Walking Continues

Leave your limiting-self just like a snake shedding its skin  so that you can go beyond your own frontiers! ~ Mehmet Murat ilden This first cool fall morning saw us meeting at the foot of the dam spillway for a hike at Miller Springs. We were supposed to be a couple of hours south of here, but their weather is still above our "temperature limit." * It sometimes surprises me that we don't take greater advantage of our local wildlife areas and parks. A failure of imagination?  of planning? Whatever. Our continued warm fall temperatures have caused us to consider more local hikes until nature remembers the season. It was a lovely 2.5 to 3 mile hike along well marked and maintained trails. We talked and laughed and admired all the fall blossoms. A few birds sang their morning songs, but as neither of us can "bird by ear" we can only claim to have heard crows, a few cardinals, and maybe a woodpecker. We did spy a couple of  cardinals in the still green branches (conf

Without trials and tribulation, there would be no hero.  Without a hero, there would be no story.  ~ Chrissy Gibson I could simply post the photo and many of you would recognize him (I've written about this guy before) and need no story. Many folks have their own stories as well - about how he dropped everything to take care of a problem or drove miles out of his way to get them out of difficulty. Whatever. Here's my (latest) story. Today I took a long hike at a Williamson County park (Berry Springs Park and Preserve, to be exact.) with a friend. I was tired as I headed for the highway that would take me the 30 or so miles home.  All of a sudden there was some serious rattling in my engine compartment (this is about all the automotive vocabulary I have). Well, that got my attention. I slowed down and the noise stopped. The car was driving fine. No emergency lights flashed from my dashboard. "Maybe it's nothing," I thought. I slowly excelerated and the rattling sta