One Of My Quiet Places

I grew up with parents who took Sunday drives every week, random trips down the local back roads any given day and impromptu Saturday morning breakfasts over a campfire at a scenic lookout a few miles from our house. I loved it. It made me sort of a permanent tourist, for lack of a better word. I can find beauty and peace in the mundane places and things that most people don't give a second look to. Let me try to explain it with an example: I drive the same road to work and back every day. And every day I look at the houses and fields I drive past and notice beauty in the way the sunlight is playing across the tall grasses gently blowing in the fields. Or how cool the cows look all gathered up around the pond with snow on their backs. Or even how someone's yard is changing through the seasons. It's like a new world to me every day. Most people don't see these things. They let them blur right by because they've seen them before.

Unfortunately, aside from my parents I don't really have this in common with anyone. So these days my adventuring is done solo. And I gotta tell you, it's just not fun to drive around for 2 hours by myself. I need someone to talk to and share it with. Which means I have to keep it short and simple when I get the craving to go see something (yes... it's like a craving). One of my favorite places around Springfield is the Lake Springfield Park. I love it for several reasons. It's on the same side of town as my place of employment and I can get there with minimal effort. There is plenty of wildlife to see - mostly birds and deer. And it's not normally too busy when I go there after work. I can get out of the car and walk down to the water's edge and just enjoy the quiet and the beauty. Surprisingly, I hadn't been there all year so I decided to go today after work. I was shocked to see how much of the lake was still frozen. It looked so pretty and peaceful. As the year progresses and the weather gets warmer I am quite sure you will see more pictures of Lake Springfield here. Hopefully they will be a little more exciting than this one. Not much you can do with a frozen lake on an overcast day. There wasn't a spot of color anywhere and it made for sort of a bland picture.