Nature Journal 2

Today, I took my dog on a few hikes. He’s a puppy with boundless energy, so it sometimes feels like a task to get out and walk with him because he ends up pulling me through the trails. It was a perfect, autumnal Indiana day – 55 degrees, sunny, and the trees are beginning to change colors. There are no trails near my home, so I had to drive to get to some nature preserves. While Thoreau would say that driving doesn’t allow for the necessary appreciation of nature, I think that driving an old Jeep with the windows down is worthy alternative. Ollie knows that car rides usually end with trails and adventures, so he was excited the entire ride. Once we arrived at the first trail, the Portland Arch, he leaped out of the car and started pulling away from me. The trail here is a short circle, so it only took us about 30 minutes to walk the entire thing. I mapped us to another place, called the Potholes, and we were on our way.

Once we got to the Potholes, there were no cars in the lot, so I let Ollie of the leash and let him roam. The preserve is informally known as the Potholes because there are big holes left in the sandstone that the stream has been cutting away for thousands of years. When I first came here as a kid and heard the history of the holes, I remember being so surprised that Indiana was old. Until that point, I thought Indiana was only as old as the white people who lived there first. At the end of the trail, there is a small waterfall with a smooth, flat rock to sit on. I sat there for about 20 minutes while Ollie ran around and played in the water.