaineers are always free, says Latin.  There aren't many mountains around Salina, but Lakewood Discovery Center/Park might just be the next best thing.

You can check out a little bit of it here:  http://www.naturalkansas.org/lakewood.htm

The actual Discovery Center was closed, so I went on a hike!  I'm always a little nervous to go into a wooded area alone.  It's a little too Law and Order for me (SVU).  At first, all the little noises scared me.  I purposely didn't bring music so that I wouldn't get pounced upon by wild animals/predators of the human kind without keen sense of hearing.  :)  The lack of music was refreshing.  Rather than focusing on my usual daydream, I could pay attention to the crunch of the wooden mulch beneath my feet, the sound of the wind high above me moving through the trees...and the butterfly that hitched a ride on my t-shirt for a solid minute.  

Before going on this hike, I admit I was a little distraught.  It had not been a great 15 hours preceding the hike.  My head was swimming and I needed the solitude.  It was 91 degrees.

Luckily, I left my horse at home.

A fork in the path -- you can always find something relevant to your life in nature.

I call these next photos "adventures in self-photography."  At the very least, when I get married, we'll be really good at using the timer on our honeymoon so that innocent bystanders won't have to suffer and all our pictures won't be of us awkwardly alone.

This was the most whimsical part of the woods -- Puck could have come around any corner.

This afternoon hike was filled with glorious alone time.  My mood immediately improved after being in nature -- and spending a little me time. It's hard to be unhappy in the woods.  Unless it's dark.  And there's a Blair Witch involved.  

I wanted to leave you with a little something from Henry David Thoreau, a man who did great things alone...most appropriately about the woods.  But he wrote something else that I love to think about.  

"How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live."  

How correct, HDT, how correct.  

Which is exactly what I plan to do.