To The Woods - Day 3 - May 28, 2015

For day 3 three of To The Woods, we traveled as a class to Cox Arboretum. Luckily, we had a bus this time, so we didn't have to walk all day in the hot sun. This trip took the entire day up to the last hour, so we had much time to explore the arboretum grounds. We started the day finishing up stuff from yesterday that hadn't been finished yet, and then going over the assignment for Cox Arboretum. For most of the time we could explore the arboretum, but at some point we had to take pictures of five trees, giving close-ups of their leaves and bark as well as a single wide shot from a distance. In addition, we had to take a picture of some sort of wildlife found in the arboretum. These are my tree pictures: 

 Ginkgo bark

Ginkgo leaves

Ginkgo tree (Matt for scale) 

 Hoopsii Colorado Blue Spruce bark

Hoopsii Colorado Blue Spruce leaves (needles?)

Hoopsii Colorado Blue Spruce tree

 Silver Linden bark

 Silver Linden leaves 

Silver Linden tree

 Cottonwood bark

 Cottonwood trees 

Cottonwood tree (left) 

 Red Maple (I think) bark 

 Red Maple (I think) leaves 

Red Maple (I think) tree

I had a really good time at Cox Arboretum (and we didn't do any writing workshops), so I think I'll just write about how my day progressed. When we arrived at the park, I immediately began to appreciate the sharp contrast between what I was seeing and the nearby suburban sprawl. The tall grass around the park entrance sign seemed more full and green than any other grass I had ever seen, so it captured my gaze for a long time. Stepping off the bus, I notice a group of geese waddling near a pond. Two parents leading their children along, all still wearing their down feathers on the outside. It was cool to see a group of very young beings experiencing the world, completely new to them. I can only imagine how they were interpreting what they were seeing. I walked towards the main area, nestled between two ponds and surrounded on one side by terraces covered in a wide variety of labeled plants. At first, when approaching the terraces, the smell of Spring plants is quite strong, but I got used to it quickly. I stood atop the Monet bridge, an arced bridge spanning a small stream connecting two ponds, and stared at the water for a while. The longer I stared, the more turtles I noticed floating near the surface, occasionally poking their heads above the water. I wonder if the turtles know they're in a closed-off pond, and if they even care. I'm not really an animal rights activist, but it felt weird realizing the turtles have spent their entire lives living in one small pond. 

A turtle 

I walked to the top of the aforementioned terrace, just wandering at this point, until I notice a pretty cool wooden tower poking out of the top of the treeline. I catch up to Matt, a friend of mine (see the Ginkgo tree) and assistant to the class, and agrees to head to the top of the tower. The tower was a pretty dominating structure, so, of course, most students headed for it first. Matt and I were the first to reach the tower, and quickly ascended to the top. 

Looking up from the base of the tower at the many flights of  beautifully crafted stairs

The tower was surprisingly high and offered a wonderful view of the surrounding areas. With good visibility, you would probably be able to see down the Miami River all the way to Downtown Dayton. Few heights I classify as dizzying, but looking straight down from the top at the brick sidewalk below made me dizzy. I enjoyed the quiet at the top, listening to the far-off rustle of leaves until the rest of the class showed up, bringing much noise with them. Sadly, they found the electrical outlets at the top more interesting than the awe-inspiring view. 

Panoramic view (about a quarter of the entire view) from the top of the tower

Descending the steps, we decided hiking the trails through the woods would be fun. Walking away from the tower towards the woods, we encountered a beautiful set of four or so absolutely massive cottonwood trees. I was amazed. I remember thinking that these four trees could have been the inspiration for the entire arboretum, they were so beautiful (see tree pictures). Matt and I soon found the path into the woods and hurried down towards a creek, swatting at bugs the whole way. We came to a bridge at the bottom of some wooden stairs and noticed another set of stairs ending in the creek. Of course, we decided to explore the creek, first by walking up it. The whole creek was covered in large rocks, some forming high shelves. The creek was very dry, allowing us to move easily rock to rock up and down the creek. We noticed the rocks had a huge number of fossils in them, from lanky pieces of coral to wide, curved shells. We occasionally came across small pools of water, almost always seeing large frogs dart away into them as we approached. Descending the creek back toward the wooden staircase, we passed under the bridge and continued on, not a chance we would go without seeing the bottom. 

Rocky creek bed just past the wooden staircase into the creek

As we descended further down the creek, the banks of the creek began to rise higher and higher. At their highest, I think they reached about 50 feet or so. This made me think of the part of the Lord of the Rings when the Fellowship is floating down the river Anduin out of Lothlorien at the end of The Fellowship of the Ring and the banks seemingly never stop rising. LOTR is my favorite book series, so any place that reminds me of a location in the book must be cool. We noticed that the fossils in the rocks increased in number as the creek went down the slope. When I was really young, I spent a lot of time collecting rocks with fossils like these, so this walk was pretty nostalgic. Eventually, the trees opened up to a wide prairie, on the other side of which sat I-75. This meant we were ridiculously far away from the park, so we quickly jogged back up the creek. I felt really tempted to climb the bank at its highest point, so that's exactly what I did. I love doing stuff like that. My feet could hardly grip the steep mound of loose dirt, so I grabbed onto the base of the occasional honeysuckle plant for stability. Reaching the top gave a great sense of accomplishment. Matt soon followed, and at the top was a crude walking trail which led back to the main area of the arboretum. Exploring an unfamiliar place like this is comparable to nothing. 

Now back at the main area, I grabbed my lunch and sat on a bench a little away from the others, hoping to listen to some music and enjoy the scenery. When I'm enjoying nature, there is a specific artist I really like listening to; Andy McKee. He uses a single acoustic guitar to develop complex rhythms by drumming, strumming, and picking. His songs are inspired by nature, one of them titled Ouray, a beautiful town in the San Juan mountains of Colorado in the shadow of Mount Sneffels, a monstrous, dominating hunk of rock with the name of a cat. Anyway, long story short, I sat and ate my lunch while listening to some good music and it was great. 

Mount Sneffels

My view from the lunch bench. What's cool about this is that all these baby trees will eventually grow up to be massive dogwoods like the ones mentioned earlier. That would be cool to see. 

Here are links for the two songs I listened to during lunch. Please listen, these songs are great, they are surely worth checking out (Drifting has a sweet video to go along with it):

Ouray - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98VcXcEDnc8 

Drifting - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ddn4MGaS3N4 

Following lunch was an outdoor yoga session with the same instructor, which was pretty cool. I'm not very interested in yoga, and I was pretty much incapable of doing most things correctly, but it was pretty relaxing. This has definitely been my favorite day of the class so far, and I look forward to more similar days.