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November 4, 2003 ~Graveyard Fields
Tuesday.
Morgan and I looked from the small wildlife track running off from the main trail to the groups of tourists walking along the main trail, then back to the wildlife track, then at each other. You can guess which way we went.
It was Sunday, Morgan's day off. We had been hoping for a moody, cold autumn day, but it wasn't to be. Instead, eighty degrees, and the tourists came out of hibernation, pouring along the trail at Graveyard Fields, talking loudly and complaining about how much uphill there is. (You came to the Mountains, people, what did you expect?)
We slipped off of the trail, following the faint track where other creatures tread. Unlike most places in these mountains, the habitat is not forested here. Tall grasses and shrubs grow here, and the occasional stunted tree. Brambles and bushes. Prairie-like plants. You can see far, across the lowlands, the waves of grasses, to the ridges, the mountains. The land is dotted with charred remains of bushes and small trees; it burnt recently.
We made our way meandering through the maze of wildlife tracks, happy to be away from the loud groups of people. We inspected the plants that we found along the way. Strange brooks that you could hear under the ground but not see.
Sitting with Morgan on a grassy knoll in a dip in the landscape, listening to the invisible brook and leaning against one another, under one of the stunted trees. Wanted to let the afternoon slip by us there. Us, the only two people in that world of whispering grasses and invisible gurgling brooks.
Times like that, the sun falls too fast.
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