Follow the Game Trail

One day a couple with a young son came over, and the boy, preferring to be known as "J.T.", had a GameBoy with him and barely lifted his eyes from it to say hello, and was directed into a corner where he could be entirely absorbed in it. The couple went for a walk, leaving me to entertain J.T., and I chatted boringly as adults tend to do, and then I mentioned the game trails. He perked up at the word. "Game trails?" "I said, "By 'game' I mean animals," and I lost his attention at once.

Snow makes the game trails more visible, and I get the urge to follow in this case the deer tracks, and see where they lead, here into the cedar forest. All animals (except man) take the path of least resistance. Beautiful walk through here, following the path of deer who sidestepped fallen trees, backtracked, and I liked imagining I was a deer, but prefer to be me who sleeps in a heated house.

Robidoux Springs

You can't see but the bubbles, but there's a scuba diver in the water, and these kids wanted desperately to see if he was ever going to come back up, and how cool it would be if he didn't; this is the diver (I had permission to take his picture) who also had an underwater camera. He told me it was murky down there from recent rain, no good for photos that day -- but there's a huge and complicated cave under there that cave-certified divers can explore. This is at Robidoux Springs in Waynesville, MO, one of several scuba-diving spots in the great state of Missourah.