Geek Speak — HabitableZone

Geek Speak » in reply to You need a walk in the forest.

I like walks in the forest.
Tom Brosz — (archived)

I've been to Muir woods, Sequoia National Park, Yosemite, and other places. I like to walk in the woods.

I also like coming home from walks in the woods.

Cue the Twilight Zone music...you come back from your hike, and your car is gone. So is the road, and the information station. You turn, and the little paved path behind you is gone, too. Under the redwoods, there isn't that much underbrush, so you can walk. You head down the area where the road used to be.

It starts getting dark. You still have your backpack, and some food and a couple of bottles of water. You have a good set of shoes. Good thing, too. They'll have to last you a while. There's a small creek, so you have water. If it's drinkable. You'll find out sooner or later.

The air is cleaner than you've ever known it. The faint smell of car exhaust that came even here from the road is gone.

The darkness settles in, and you find a small hollow at the base of a tree. It's better than nothing. Who knows what year it is, or what season? It's still warm at night. It won't be forever. Like people who live out in the country already know, you learn how dark night REALLY is.

Maybe you're one of those people who knows what plants are good to eat, and how to build things from bark and branches. Who can skin a rabbit, and make fire with a bow and tinder. Maybe you'll come out pretty well, like Robinson Crusoe. Maybe. You might have to cut down a tree or two in the process.

There's a noise off in the woods. You suddenly know what it's like not to hold a nice reserved spot at the very top of the food chain.

Cue Serling, with the moral:

Getting away from civilization is only fun when you can go back any time you want.

The difference between me and a typical "tree-hugger" is that while I like "unspoiled" nature, I greatly appreciate the millions of human beings who struggled out of those dark forests or dangerous plains to give me the luxury of appreciating it instead of being enslaved to it.

While I like walks in the woods, there is something intensely comforting about driving over a dark hill at night and coming on a city's blanket of lights spread out below me.

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